Trigger warnings for bullying/high school violence and discussions of abuse (nothing graphic)
Chapter 12 – The Walking Wounded
Santana P.O.V.
Glee rehearsal on Monday is a disaster.
With November just around the corner and Regionals looming closer and closer, the stress seems to be going straight to everybody's heads.
We had settled on a Journey medley for our performance. While the songs were good there were still plenty of kinks to fix and nuts and bolts to tighten.
Arranging the vocals to accommodate our multitude of ranges was proving difficult. Mike had come up with stunning dance moves that, as of now only him and Brittany had mastered. For some reason, the precision by which we had taken Sectionals was not translating to our Regionals set list.
"Watch where you're going, Jumbo!"
Quinn in particular has been testy all day. She has been making progress in her personality and in her attitude regarding glee but today, she is lashing out violently against anybody who dares get in her way. Her latest victim, Mercedes, had cut left instead of right halfway through rehearsing our second number only to end up trotting across Quinn's feet.
While Quinn and I still can't be considered friends, we have been spending a lot of time in one another's presence lately while actually managing to remain civil. I would like to think that I would know Quinn's normal by now and she is definitely acting weird.
I wonder if something had happened at home. I wonder if maybe her and Finn had broken up. Finn isn't acting particularly strange today, but Quinn has been avoiding him just like everybody else. The thought alone makes me groan. Sam and Brittany are already walking on eggshells around each other thanks to their breakup. The last thing that we need now is more tension.
"Okay, okay, take five minutes to cool off guys. Reset, get some air, and we'll try again." Mr. Schuester calls for a break before things in here can get ugly. Quietly, I think that it is going to take much more than five minutes to fix this miss, whatever this mess may be. The way that Mr. Schuester pinches the bridge of his nose in between his thumb and forefinger I can tell that he is quietly thinking the same.
I push into the bathroom with the hope of splashing some of this negativity off in the sink. When I open the door, I find that Quinn is already here. She must have sprinted here after Mr. Schuester called the break to have gotten here so quickly.
The two of us are alone. Quinn is in the far corner, hunched over the sinks. Her hands grip the middle basin so tightly that her fingers match the color of the porcelain creating a strange chameleon effect.
"Quinn?" I call out to her because she doesn't even seem to realize that I am here. I watch her take a couple of deep breaths. Her blonde hair is a tangled mess and frizzing underneath her normally perfect ponytail as her Cheerios uniform crumples around the middle.
"Are you okay?" I ask tentatively but she does not answer. Instead, she sinks her chin deep inside of her chest and the next thing that I know, she begins to sob; deep, shuddering cries that leave the muscles of her face clenched and her expressions twisted.
"I'm pregnant," she tells me and I feel my jaw drop. Out of all of the things that I had been expecting her to tell me, this had been one of the last.
"Oh." The single word slips out before I can consider how horribly insensitive it tastes. But my mind is blank. It can't work fast enough to tell my mouth that I would have been better off not saying anything at all.
What I want to tell Quinn is that the trick in times like this is to not panic. The other thing that I want to tell her is that she will survive this. I know from experience that the upside of being eternally damned is that Hell can always wait.
"How far along are you?" I ask instead.
"Almost two months," Quinn whispers. "I think that I've known for some time but I finally built up the courage to take the test last night. It came up positive. All seven of them."
"Those things are wrong all the time," I tell her. "Have you been to a doctor yet?"
Quinn gives me a look as though to tell me that I am sweet to try, but she is looking for support right now, not false hope.
"We should get back to glee," she whispers softly into the air. "Our five minutes are probably almost up."
I watch Quinn as she reaches up and uses her knuckles to wipe away the tears that are still lingering inside of her eyes. Her movements are familiar. I am sparked with a sudden sense of déjà vu as I recall my little sister moving in that exact same slow, fragile manner on the day that Andrew had moved into our house pretending that he was trustworthy when he so clearly was not.
Great, another lost soul that I cannot hope to save.
"Glee can wait," I shake my head. Reaching out, I place a comforting hand on Quinn's shoulder. She doesn't pull away and I am seized with the sudden urge to protect her. I hadn't been able to help Rachel the other day. Maybe I can make up for it with Quinn.
"Thank you, Santana," she nods.
