Trigger warnings for discussions of violence and abuse, but nothing descriptive.
Chapter 10 - Existing in a Crisis
Santana P.O.V.
It's a long time before either me or Rachel say anything. Or I don't know, maybe it isn't. It's hard to be sure because from the moment that Andrew had hit Rachel, time seems to be rushing forward around me. All the while, I am sitting at a complete stand-still.
I haven't seen Andrew since he stormed outside. Good riddance. I don't want to see him. I'm afraid of what I might do to him if I do.
Rachel and I are so quiet that we can hear the spark of his thumb against his lighter as he struggles to light a cigarette between trembling hands. A moment later, the smell of stale smoke wafting in from underneath the front door signifies his success. A moment later, he begins to pace. His steps are heavy with the weight of his actions, but they will garner no sympathy from me.
When I look back towards Rachel, I notice that her tears are really starting to pick up steam. When they finally break from behind the dam, I do not hesitate. I rush towards her and wrap my arms around her. I pull her close to me in an effort to remind her that there are still people in this world that she can feel safe enough to trust.
I try to calm her down. I whisper for her to breathe and I lie and tell her that everything is going to be okay because that is what sister's do for each other.
"Are you okay?" I ask her after a couple of moments in which her sobs have diminished to nothing more than a few residual hiccups.
It is the first thing that I can think to say but the second that the words are out of my mouth they sound all wrong. I cringe at my own insensitivity. I can't ever remember feeling this uncomfortable around Rachel. I watch her force herself to nod, tucking her hair softly behind her ear. She is careful to keep her chin tucked inside of her chest. Her eyes are averted from my own the entire time.
"I'm fine," she manages and I pretend not to notice the way that her voice wobbles. "It's done. It's over. I'm fine."
"It's far from over, Rachel," I tell her through narrowed eyes. Is she really trying to pass all of this off? This had not been a casual mistake, a momentary lapse in judgement. Andrew had just hit her. And he had hit her hard.
I watch Rachel shift her weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other and then back again. She makes careful work of averting her eyes and hugs herself close. Suddenly, she looks years younger.
I watch more tears swell underneath her eyes through all of this uncertainty. I pull her into me again and make a conscious effort to sound more sensitive.
People used to tell me all the time that I was in fact too sensitive, too emotional. I guess that is why I had such a hard time making friends in Boston. It was a vulnerability that had pegged me as an easy target. Here in Lima, I had seen an opportunity to change that and I went for it. But that façade of toughness is no match against the needs of my sister. With my father gone and my mother too wrapped up inside of her own little world to see what is right in front of her, I knew that the second that Andrew Richardson had decided to reach out and strike my sister, it became my responsibility. My problem.
I realize that I have no idea what to do. I wish that my father was still here. He would know. My gut churns at the mere thought. Is this uncertainty his way of telling me that he is turning in his grave having just had to watch what happened to Rachel from his position tucked deep inside of the stars?
Some view from heaven, huh?
It is enough to make me wonder just how many times a human being can fall down and still live to tell the tale of how they managed to stand back up again. When does it all become too much? I only ask because I feel like I am dangerously close to that precipice.
"What are you doing out here?" I hear the sound of my mother's voice drift through the door. She is talking to Andrew who is still outside pacing on the front porch and chain smoking cigarettes.
"Just taking a break." His muffled response reaches me distinctly. He sounds like a man on death-row, still clinging to the idea of innocence even with two eye-witnesses sitting just behind that two-way mirror ready to watch the executioner flip the switch.
I plant my feet determined. I have every intention on marching onto that porch right now to expose Andrew for the phony that he is. I create images inside of my head of my mother, Rachel, and I all gathering up the belongings that we had just worked so hard to move inside and throwing them right back out on the front lawn. I think fondly of how good it will feel to watch him drive off in that stupid truck, never to be seen or heard from again.
I plant my feet determined. I have every intention on marching onto that porch right now to expose Andrew for the phony that he is. I create images inside of my head of my mother, Rachel, and I all gathering up the belongings that we had just worked so hard to move inside and throwing them right back out on the front lawn. I think fondly of how good it will feel to watch him drive off in that stupid truck, never to be seen or heard from again.
