AN: Sorry it took so long to update, I hope you like it. Thank you for the reviews/favorites/alerts/everything.

Chapter 14 | That Would Be Telling

I sat on the bed and tried to breath evenly. I could do this. I needed to.

I had told Ms. Pillsbury I would, that I wanted to. She was sitting on the bed, waiting patiently. She wasn't even looking at me which made everything so much easier. Which made me feel like I wasn't about to implode in on myself.

"Santana," she said softly. I couldn't bring myself to look at her. "I need you to talk to me. I can't help you if you don't talk to me."

I nodded slowly. "Okay," I said clearing my voice. My body tensed up immediately and I felt cold. I began to tremble as if someone had just opened a window to let in the cold November air. "I don't know why this is so hard."

I didn't. I needed to get everything out there. It was eating me alive but I felt like I was physically incapable. Every time I wanted to say something I felt like my body would shut down and nerves would take over. "Okay," I said for what felt like the millionth time.

I sat up straighter. "It was the day after they kicked me out." I stopped and tried to compose myself. I could feel myself slipping away. I didn't want to try sob through this, I didn't want to fall to pieces. I wanted to tell her, to get it out. I needed to feel better.

"I was at school. I saw Brittany. She was with Artie. She..." my voice trailed off as I remembered how happy she looked sitting on his lap. I felt my face contort as the emotions seemed to wash over me again, as if I was reliving it. Then I remembered the feeling of her lips on mine in her bedroom...

Ms. Pillsbury cleared her throat and I jerked my head up. We held eye contact for the briefest of moments before I looked away. I couldn't tell her if I looked at her.

I balled my fists into the blanket and continued. "She was sitting in his lap, hugging him. I don't know why, though." I stopped. Why had she been hugging him but kissing me later? A million thoughts swirled through my head like hundreds of pieces of paper caught in a storm. I felt buffeted. "I just lost it. It was too much. I had gotten kicked out because she wanted me to come out and I did and..." I trailed off.

Was I angry at Brittany?

But Brittany was everything.

But Brittany had pressured me. She had even apologized.

"It was bad," I continued. "I felt so lost. I felt so unwanted."

I stopped talking. I couldn't deal with Brittany right now. I couldn't deal with out unhealthy relationship that I had been the cause of. It was too much.

I sighed. "I went to a club." I felt stupid saying it. It seemed so ridiculous now. What had I been thinking? Had I been thinking? "It was stupid. I just didn't know what to do. I got dressed up and I went to a bar and I wanted to feel pretty and wanted."

My eyes were beginning to brim with hot tears. I looked up at Ms. Pillsbury. "I know that's stupid. But I felt like I had lost everything in such a short amount of time and I hadn't slept and I hadn't eaten anything and it was stupid. It was so fucking stupid."

I felt it then. The panic, rising in my throat like bile. It caused my heart to race and my breathing picked up it's pace, trying to catch up.

"Santana," Ms. Pillsbury began. She grabbed my wrists and said my name until I looked at her.

Our eyes locked and I felt the panic building. My eyes were wide and I was terrified. I felt like I was going to suffocate inside of my own body.

"Santana you have got to calm down. We can do this, you can do this. Please, just try to slow down your breathing." She was gentle, calm, and I latched onto her words.

I closed my eyes and tried to breath evenly. I could feel all of the hopelessness I felt then and now mixing together. Churning inside of me and causing my stomach to squirm.

"You take your time," she said softly letting go of my wrists. I reached out and grabbed her hand and held it tight in both of mine. She didn't pull away. I had never felt more grateful.

After a few minutes of steady breathing I felt like I could talk again. I felt like it wouldn't be as hard. I cleared my throat. "There was a guy. He was nice and funny and even handsome. He talked to me. He bought me drinks." I paused and his smell hit me like a freight train. My breathing hitched in my throat but I kept on.

"I was drunk. He took me out of the club. To the back. We were in an alley and I hugged him because I needed... anything."

I stopped. Oh god.

"He kissed me and I pushed him away. He tried to kiss me again and I wouldn't. He hit me. He hit me and he picked me up and he..."

Oh god. It had really happened.

"He raped me."

I hadn't ever said it out loud.

Everything broke all at once. I had been holding onto everything so tightly that when it finally did break away from my grasp I was shocked. I was so shocked I felt my breath leave me and my head spin and my stomach churned and I thought I was dying. I thought I had fallen underwater, even though I could feel Ms. Pillsbury holding onto my hand. I thought my lungs were filling up and there was no way I was going to pull through.

I wasn't getting out of this alive.

"He raped me." I said it again and looked Ms. Pillsbury. She was crying, silently. "He hurt me. His hands were all over me and then he was inside me and I just... oh my god. It really did happen. I'm so sorry."

I was gone. I couldn't talk anymore. I couldn't feel anything but sobs. They wracked my body and made me ache. Everything ached. Ms. Pillsbury was holding me close and I knew I was dead weight against her. I knew that my tears were soaking through her nightgown.