"Of course," I play it off as nothing. I know that we are not exactly friends but I also know better than anybody what it feels like to walk down the halls of your own high school feeling like a parasite. I know what it is like to hear people whisper and know that they are talking about you. I know what it is like to feel so hopelessly alone.
"Listen," I tell her after a moment of silence. She looks up from the sink and into the mirror. From my position standing behind her, the reflections of our eyes lock. "I know that things started off rocky for us, but I consider myself to be a kind of expert when it comes to feeling like your life is going to hell. I know that you probably have about a million other people who you would want to turn to before me but if you find yourself in need of a judgement-free zone, you know where to find me."
"I'd have to be pretty hard-pressed to come to you though, huh?" she forces a laugh that rises from the base of her throat and sounds more like a sob. It makes the both of us smile. If somebody had told the two of us that this is where we would be two months ago, we would have both called the person crazy. "Maybe I can hit you up for a place to live after my parents kick me out of the house. Or better yet, for a speaker at my funeral after they kill me."
"I'd write a really good eulogy," I promise. "I'll just talk about what a bitch you were."
Quinn laughs again through the tears in her eyes. "Thanks, Santana. Do you think that you can go back to glee and tell them that I'll be there in just a minute? I'm just going to fix this."
I watch her gesture towards the disarray that this emotional turmoil has caused her physically. Her face is red and swollen, her hair and Cheerios uniform – usually perfect – are in a state of disarray.
"Are you sure that you'll be okay?" I know that she will be but I feel a sense of obligation to be sure. She offers me a sad smile and a nod of her head which I return before making my way out of the bathroom.
I am so lost inside of my own world that I don't even notice that there is somebody standing right in front of me until I collide with him.
When I look up, I immediately recognize Noah. His shoulders are hunched, brooding, his jaw set sternly. His eyes look sad like he knows he is about to break my heart.
"Is Quinn okay?" he asks. I only shrug. I don't want to break my promise to the blonde by telling Noah already.
"She's going through some… things." I choose my words carefully. Noah lets in a big breath that lifts his entire shoulders.
"I know that Quinn is pregnant."
He surprises me. The only thing that I can think to do is stare. I think I have had more surprises in these last ten minutes alone than what my mind can process in an entire day.
"How?" I force myself to ask. Noah averts his eyes, looking purposefully down at the floor. He doesn't seem to be in much of a hurry to answer my question.
"Noah, how do you know?" I repeat.
"Because..." he breathes. "The baby is mine."
My world goes instantly blank. My entire body feels numb from my head down to my toes. For a brief second, I am convinced that I have heard him all wrong.
"But Finn…" I stammer stupidly around the confusion. Now that I think about it, Quinn hadn't said anything about Finn. I had just assumed.
"Finn and Quinn never slept together," Noah sighs. "Quinn, she… I don't know, she hasn't said anything to Finn yet. I don't know if she knows how to. She wants to tell Finn some lie about the two of them in the hot tub together. I know that it's stupid but I think that Finn will eat it up."
"You're going to tell Finn that the baby is his even though it's not?" I gape at him. Perhaps unfairly, my voice is dripping with Anger. I don't know if that anger is directed more towards this unfair plan to trap Finn into fatherhood or about the fact that Noah had just admitted to sleeping with Quinn. When had it happened? Had we already been together? Had he cheated on me?
I knew that this relationship was too good to be true and I had given everything to him. I think back to the conversation that Rachel and I had just the other day about how I knew that Noah was the one and suddenly, I feel like an idiot because all of the advice that I had given to her about boys and relationships and coming of age is now out the window. Men are liars and cheaters and aren't worth messing with.
I should have come out of the closet when I had the chance.
"When was it Noah?" I force myself to ask.
"What?"
"When did you sleep with her?" I knew that I should have listened to all of the rumors and warnings about Noah Puckerman. Sure, I knew of his reputation when I had gotten together with him. I had heard all of the nicknames that his football buddies threw out to him when we passed them in the hallways: man-whore, pimp, sex god… Had I been a fool not to take that seriously? Because I sure felt like it.