"Santana, don't!" Rachel reads my intentions and pulls me back. When I turn to look at her, her face is pale. Her eyes are as big as saucers. "Don't say anything."
"Are you crazy?" I turn to stare at her, astonished. "Rachel, that guy just hit you. If you think that that's something that I'm just gonna let slide-"
"You're overreacting, Santana," she cuts me off. "Come on, I have never asked you for anything before. Don't tell her. Please, don't tell her. We'll figure something out just the two of us, but don't tell her yet. If something else happens we can tell her but we can't just jump to conclusions like this."
"Jump to conclusions, Rachel he-"
"Girls, I'm home." I am silenced by the sound of the front door opening and closing as my mother walks inside of the house. I watch Rachel make quick work to wipe her eyes against the back of her hand, ensuring that all evidence of tears is gone. When she is confident enough to look up, she has the fakest smile that I have ever seen plastered across her face.
"Hi mom!" she beams, overenthusiastic.
"What happened in here?" my mother asks, frowning at the mess all over the foyer.
"Andrew-"
"One of Andrew's suitcases broke," Rachel silences me once again. "I'm going to clean it up though."
"Okay, well hurry please," my mother says before sauntering into the dining room to place the pizza down on the table. I watch the way that she moves, with an extra little perk in her step. It is the way that she has been walking ever since Andrew had found his way into her life.
I swallow. I thought that Rachel had forgotten the way that my mother had been after my father's death. She never mentioned it. I wonder now if Rachel actually did remember, if her desperation to keep what had happened between her and Andrew today was her way of trying to prevent our emotionally distant mother from once again transforming into both the emotionally and physically distant mother that she had become when she had last lost the last person that she cared about. I know that Andrew and my mother's relationship is no way near what my parents was, but in my mother's fragile emotional state, who knew how she would interpret it.
"Are you okay, Santana?" my mother asks me. I look up at her and all of the words that I had prepared for her twist and lodge against the center of my throat.
What I want to tell her is that I am not fine, that we're not fine. What I want to tell her is that as our mother, it is her job to protect us unconditionally and right now, that meant getting us far away from the man standing just beyond our front door. What I want to tell her is that her maternal instinct should already make it so that she can feel the war that is brewing in the sky and how much it hurts that it isn't. Mostly, what I want to tell her is to stop asking for guarantees, to stop looking to be saved by a stranger, and instead, to start acting like our mother before we all get hurt or worse.
"Yeah," I swallow when Rachel nudges me slightly in the ribs. I defy my greater instincts and follow her lead but suddenly, for the first time that I can remember, I find that Rachel and I are no longer fighting for the same cause and I don't know how else to react to that.
"I'm fine."
Despite the fact that I had not gotten much sleep last night, I am awake all night tonight, too, staring out the window until even the sun manages to come up.
Rachel is a snorer. She is also a kicker and on top of that, she talks so loud in her sleep that I probably wouldn't have been able to fall asleep with her in my bed with me even if I wanted to.
The light of my digital alarm clock tells me that it is 5:41 in the morning. It has been more than twelve hours since I had watched Andrew hit Rachel and I have not stopped thinking about it since. About two hours after that, Noah had called me asking if I was finished unpacking and wanted to go get that drink with him. With the understanding that I could hardly risk Rachel being left alone with Andrew, I had declined. I wonder if I can spend the rest of my life living like this.
A dull ache that has been plaguing my bladder for hours now suddenly reaches its breaking point. I shift as carefully as possible to step out of my bed without disturbing Rachel, but the way that my sister has been tossing and turning all night, her legs are tangled inside of mine in the same way that my headphones do when I leave them inside of my pockets for too long.
"San?"
I just manage to unravel myself out from the web that is Rachel when I hear her voice calling back to me. I try to swallow my disappointment.
"Shh. Go back to sleep, Rachel," I tell her, standing up before draping my quilt higher against her shoulders, tucking it firmly beneath her chin.