I had never felt so heavy. All of the pain, the emotions, all of it was coming alive so vividly again. Mark moving against me, his scent as he grunted and pinned me to the cold brick wall. I wanted to vomit. I wanted to die. I wanted everything to go blank, especially me, because nothingness had to be better than this.

I was blindsided, I was drained. I was everything but Santana.

Then I was empty.

I was still leaning against Ms. Pillsbury but my tears had stopped, my body had calmed. I felt numb. Completely numb. But there was something else. I felt it budding inside of me.

Relief.

I was relieved and in the oddest way I felt okay. I felt like it would be okay.

"Santana," Ms. Pillsbury said gently.

"Yeah," I croaked out, barely above a whisper. I pulled away from her and sat up in the bed. I felt weak as if I had been running for miles. My head was pounding and my stomach ached.

"I'm so glad that you told me this," she said putting a hand on mine. "I know this is hard for you."

"I'm just so sorry," I said. I felt my eyes filling up with tears again and brushed them away with my hands.

"Don't be sorry, okay? Right now I just want you to lie down and go to bed. Can you do that?"

I nodded and slid down into the blanket, immediately feeling like weights were attached to my eyelids. "Don't go, please," I begged when she moved to get up.

"Of course not," she said, settling down on the bed. She stroked my hair like my mom used to and even though I felt the beginning of tears I closed my eyes and met sleep without hesitation.

When I woke up the next morning I kept my eyes closed. I felt heavy and weighed down by the blankets. It was like coming out of fog. I knew that last night had changed something. I felt like I had shifted just slightly but it had made all of the difference.

I laid and bed and just focused on breathing.

School would be starting soon. I inhaled deeply, held the breath, then let it out quickly. I could get through the day.

I felt raw though. Raw and vulnerable and I knew it wasn't going to heal overnight. I threw the blankets off of me and sat on the edge of my bed. I grabbed my phone and checked the time.

9:43.

"What?" It came out as a whisper.

I opened my bedroom door. "Hello?"

"In here, Santana," I heard Ms. Pillsbury call from somewhere in the apartment.

My eyebrows came together and unease seized my nerves. Why was I still here? Why had she let me sleep? My thoughts flew to my parents. Had she called them? Had she told them? What if they were here? I felt angry, betrayed.

I moved slowly towards her voice, which I discerned was coming from the kitchen. I pushed open the swinging door. Ms. Pillsbury was standing in front of the stove. She was dressed for school. She turned to look at me and I was suddenly very self-conscious of the fact that I was dressed in shorts and an old shirt. I crossed my arms over my chest.

"Well have a seat," she said to me as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

I stepped cautiously across the kitchen to the small breakfast nook in the corner. I slid into the booth-like seat. I sat, waiting. I wasn't sure what for but I felt on high alert. She couldn't just be fixing me breakfast. She was going to blindside me about the things I had told her last night.

"Did you sleep well?" She asked it while using a spatula to flit a pancake over delicately. She smiled at her work.

"Um, yeah, I guess."

"Good," she said pulling out the word.

I remained silent. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be doing. I stayed tensed.

When she had used all of the batter in her mixing bowl she put all of her dishes in the sink and turned off the stove. She brought the plate of pancakes to the table and set them down in the middle of the table. They were steaming slightly and the smell made my stomach ache and growl audibly.

"Well eat up, then," she offered. "Want some milk?" She didn't wait for a reply. She moved to the fridge and pulled out the carton of milk, pouring me a glass. I watched her return the carton and then take the seat across from me.

She had already put plates and napkins on the table. She pulled two pancakes onto her plate and I watched, eyebrows still furrowed as she coated them in syrup.

"You know," she began, cutting a perfect triangle bite out of the pancakes. "My grandmother taught me how to make these from scratch. They're quite good." She ate the bit, chewed, swallowed, smiled at me.

"Eat," she said using her fork to point at me.

I watched her eat for a few more seconds before pulling an almost perfectly round pancake onto my plate and covering it with syrup. I cut a piece off. It melted into my mouth and I looked at Ms. Pillsbury, eating quietly.

"These are amazing," I said slowly.

"My grandmother was an amazing cook."

We ate in silence. Ms. Pillsbury ate her food slowly. I had devoured three and a half before she even finished. I felt full, content. I could have probably eaten about ten, but figured stopping while I was ahead was good.

When we were done she smiled at me. "I'm glad you liked them." She gathered the plates from the table and put them by the sink with the rest of her dirty dishes.

I felt too confused to offer her. When she began rinsing the dishes and loading them into the dishwasher, acting as if everything was normal I couldn't take it anymore.

"What are you doing?" I hadn't meant for my voice to be as accusatory as it was.

"Loading the dishwasher." She said it simply.

How could she be so casual after everything I had told her? How could she treat me like nothing had changed? I didn't understand. "What about last night?"