Just as quickly as the anger starts to rise, I feel the breath stick in the center of my chest. I think about all of the times that I ever let Noah believe that I loved him when really, I didn't. The idea floods inside of me like a hailstorm of hypocrisy and I wonder if I am just pretending to be angry because he had presented me with an opportunity to be honest about my relationship without actually having to be honest.
While it is so easy to be angry with Noah, there is a whole other side of me that is telling me that if I want to start pointing fingers, I better start with myself.
My eyes begin to swell with tears. I am completely taken aback by how unexpectedly my emotions are hitting me. I particularly hate it because if there is one thing that I really can't stand, it's crying. Especially when I am supposed to be mad at the person that I am crying in front of.
"It was before us Santana!" he insists pleading with me for forgiveness. "It was right before the school year started, before I even met you!"
"And you didn't even think to tell me?" I ask. I feel strangely separated from my own skin in my jealousy.
"It was nothing!" Noah is persistent. "We were both drunk. It was a stupid, one-time thing and it meant absolutely nothing to me."
"What about all times we did it?" I ask giving him a hard shove. "Was that nothing too?"
"Of course not," Noah insists, trying to bounce back from the recoil of my hit.
"And Finn?" I continue to pelt him with accusations. "Did Finn mean absolutely nothing to you too? Were you even thinking about your best friend while you were sleeping with his girlfriend?"
"That's not fair Santana," he tells me. All I can do is roll my eyes at him.
"You don't get to talk to me about Fair," I snort. "You're just like every other guy on this planet, aren't you Noah Puckerman? You don't give a shit about anybody but yourself."
With that I turn sharply on my heels and start to storm away from him. I am moving in the opposite direction of the choir room. I don't want to go back to glee. I don't want to see Noah or Finn or Quinn or anybody. I just want to be alone.
"Santana!" Noah calls after me. I turn around to face him but I walk backwards without so much as slowing down.
"Don't call me again Noah," I tell him, pointing an accusing finger in his direction. "We're through."
By Saturday, things are not much better.
I have been avoiding Noah purposefully since Monday. I haven't spoken to Quinn much either despite my insisting that she can come to me with anything. My list of friends seems to be rapidly spiraling down. All I have left now is Brittany and Rachel. One more screw up and it would just be Rachel and I again, just like old times.
Quinn had told Finn about the baby. Sticking to the plan, she insisted that it was his. Nobody on this planet except for me, her, and Noah knew the truth. The news is weighing heavily on Finn. If we thought that glee rehearsal had been bad on Monday, it was downright abysmal for the rest of the week.
Only two weeks until Regionals.
This entire situation has me more than a little on edge. I have been avoiding Quinn and Noah but I know that this isn't their faults. It isn't anybody's fault. All it can be chalked down to was two foolish teenagers who had made a mistake long before I was even here to talk them out of it. I am being stubborn, prideful, and it was hurting not only me but everybody around me.
To add insult to injury, the Titans had lost their football game last night, effectively ending their season. I guess that with their star quarterback and leading point scorer distracted by a pregnancy scandal, the odds were stacked against them.
Needless to say, I am starting to wish that my life could come equipped with a topical anesthetic strictly so that I wouldn't have to feel it anymore.
That is probably why I am laying on my stomach on a Saturday night with my face buried inside of my pillow trying to will away this God-awful week.
A knock on my window catches me off guard.
I jump, practically falling off my bed in surprise. When I turn to sit up and face the windows, I am surprised to find Noah hunched over on the other side, looking both nervous and apologetic. Our eyes meet. He gives me a look like he is desperate to talk to me. I open the window for him but make it a point to stand directly in front of it so that he knows that he is not invited inside just yet.
"I uh… I tried calling you a couple of times," he stumbles over his words with an uncharacteristic shyness. "You didn't answer."
"Yeah, I shut my phone off," I tell him coolly.
"Can I come in?" I pause, my eyes narrowing in on him. With my arms crossed, I consider him for a long time, letting him sweat before finally nodding.
"You have to make it quick though," I tell him, stepping to the side so that he can crawl through my window. "My mom is home."
"I will be. I promise."
He launches forward, jumping through the open window before landing gracefully on his feet. He tracks muddy, size thirteen boot prints into my room thanks to the rain that has been coming down steadily all day. Great, now I'm going to have to clean up after him too.