"You're not going to go tell mom, are you Santana?" Rachel's voice is groggy with sleep but I can still hear her fear.
"Rachel, it's six in the morning," I sigh. "I'm not going to go tell mom. I'm just going to the bathroom."
"Promise me, Santana. Please promise me that you're not going to tell her."
I swallow heavily. Rachel's words are glossy yet even half asleep, I can tell that she is in absolute agony over this.
I nod my head and reach out to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear. I don't admit it out loud, but I am starting to understand Rachel's reasoning for keeping this secret from our mother. I had watched the way that she had smiled and laughed throughout the night and I imagined the look on her face if I told. This could break us easily.
Maybe Rachel was right. Maybe this was a one-time thing. I could keep an eye on him and make sure that it didn't happen again. I could protect Rachel. I could be my sister's keeper.
"Sleep, Rachel," I finally manage. "I promise that I won't tell mom."
Rachel mutters one last, incomprehensible thing before she rolls over inside of the bed and falls quiet.
I watch her sleep for a couple of moments longer before retreating silently from my bedroom. I curse at every creak made in the old floor boards but this time, Rachel seems determined to stay asleep. She doesn't so much as move.
The hallway is pitch black. It is a stark contrast to the small hint of sunlight that has started to make its way through my bedroom window.
My mother's bedroom is across from the bathroom. Her door is closed and I know that right behind it, she is laying fast asleep with Andrew beside her.
For a moment, I consider breaking my promise to Rachel. I consider sneaking inside of the bedroom where I would wake my mother up, careful not to disturb Andrew in the process. I would tell her to be very quiet, not to ask any questions until it was safe, and to gather me, her, and Rachel and get the hell out of here. Fast.
The biggest fault in my plan is my inability to build up the confidence necessary to take that first step.
It's because it's her fault. I tell myself as I bypass her bedroom entirely and round into the bathroom.
She has betrayed us by her actions, or better yet, her lack of action. She is our mother. While it is my job as Rachel's older sister to protect her from harm, it is our mother's job to do her best to ensure that that harm never came to be at all. It is her fault. It is her fault entirely.
You're only blaming her because than it won't be your fault, that voice pipes in again before I can hush it.
Pushing the thought out of my head, I flush the toilet, wash my hands, and go straight back to my bedroom. I decide that I will sleep on the decision. Figuratively, of course.
I think back to Rachel's considerations. Maybe she really is right. Maybe we shouldn't jump to any conclusions. Maybe we should give Andrew one more chance.
Just one more.
Rachel wakes up the next morning with a mark on her cheek.
It is so fair that you can barely tell that it is there but I know that it is there. Most importantly, I know why.
The two of us sit strategically at the dining room table on Sunday morning for breakfast. Rachel is not in her usual seat. Instead, she is tucked away into the furthest corner of the table where she can hide in the shadows. She cradles her cheek inside of her right hand in an effort to hide the blemish that resides there and uses her non-dominant left hand to awkwardly pick at her cereal even though I never see her take a single bite.
My mother is inside of the kitchen filling a coffee mug. She puts nothing inside of it and sips it black. The television is on in the living room where Andrew is sitting. My mother is normally very strict about watching television with breakfast, but I guess that her rules do not apply for him. He hasn't made eye contact with me or Rachel since last night. He has to know by now that we had lied for him. I wonder if that makes him feel worse. I hope so.
The room is dead silent with the exception of the hushed tones of the TV. I push through the awkwardness by taking rapid, steady bites of cereal.
"Santana, take smaller bites, you're going to choke," my mother calls to me from the kitchen. "Rachel honey, you're not eating. Are you feeling alright?"
She swerves into the dining room with a surprising fluidity, standing sternly in front of Rachel where her eyes scan her youngest daughter carefully.
"I'm fine, mom," Rachel insists, forcing herself to perk up a little bit as though to validate her argument.
"Are you sure because you're looking a little bit pale this morning." She presses a hand into Rachel's forehead, gauging her temperature in order to make the final decision for herself.