"What about it?" She turned off the water and turned to face me.

I stared at her, mouth hanging open slightly. "You're acting like it never happened." I had to restrain myself from yelling it.

"No, Santana, I'm waiting for you to talk about it."

I stopped. The cogs working to find her motives froze and so did my body. The cold feeling from the previous evening returned.

"I'm here for you, Santana. I hope you know that. This is something you have to come to terms with. I can't make you and I don't want to scare you away. How would you have felt if the first thing I asked you about this morning was last night?"

We lapsed into silence. I was trying to process her words, their meanings. What the future meant for me.

"I would have hated it."

"I don't want to scare you away, Santana," Ms. Pillsbury said slowly.

I looked around the kitchen. "Are we going to school?"

The corners of her mouth tugged up slightly. "I thought it would be best if we took the day off."

I nodded and looked at my hands, resting in my lap.

"It's my fault, you know," I said suddenly. It had slipped out of my mouth before I had even realized the thought had formed in my mind.

"Why do you say that?"

I closed my eyes tight and tried to keep myself from crying. Not this early, not after such a nice breakfast.

"I went looking for trouble. I was stupid. I went to some club and let a guy hit on me and buy me drinks and it was me..." I put my head in my hands and sighed. "He said I wanted it to happen."

"Santana," her voice was firm. I looked up at her and was surprised at the strength behind her eyes. She lacked her normal intimidation, intimidation that I had caused at some points. "No one deserves to go through what you went through."

Relief. It hit me like diving into water on a hot day. It cooled all of the right things. My nerves, my tears. I hadn't realize how desperately I had wanted someone to tell me it wasn't my fault. That I didn't deserve it. I had been holding it inside and trying to deal with it but all I saw was my part in it, not what actually was. I needed eyes on the outside, eyes that saw through what I couldn't see past.

I thought back to watching myself in the mirror.

I remained silent and looked down at the floor. I had spilled my guts to her but this was far from over. It was just getting started. I wasn't even close to being done with Mark.

"This is going to be hard, isn't it?"

I looked at her. I wanted her to have all the answers. I wanted her to tell me what was going to happen to me. I wanted an adult to lean on. I wanted my mom.

"It is," she said quietly. "But now it's all out there, Santana. Now you can start healing."

I knew that what was coming would be hard. I knew I was going to have to work through a lot to get back to where I used to be, if I ever even could get back there. For the first time in what felt like centuries though, I didn't feel like I was rotting on the inside.

Ms. Pillsbury let me spend the rest of the day in the apartment. I didn't have the energy to venture into the world anyway. It was nice to just be able to sit and not feel pressured by anything. I did homework and even got a head start on the homework I was missing from being out of school. It felt good to have something that I could focus on that didn't involve me or Mark or what had happened.

When I got bored I would wander into different rooms. Ms. Pillsbury was always there. I was grateful for that. Part of me was terrified she was going to leave me or get mad at me, some irrational part of me I couldn't quite quell. She never did though.

I laid down on the couch in the living room and stared at the ceiling for a long time until Ms. Pillsbury entered the room and turned the television on. We ended up watching a movie. Some old John Wayne flick that I couldn't help but enjoy.

It was the perfect break.

I still felt the weight of Mark on me. It wasn't as agonizing now, though. It just was a presence. I still felt empty and would often find myself staring off into space for who knows how long. It was better, though. I was more than a frenzy, more than just panic and fear.

My thoughts varied between wild and dormant. One moment I would seem to snap awake, like I had drifted off to sleep and the next minute I felt like I was going to explode with everything buzzing around inside of me.

I kept going back to Brittany.

I wanted her. I needed her. I missed her.

Still, what had been thinking last night? I had been angry at her, I remembered that. I had resented her and the more I thought about it, the more the feelings grew. Brittany who was so innocent and didn't see the world like I did had been the one pushing me to come out. If she hadn't pushed me we wouldn't have fought. I wouldn't have come out to my parents, they wouldn't have kicked me out. I wouldn't have gone to that club.

Why had she been with Artie? Why had she kissed me and touched me?

The questions swirled in my head and made me tired. I was confused, to say the least. I didn't know where I stood on anything or who to blame and if there really was blame to place. It was too much and I already felt like I would barely be able to survive school tomorrow. Everything was so fresh on the surface and now I had these feelings about Brittany. It was too much.

I was all over the place and I knew it. I needed to sleep it off. Sleep off the confusion. I needed to deal with myself first and worry about Brittany later.

But if she hadn't pushed me I wouldn't have to worry about anything.

As soon as the thought struck me, I knew that the shift I had felt in myself wasn't good at all. I felt like my world had been knocked off it's axis, even more so. I felt wrong and I didn't even recognize myself anymore.

And I was angry.

AN: I know, for that long of a wait I should have given you something better. I tried at least. Hope it was a good read. I'm getting a little stuck on what's going to happen, just not sure which way to take this.