Once inside, Noah pauses in order to take it all in. He looks around like he hasn't been here in years although the truth is that it hasn't been any more than a few days. With wide eyes, Noah creates steady circles, scoping out his perimeter. It takes a while, but finally, he seems comfortable enough to take his usual seat at the edge of my bed.
"Why did you come here Noah?" I finally have to prompt him.
"I owe you an apology," he tells me looking up at me with those big, brown eyes. "I know that I should have done it sooner but I'm not good at this kind of thing okay? Usually when I date girls it's only because I hooked up with them once or twice at a party and it was nice so I needed an excuse to do it a couple more times before moving on to the next girl."
"So clearly you came here to cheer me up."
"That's not what I meant," he insists quickly. "Don't you get it Santana? I came here tonight because I've never actually cared about anybody before I started dating you. I never gave a shit if a girl was mad at me or if she wanted to break up. You're the first girl that I dated who I actually wanted to stick around."
"Noah…"
"Wait, let me finish," he cuts me off. "I know that I messed up by hooking up with Quinn and not telling you but you have to believe me when I tell you that I don't have any feelings for her. I want to be with you Santana. That's it."
"Noah, you're about to be a father," I breathe because as much as I care about him, I know that I am not ready to cross that line. I'm eighteen years old for Christ's sake.
Then again, so is he.
"But Quinn isn't keeping the baby," he counters. It is a fact that I can tell hurts him.
"I'm sorry," I sigh and I really do mean it. In order to prove that, I settle down into the seat next to Noah; close, but not too close.
"Don't be, Quinn is right." He runs his fingers gently through his mohawk which I notice is in desperate need of a trim. When he raises his eyes to meet mine I notice that they are dry but terribly red like he is trying his hardest not to cry. "Neither of us are ready to be parents. Giving this baby up for adoption is what's best."
"I know that deep down you know that's true Noah," I tell him because he sounds like he needs the extra encouragement. "Noah, you and Quinn… your futures still have so much potential. You're both wildly talented. You're going to get into whatever college you want and play football or cheerlead and then one day you'll both be filthy rich because that is just the kind of people that the two of you are. That baby, he or she is going to grow up in a family who loves it and you already know that it is going to grow up and turn into something amazing. It's already written in the baby's genes."
My words produce their desired effect. Noah gives me a short laugh. I watch a dimple blossom inside of his right cheek and immediately feel myself softening. The best part about Noah is that it doesn't matter how mad I am at him. It's hard for me to face him without evaporating.
"You'll have your own family one day, Noah," I assure him. "When you're ready."
"That doesn't mean I'll forget this one."
"No, you won't," I shake my head sadly.
"So, what about us?" he changes the subject sharply. "What do we do?"
"I think that we're both going to need to take some time off after this one, Noah."
"So, you're breaking up with me?" he asks me. He looks a perfect combination of sad and astonished. "Wow, no girl has ever broken up with me before. Usually I do the breaking up, you know?"
"Don't think of it as breaking up," I correct him. "I'll still be here for you Noah. I don't want to lose you as a friend. We're just not in any position to be in a relationship together. Things are getting too real."
His head hangs down. In his expression I can see how desperately he is struggling. Seeing him sitting here in front of me so vulnerable, so emotionally raw makes me burn with guilt.
"Can I tell you something?" I ask him before I can stop myself and watch him nod his head.
"Anything."
"There's something that you need to know about me, Noah, something that I should have told you a long time ago."
I pause and swallow, watching the way his eyes slant at me partially curious and partially concerned. Just watching him makes my face crumple as I turn away, embarrassed.
"Woah, take a breath," Noah encourages me, placing a hand gently down on my knee and squeezing. "How about you start from the beginning?"
"Okay," I nod my head. "Well, I guess the first time that I can remember I was in the fourth grade."
"Wow," he raises an eyebrow "You're really starting from the beginning."
"Yeah, well, when I was in the fourth grade there was this girl in my class. Diane. She was my best friend at the time. Our birthdays were really close together so we had our tenth birthday party together. We had a barbeque at the park and we were playing some stupid game. Anyway, we both ended up in one of those little tunnels on the playground together and I kind of… well… I kind of kissed her."
"Wow, Santana, who knew that you were a little Noah Puckerman Jr?"