"Ugh, I'm fine mom," Rachel insists, pulling away from our mother and out of her seat. "I have to go get ready. I'm going to the mall with Kurt in an hour."
"Rachel, slow down!" My mother's voice is stern and it stops Rachel in her tracks. There is no escaping that tone.
Rachel turns around slowly. My mother is evaluating her carefully like she knows that something is wrong but can't place her finger on it. Her eyes are scanning back and forth across her youngest like she is trying to read her. When she finds something that interests her, she crosses her arms over her chest and frowns.
"What happened here?" she asks my sister. Reaching up, she brushes her thumb gently against the mark on Rachel's cheek and presses hard, trying to distinguish it between a smudge or a bruise.
Rachel flinches in pain and ducks instinctively out of our mother's touch. The entire room tenses with a paralyzing suddenness. I try to take a breath but it is as though a vacuum has just sucked all of the oxygen out of the room.
It seems impossible that our mother cannot sense the truth when it is gathering so densely within the hollow gaps of the room. I sit frozen, a spoonful of cereal hovering halfway between my mouth and the bowl. Out of my eye, I can see that Andrew is staring as well. We are all waiting to see what will happen next.
"Nothing happened," Rachel finally says. "I couldn't see over the top of one of the boxes that I was carrying yesterday and walked right into the wall."
A bubble rises inside of my stomach. This is the first time that Rachel has ever been forced to lie to our mother to cover up somebody else's tracks. I can only hope that it is the last.
"You get your clumsiness from me, I'm afraid," my mother smiles softly and just like that, the tension in the room burst like a bubble. "You can go to the mall with Kurt today after you finish your breakfast and clean up your dishes, deal?"
"Thanks mom," Rachel smiles, trying to make it look like a gesture of gratitude. From my angle I can tell that it is more a look of relief towards the idea that our mother hadn't read the lie.
Yet.
I lay on my back in bed, thoroughly bored as I stare at my phone like maybe if I stare at it long enough, one of my friends will just magically text me back.
Finn had come by to bring Rachel and Kurt to the mall almost two hours ago. Soon after that, my mother had left for Carmel to prepare for Vocal Adrenaline's Monday morning rehearsal. The second that it became just Andrew and I inside of the house, I was overcome with a strong desire to leave.
I had texted both Noah and Brittany asking if they wanted to do something but Noah was stuck at a family barbeque outside of Cincinnati and Brittany had never texted me back at all. I try not to overthink it, but her lack of a response has filled me with dread.
I feel exhausted. The lack of sleep from the night before is finally starting to catch up with me and I am just considering taking a nap when I hear a soft knock against my bedroom window.
I shoot up inside of my bed. That is odd. Who would be coming to my window? Noah is the only person who ever came through the house this way and that was only in the middle of the night or early in the morning when we knew we would have to be sneaky.
I hear the knock again just when I convince that I had made the entire thing up and this time, I force myself out of bed. When I peel back the curtains I am immediately engulfed by a sea of blonde hair and my heart soars. Brittany.
I smile brightly and am just about to open my window for her and ask why she had chosen to come in this way when I register her expression for the first time.
Brittany is a tall girl but today, she is hunched over with her chin tucked deep inside of her chest. Her hair is a veil over her face and when I finally manage to meet her eyes, I realize that she has been crying.
My heart seizes with worry. Immediately, I forget everything that has been bothering me all day and I hurry to thrust my window open.
"Brittany?" I question. My voice is gentle, yet clearly alarmed. "Are you okay?"
Brittany looks up at me. The second that our eyes meet, a fresh set of tears start to leak down her face.
"I'm sorry to come in this way but I didn't want to scare your mom or Rachel looking like this," Brittany sobs.
"It's okay," I insist quickly, moving out of the way so that Brittany can climb in through the window. "What's going on?"
I feel her arms snake across my back where her fingernails dig into the skin there.
"Sam broke up with me!" she finally blubbers into my shoulder.
