Chapter 21
It's been quite the night. I noticed that most people have left. As I'm hanging my coat up, someone pushes against me as they rush out the door.
"Brittany?" I ask, not sure. The only answer I received was a slam of the door. Weird, I thought. I look around and see Marley.
"Hey, how's the party?" I ask.
"Good, everyone's having a good time, as usual at your shindigs," she smiles, "how are you doing? I've seen an array of girls and drama passing through tonight."
I look at her, not sure how to answer.
"What do you mean? Of course there's girls, it's the girls lacrosse team," I say, not knowing where to go with this conversation.
"No, no," she says with a laugh, "not any girls, you're girls. Santana, Tatum. Seems like they were both looking for you tonight."
I just stand there with a blank face.
"You might as well spit it out, I'm one of your best friends. Lets talk it out," Marley offers.
Girls. They always want to talk it out. I debate about letting her know what I'm thinking.
"I don't know. It's ridiculous," I state. She looks at me.
"Is it though? Is it really?" she asks, sounding like she already knows what I want to say. "Just admit it, there's something between you and Santana," Marley finally spits out for me. I can feel my jaw drop. She smiles. "Well, you guys did good job hiding it at first. But now you're practically inseparable. She's always coming to you and you're always saving her from something. It's like a Juliet and Juliet thing you have going on," she says and smiles.
I look around to see if anyone else is listening to this.
"Yeah, I guess we've become pretty close. But she has a girlfriend and I wouldn't want to put her in an awkward situation. Plus, she would never do that to Brit," I explain.
"No, but there clearly are feelings there," she says.
"It doesn't matter, she's not available. Plus, I've been seeing Tatum," I say, trying to sound casual. Marley starts laughing.
"You've been seeing Tatum? Yeah, in the halls and at parties while you're trying to avoid her!" She said with a point.
"Twice. That only happened twice," I said with a smirk.
She looked at me funny. I made a face back at her.
"It must feel funny huh? A big time lacrosse player with all these girls hanging off you?"
"Whoa, what are you saying? There's one," I argue.
"I'm not talking about the girls that are shoving themselves at you. I mean the ones that want your attention. For example, Santana. Tatum and now Seventeen."
"So three? That's a crazy number? And seventeen gave me her number, that doesn't mean I'm going to call her. And Santana and I are just friends. That leaves Tatum," I say, rationally.
"I'm just trying to point out. It's quality, not quantity. You can't look at all these girls, the way you look at Santana."
"So what you're saying is I shouldn't use the invite Tatum offered up this evening?"
"What offer? Isn't she mad at you?" She says rolling her eyes, "jeez, doesn't take much to get that girls' undies..."
"Okay!" I cut her off and try to ignore the gestures she making, "and on that note, I'm heading up to bed."
"Congrats today Jamie!" she says, smiling and getting up to give me a hug.
"Thanks Mar," I say returning her hug.
When I make it upstairs, I see that someone has already crashed in my bed. I try to be quiet and start grabbing my things when the lump under my blanket rolls over.
"Hey," she says.
I struggle to see her in the dark, but I can tell by her voice that it's Santana.
"Hey, I didn't mean to wake you," I say quietly.
"It's okay, I wasn't...sleeping," she said, with a sniffle.
It bothers me that on a night she should be celebrating, instead she is crying. Is that why Brittany stormed out?
I sit down on the edge of the bed.
"What's going on San? Didn't you and Brittany talk it out?" I ask.
She sat up and I passed her a tissue. She was completely crying now, more upset than before. I waited a second while she caught her breath.
"We broke up," she said and with that came a fresh wave of tears.
"Santana...sorry. I didn't see that one coming," I said as I moved closer to rub her back. She leaned into me. "She came out...and when you went inside she told me that she didn't want to hold me back... She said she knew I wouldn't want to leave her and that she was doing it so that we could find ourselves." She said, still trying to control her crying. "She sang "Mine" by Taylor Swift. I thought she was trying to say how much she loved me… and that'd we'd be okay, but then she said it was for the best…and left,' she explained, as the tears fell down her cheeks. I had never been able to understand why girls did the things they do, but why would Brittany sing Santana a love song, one of the best love songs, only to leave her brokenhearted.
"It's been a crazy night, I think Brit probably just thinks she's doing what's best for you, I'm sure she'll come around," I say, trying to sound supportive or sympathetic. We moved to the back of the bed so we could lean against the headboard. Santana let her head rest on my shoulder and we sat there for a while just listening to the buzz of the people downstairs. Santana started to finally fall asleep. I helped her lay back down and pulled the blanket up over her. I was about to get up and leave when Santana rolled over and reached for my hand.
"Will you sleep here tonight?" she asked, "I don't want to be alone."
"Yeah, absolutely," I say, as I reach for my track pants. She rolls back over and I change into my comfy clothes and climb back into bed. Once I got settled and pulled the blankets over me, I felt Santana move. She rolled back over and snuggled into my side, her head on my chest. "Thanks for always being here for me, I don't know what I would do without you," she whispers, her eyes already closed.
"I need you too, more than you know," I whisper back, but she had already fallen back asleep.