"Yeah well, she freaked," I tell him. "She told her mom who told my mom and then the entire class found out and I never really had another friend after that one."
"You were the captain of an award-winning cheerleading squad," he tells me and I sigh at the lie that I have been caught in.
"Yeah, about that…" I laugh nervously. "Noah, I have never been a cheerleader a day in my life before I came here. I made that entire thing up. To be honest with you, I was kind of a loser at my old high school."
"Why would you lie about something like that?" he asks.
"I just… I've never had anybody who actually cared about me before who wasn't related to me. When I came to Lima, I saw it as a fresh start, a chance to erase everything that I left behind in Boston. I felt loved here, important. I have never been so happy with my life, Noah."
"But you could have just said so," Noah tells me. "We wouldn't have treated you any differently."
"I didn't know that," I insist. "I was going to say something on my first day and then I watched the hockey team throw that Slushee on that girl and I didn't know what else to do. I didn't want to lose any more friends."
He frowns at me but doesn't say anything. I watch the way that his forehead wrinkles in the center and know that I have to get to the point of my story quickly.
"The point is Noah that that crush that I had on Diane in the fourth grade, it wasn't a one-time thing. I… I've only ever liked girls, Noah."
"What are you saying?"
"I… I think… No, I know that I'm gay Noah."
He doesn't say anything at first. Instead, his eyes stare at me wide and awestruck.
"You're serious?" he asks me. He doesn't sound angry, mostly just confused. When I nod my head at him, his eyes slant. "Oh God, I was your gay beard?"
"It's not like that Noah!" I insist. "I was just… I've been so confused lately. Before moving to Lima I've never had feelings for a guy before and then I met you and you made me feel so special and so loved and I just… You are amazing Noah and I love you, I do, I'm just-"
"Into chicks." He finishes my sentence for me. He doesn't sound particularly moved.
"You're mad," I breathe quickly. It is a statement, not a question.
"No," he sighs. "I'm not mad I just… I don't understand why you lied."
"I don't know," I sigh, weaving my fingers through my hair. "I've just… I've never told anybody this before. I didn't even really know how to make sense of it myself."
"Not even Rachel knows?" he asks.
"Not even Rachel," I confirm. "I just never really knew how to go about doing it."
"Just tell them just like you just told me," he tells me. If only things were that simple.
"What if they hate me?"
"Well, if it makes you feel any better, I don't hate you," Noah tells me. The thing about it is that it really does make me feel better. I feel relief sweep through my chest and I smile at him. A real smile this time.
"Thank you, Noah," I tell him. How can I ever repay him for making me feel so loved again?
"I should probably go," he sighs, standing up from the edge of the mattress. I shake my head out of the fog that it is in and follow him to my feet.
"Yeah," I tell him but I sound disappointed. "You probably should."
I watch him pull himself into the window and climb into the small bushes below it like I have done a million times except this time, it feels different.
"Hey Noah?" I call out to him watching as he turns around and leans back through the window.
"Yeah?"
"Don't be a stranger okay?" I tell him. "Even though we're not together anymore, you know that my bedroom window is always open."
He smiles at me. That brilliant smile.
"Sweetheart," he tells me. "You couldn't get rid of me if you tried."
I am expecting school on Monday to be hell and quickly find that I am not disappointed.
"I thought we might find you losers here."
Rachel and I are rounding the corner into the arts wing on our way to glee rehearsal when we are stopped by Lindsay Constigan and the rest of her Cheerios. They are all aligned behind her like some tacky movie. The entire thing is so cliché that it ruins the desired effect to be humiliating.
"Headed to glee club, girls?" she taunts.
I roll my eyes. "Real original, Lindsay. I bet it took you all night to come up with that one. Come on Rachel, let's go."
"What's going on?" I turn over my shoulders just in time to watch Quinn come around the corner cautiously. Her Cheerios uniform is pressed tight into her hips as she places her hands on her hips and tries to evaluate what is going on between her two very different groups of Cheerios. Unfortunately, even with the team captain on my side I find that we are still terribly outnumbered.
"Nothing, we were just leaving," I roll my eyes, grabbing onto Rachel's hand so that I can try to push myself past Lindsay and the rest of her troupe.