"What?" I ask stupidly pulling her out of her embrace so that I can look her directly in the eye. After all of the panic that her appearance had caused me, this news hits me like a sucker punch of relief.
"I know, I can't believe it either," Brittany shakes her head although that is not exactly what I meant.
"When did it happen?" I swallow and try not to sound too ecstatic.
"This morning," Brittany sniffles. "He told me that he wanted to take things to the next level, make them more serious. When I told him that I wasn't sure if I was ready for that he broke it off with me then and there!"
"You didn't want that with him?" I ask, once more struggling to contain my enthusiasm. This time is a little bit harder. Not only had Sam and Brittany broken up, Sam and Brittany had broken up under the pretenses that he wanted their relationship to be more serious and she did not. This opens up a world of hope that I didn't even know existed.
"I mean, sure, I liked Sam and all, but I wasn't sure if I loved him yet and when he started rushing me and I panicked," Brittany chokes. "He told me that I made him feel inferior. He said that he didn't think that I would ever love him as much as he loved me and that he was wasting his time with me."
The explanation sparks an entirely new set of tears. Her eyes well and she throws herself inside of my chest once more, searching for comfort.
"I just wish that I could find something like you and Puck have, you know?" She speaks into my chest where her words travel straight to my heart and shatter it. I am embarrassed and more than slightly disappointed in myself that it took Brittany's mention of Noah for me to remember that just because Brittany is now single doesn't mean that I am. Seeing the way that Brittany is reacting to her break up, I just know that I can't do that to Noah. I can't break his heart.
All I want to do right now is to lean forward and kiss her. I want to take Brittany into my arms, sweep her off of her feet, and make her believe that her life is going to turn out okay. But I can't. I hadn't been able to do it with Rachel today and I can't do it with Brittany now.
"It will be okay, Brittany," I assure her but my voice sounds suddenly programmed, predictable. I wonder if there is any turn that I can take in this life that will help me to achieve complete happiness because it certainly doesn't seem that way.
Brittany stays over until just before dinner time. The two of us are tucked inside of my bed watching sappy horror films on Netflix, which Brittany says always makes her feel better after a breakup. She excuses herself only after Rachel comes home, insisting that she has some homework to finish tomorrow before school anyway.
Our mother still isn't home from work. I have Rachel at the dining room table waiting for me to heat some of the leftover Mediterranean food that we had had for dinner the other day when Andrew walks in through the front door. I hadn't even noticed that he was gone.
"Girls," he nods softly, kicking his boots off at the door. He walks towards us and I find myself instinctively placing my body between him and Rachel should he get any more ideas into his head about how he can treat her.
I make myself look as intimidating as any 5'5" 110 pound high school girl can look but Andrew is not interested in us. Instead, he walks straight past us and into the kitchen. Opening the refrigerator door, I watch him pull out a six pack. He does not say another word to us as he rounds back out of the kitchen and into the garage where he keeps his truck. He closes the door behind him and a moment later, I hear the soft, muffled sound of music streaming through the walls and the unmistakable clinking of tools.
"Has he said anything to you at all since yesterday?" I ask Rachel after he is finally gone. My sister just shrugs.
"He just wants to forget it San."
"Yeah well, he could have at least apologized," I huff and fall into my seat where I take a bite of food that is much too large for how hot it is. It burns the entire way down.
"Maybe we'd all be better off just forgetting," Rachel mutters. I roll my eyes. If it were as simple as that, Rachel wouldn't have had to spend last night sleeping in my bed with me in order to keep the monsters out of her head. She wouldn't have run out of this house as quickly as she possible could today in order to avoid him.
I don't say anything. It has been a long time since the fear of being buried made me so afraid to speak but between Brittany earlier and Rachel now I find that I feel consumed.
I don't know what is going on with me. I feel like I am wasting every opportunity that finds me to do what I know is right. I realize that Rachel may not want to get rid of Andrew by telling my mother what he had done to her, but that did not mean that I couldn't try to get rid of him by utilizing the most basic rule of survival that I knew:
Take him to the ground before he can have the opportunity to take me.