"Yeah, keep going on to the glee club with the Queen of the Losers Man Hands McGee over there." I watch Lindsay nod her head towards Rachel and feel myself practically black out with anger. It is like she knows that bringing Rachel into the conversation is the key to pulling that exact string that she has been searching for.
Blindly, I lunge forward. I want to pummel Lindsay Constigan and am within arm's distance of her when I feel somebody grab onto my shoulder and pull me back while simultaneously pushing forward. Quinn.
"I don't know what your problem is, Lindsay but I am still your captain," the blonde insists. Lindsay only sneers.
"For now," she says and then steps back in line with the rest of her Cheerios. I am stuck with a sinking feeling and know immediately that this is not going to end well. Seconds later I feel something cold and wet strike me in the center of my forehead, knocking me backwards. I feel something thick and slimy drip down the center of my face. Am I bleeding? Had Lindsay hit me?
I lift my fingers to my forehead and press down on the sticky substance but when I check them I find that the fluid on my fingers is not red, but opaque.
Raw egg.
Lindsay stands before me with a satisfied smirk on her face as slowly, one by one, the rest of the Cheerios start to pull eggs from their pockets. I swallow heavily. This is not going to be pretty.
The firestorm starts suddenly. I feel egg after egg smash against me, drenching me in thick, slimy egg innards until it feels as though my skin is made out of the stuff. I can't do anything. All I can do is duck and cover and hope that they run out of ammunition soon.
It feels like hours before they stop. The egg drips off of my body, creating puddles at my feet. To my left and to my right, Quinn and Rachel look like they haven't fared much better than I had in the brutal attack.
"There's plenty more where that came from losers," Lindsay informs us. Her voice is cruel yet confident like she is already claiming this victory.
My eyes narrow as I fume silently and try to process what just happened. Next to me, I can hear Quinn breathing heavily. I have seen Quinn angry before but I have never seen her this angry and that is saying a lot.
Lindsay Constigan may have won this battle but she sure as hell isn't going to win the war.
"Let's just go Quinn," I whisper to her, watching her fingers curl into fists. If she has heard me, she makes no indication of it. Instead, thee is a flash like a burst of lightning. I see nothing but a blur rush past me. Quinn does not blink, she doesn't breathe, and she sure as hell doesn't bother responding to me. Instead, she cocks her arm back, plants her feet, and thrusts all of her body weight into the force of her punch as her fist connects dead-on with Lindsay's cheek.
The crack that echoes down the hallway is deafening. Nobody speaks or even breathes as Lindsay recoils in response to the blow.
Her Cheerio friends lunge to help but Lindsay stops them with a single finger, indicating for her friends to stay exactly where they are. The girls hesitate, but back away.
Quinn folds her arms in front of her with a satisfied look on her face as Lindsay uprights herself slowly and works her jaw carefully back and forth. Her recovery is impressively quick. I have been on the receiving ends of one of Quinn's punches before. I know how hard they can be.
There are a couple more moments of peace before everything turns chaotic.
Lindsay lunges forward sharply. She catches Quinn around the waist. Before Quinn can even process that Lindsay has moved, she has the blonde wrapped into a perfect rugby tackle that takes her to the ground hard.
Quinn's back hits the linoleum with a hollow thud. She has no time to recover before Lindsay is on top of her, straddling her hips and holding her down hard so that Quinn cannot even think to wiggle free.
Rachel and I rush forward to dissipate the chaos at the exact same time that the other Cheerios do.
"Quinn, stop!" I demand but Quinn does not listen. She doesn't even seem to hear me as she bucks the senior girl off of her and wrestles herself into a position where Lindsay is on her back and she is on top.
"Quinn!" I demand but gasp when I see Lindsay thrust her arm up and manage to land a devastating hammer fist against Quinn's temple; a blow that dazes the blonde and knocks her sideways off of Lindsay.
"Are you crazy, she's pregnant!"
The words slip out of my mouth without me even thinking about them. Lindsay – whose fist is poised high above her head ready to deliver another punch – freezes. I watch all of the Cheerios around us drop their jaws in shock.
Quinn looks like she doesn't know if she wants to scream or cry. She takes advantage of Lindsay's shock and shoves the girl off of her before shooting to her feet. When our eyes meet, I see nothing but betrayal.
"Quinn…" I start but she silences me with her eyes alone.
"Don't." Her voice is strong but her face is starting to crumble. Then, without another word, she turns and runs back in the direction which she had come, disappearing around the corner.
"Wow, and I thought that throwing eggs at her was a low blow," Lindsay laughs after Quinn is gone. She has a devilish grin on her face. I have to resist the urge to get some punches in myself.
"Fuck you Lindsay," I spit. The girl just rolls her eyes at me.
"Whatever. I know that you think that you and Quinn are like friends now or something but I'm going to let you in on a little secret. I've known Quinn Fabray a lot longer than you have. Have you ever heard the saying keep your friends close but your enemies closer, Santana? What do you think that Quinn is doing with you?"
I swallow, trying desperately not to let Lindsay into my head but she seems to notice that she has wedged in there at least a little bit because she has that cruel smile on her face again.
"How about you and I make a deal," she says after a moment. "You can keep your spot on your stupid little glee club and in the Cheerios and me and the rest of the girls will leave you alone. In exchange, you give us all of the dirt that you know about Quinn Fabray. We can knock her off of her high horse and then run this school together."
"Grow up Lindsay!" I shout at her. "Look around. In a couple of months, the both of us will be graduated and after that nobody will even care that you were the most popular girl in high school. If you want to be like every other washed up burnout here in Lima then fine, but you're not going to take me or Quinn down with you."
"Oh sweetie, Quinn is doing an excellent job taking herself down on her own," Lindsay laughs but it is malicious and burns all the way down. "You want to talk about Lima Losers? You can start by following your little friend over there."
"Maybe I will," I tell her flipping dramatically on my heels as though to prove a point. "By the way, I quit Cheerios."
I march down the hallway towards the girl's locker room, Rachel scurrying behind me. The egg is starting to dry inside of my hair creating a texture like burnt straw. It is collecting and congealing against my skin in a way that I know is going to be impossible to wash off.
"Are you okay?" I ask Rachel, watching as she splashes some water into her face and scrubs. She looks up at me and forces a smile.
"Never better," she insists. "Where do you think Quinn went?"
"I don't know," I shake my head sadly. "I feel terrible. I can't believe I told everybody. It just… it slipped out."
"Is she really pregnant?"
I nod sadly. "She just told me last week."
"No wonder everybody has been so on edge at glee all week."
"Yeah…" I sink watching as Rachel starts trying to pick some of the hardening egg out of her sweater. "I have an extra shirt. Do you want it?"
I watch as Rachel's eyes darken mysteriously. "No, I'm okay."
"Don't be ridiculous, Rachel. You can't walk around in clothes covered in egg all day."
"I told you I'm fine," her voice is sharp and I stumble backwards, raising an eyebrow at her. Something doesn't seem right here.
"Are you okay?" I push. I know that she probably isn't after just spending the last several minutes being pelted with eggs and witnessing a fist fight but there is something else that is off about the way that she is acting, something more.
"Of course," she breathes. "I have some extra clothes from gym. I'm just going to go take a shower."
"Rachel, wait!" I call after her as she turns towards the showers. I reach out and grab onto her shoulder trying to pull her back but she tenses underneath my touch and lets out a tiny cry like I had just hit her. I pull my hand back as though I had just been burned.
"Rachel, what's going on?" I ask her seriously. The entire mood of the room has changed. Rachel actually looks afraid.
"Nothing," she insists. "Just drop it Santana, please."
"Are you hurt?" I push. I know that it had just been eggs, but maybe one of the Cheerios had thrown it too hard or had thrown something else that could actually hurt her. "Let me see, Rachel?"
I grab onto her arm before she can stop me and push her sleeve up so that I can see. I immediately notice that her arm is already starting to bruise from the eggs but then I look a little bit closer and I notice that these bruises aren't from eggs but are in the shape of five distinct fingers outlined in varying shades of blue, black, and green up and down her arm.
My heart freezes and drops into my feet.
The same way that you read stories about people in war or who were shot during an armed robbery gone wrong or in a bad car wreck simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, that is how I feel. The shock is complete and encompassing. It feels like it is a part of me. I don't want it to wear off because I know that when it does, I am going to feel something and I don't want to feel anything ever again because if this turns out to be what I think it is, then I know that it is going to hurt so, so much and that it is going to hurt for the rest of my life.
"Rachel, what is this?"
"It's no big deal, Santana," she insists, pulling her arm out of my grip.
"Don't tell me that this is not a big deal, Rachel!" I am enraged. My voice is flushed with an anger so powerful that it scares me and I have to tone it back when I see Rachel shrink away from it. "Did Andrew do this to you?"
"He grabbed me one time, Santana," Rachel insists. Her eyes are pleading like she is begging me to just drop the entire thing, as if I could ever do that.
"This was more than one time Rachel," I counter gesturing to her arm which has bruises of all ages lining it. "What else did he do to you? Where else did he hit you that I can't see?"
"Nowhere!"
"Then let me see."
"No!" she flushes and turns away from me. I redden only further because if she had been hiding the bruises on her arm from me then what else is she hiding? How much had Andrew hurt her? What the hell had I let happen to my little sister?
"You don't have to defend him Rachel."
"I'm not defending him!" she insists. "It was an accident, Santana. It happened one time. That's it."
"Him grabbing onto your arm hard enough to leave a bruise was an accident?" I scoff. "Just like him hitting you in the face a couple of weeks ago was an accident?"
I try to keep my voice steady but I am scared and angry and my words wobble despite my best efforts. I have never felt so afraid before. I am afraid of what I know about Andrew but I am even more afraid about what I don't know, what Rachel won't tell me.
I watch as Rachel falls quiet. My loud-mouthed, bossy, babbling little sister is silenced and I find that this is the hardest part.
It seems illogical now that I had ever given this man the benefit of the doubt. Despite my better judgment, I had trusted him and now he has betrayed that trust in such an unspeakable way that it seems very unlikely that I will ever trust anybody ever again.
I had defended this man to Rachel, who had reservations about him from the beginning. I had let my mother invite him into our house and now, like a vampire, I don't know if I will ever be able to get him to leave.
The guilt is overpowering and much too familiar. The helplessness sinks in alongside the question of whether or not I will have time to change everything that I screwed up or if it is already too late.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I try desperately to look into the future but I can't seem to see anything past this. I have no idea what is going to happen but I can't stand this lack of control. Things that had once come easy to me feels like nothing but a pool of doubt and bitterness. Andrew is forcing me to face all of my fears in a manner that I had previously believed impossible and I find that I do not like it.
"I will protect you, Rachel." I make this promise with no intention of breaking it. Not again. Rachel is my little sister. Fate may have placed us in this circumstance but it is my job to get us back out. It is my responsibility to protect her forever.
Forever… it feels like such a big word when you really stop and think about it. I watch Rachel's face shift and mold beneath it. She understands what I am telling her and she wants to believe me when I make her promises like this but nothing inside of my words looks to set her free.
"I know it seems bad right now," I tell her, trying my hardest to be convincing. "But it's going to get better. One day, Rachel. I will make this better. I promise."
"When?" she shudders. Her voice is quivering so only now do I realize how terrified she truly is. I frown. I don't know what to tell her. I don't know how to say that I don't know how many more times she's going to have to fall asleep curled next to me with the lights on and doors locked. I do not know how to tell her that I cannot predict her future as much as I wish that I could.
"I don't know," I admit. "Soon though."
"This is a mistake, San," she sniffles.
"What is?"
"He told me not to tell you," she hiccups. "That he would hurt you too. And mom. You can't let him know that I told you. This was a mistake."
I take a deep breath, trying not to make it shudder in front of her.
"You listen to me Rachel," I push through the pain in my heart and pounding inside of my head. "This was a choice. It was never a mistake."
A choice.
I think about an old saying my dad used to have. He was full of sayings but this one in particular always stuck with me the most.
"Santana," he would always say. "You're going to have to face a lot of choices in your life but the thing about them is that more often than not, it's not you who makes the choice, it is the choice that makes you."
Looking at my sister I know that this is not a choice that bore an option. This is a choice that was made for me the second I had become an older sibling. The worst case scenario, it is here and it had come dressed and dazzling and much more prepared than either one of us had. But that didn't mean we gave up before the fight even begun. Whatever happens next out of all of the uncertainty, one thing remains predominantly clear.
Things are never going to be the same again.
