Artie put the tape down and fumbled for the knot. What did his grandfather do? He closed his eyes and tried to remember the valuable teachings of his late grandfather on how to tie a knot, something Artie's father never knew how to do. Mr. Abrams suffered a fulminating heart attack at the wheel when young Artie was only nine. His grandfather returned from a football game in which he took three of his five grandchildren. After a walk in a diner, Mr. Abrams took the freeway to return home. Everything seemed fine, until Mr. Abrams began to feel ill. He leaned against the road, and the older grandson picked up the phone to call an ambulance. Artie was in the car and remembers in more detail than he wanted to see the old man he loved to roll his eyes, got pale, and moan. He stopped moaning before the paramedics arrived. The trip to the hospital in the ambulance was mere formality.
"Damn this tie," he mumbled when he couldn't remember how to tie the knot. He put on his black jacket, floated over to the chair, and sat down to get out of his dormitory.
He went down to the hall and waited for the girls. Santana and Mercedes arrived in well-behaved black dresses. They didn't exchange words. They just got in Santana's old car. It was Saturday: Grant's funeral. It was the first one that Artie had the displeasure of going since his grandfather's death. Unlike the wheelchair friend, Santana has never been to a funeral, despite the loss of some family members. Grant would be the first person who died she truly care. The feeling hadn't changed since the moment she heard the news from a phone call she had received from Mercedes. Santana was saying goodbye to Jenny, who was going out of the country. Between kisses and hugs, Santana answered the call of Mercedes. She had no floor after that.
Artie was "on the automatic". He and Matt break their friend's body still fresh and the scene was traumatic. The hatred he felt for the Boss was profound. He hated him for the death of a great friend and hated him for having awakened such disgusting feelings within him. The only consolation was that the counterattack was on its way. A better and more dignified one. Grant left very specific instructions for him. It was as if he had guessed he was going to die. Well, Grant was a mathematician. Maybe he'd even figured scenario probabilities.
"Matt said he'll meet us at the graveyard. He and Quinn" Mercedes told her wheelchair friend.
"Okay," Artie's voice was still blurry. "Is Rachel going to the funeral?"
"She's not ready," Santana grunted. "And she barely knew Grant, anyway."
"And Brittany?" Artie glanced at Mercedes and was worried to see Santana hold the steering wheel of the car harder.
"I don't care about Brittany right now" Santana took a deep breath to control her anger. "If she shows up, fine. But if she shows up with him, I swear I won't control myself."
"I don't think Brittany is still with him" Artie defended the dancer. "It doesn't suit her. Martinez should keep her in the dark or manipulate her mind."
"Still," Santana grunted. "She's his lover."
"You promised, San" Mercedes warned.
"I'm going to respect Grant for today. Tomorrow is another day."
Mercedes turned on the radio. No one bothered. Marisa Monte was singing Diariamente. Long song about relationships and simple solutions.
"Para todas as coisas, dicionário. Para que fiquem prontas, paciência. Para dormir a fronha, madrigal. Para brinca na gangorra, dois".
Marisa's soft voice and simple arrangement were reassuring. It transformed the journey into a surreal one in which the occupants of the car could imagine for a moment that life was even uncomplicated.
"Para aumentar a vitrola, sábado. Para a cama de mola, hóspede. Para trancar bem a porta, cadeado. Para que serve a calota, Volkswagen."
They arrived at the cemetery and saw the people coming out of the funeral chapel on their way to the funeral. Santana pushed his friend's chair toward the group that accompanied the coffin. They walked slowly, sadly, resisting the urge to cry. Quinn, Matt were already there. No sign of Brittany. Martinez shouldn't even be there. Artie and Matt pointed out the ex-mentor as a killer to the cops, and he was on the run.
As the priest spoke before the coffin, under many tears of Grant's parents and his younger sister, the vigilantes were united. Santana was holding Artie's hand and Mercedes's head was leaning against her shoulder. Quinn and Matt were just next door, making a solid unit of friends.
"... everything walks to the same place. Everything comes from dust and everything goes back to dust..." said the priest under sighs and whimpers.
Mercedes held her breath. She was the first to see a pretty girl approaching wearing a hat. Brittany. Immediately she looked to the side, where Santana was, and prayed that her friend would be so absorbed in the priest's speech that she didn't notice the presence of the dancer, who kept her distance. Too late. Santana closed her expression and threatened to cause disturbance in the environment to take satisfaction from her friend. But something was holding her back. Matt. He clearly used the power to contain the vigilante.
"Calm down, San," Matt whispered next to his friend. "She had been his friend longer than us."
"Calm down?" Santana raised her voice a little, catching the attention of the people ahead.
"It's neither time nor place," Matt insisted. "Think of Grant."
"Maybe it's time and place."
Matt had no choice but to grab her arm and drag her away from the crowd. If Matt weren't using telekinesis over her, escort would be impossible.
"You want to calm down!" Matt shoved her as they approached the parking lot.
"I'm going to kill that guy. He killed Grant. Maybe I can get his attention by doing some damage on his lover."
"You're not going to do this!"
"Give me a good reason not to."
"After all, it's Brittany! She has saved you from death a few times and you owe her a lot. Besides, I don't think Brittany is any closer to Martinez anymore."
"How can you be sure?"
"Because Martinez is a fugitive and the cops came looking for him at her house. Brittany didn't know anything. You know she can't lie."
"She didn't say anything to the cops, maybe she would say something to me." Santana hinted that she could use force.
"You can't, Santana. You know you can't do any of this. You are our reference now."
"I am no reference or example to anyone."
"Yes, you are," Matt managed. "You may deny it for now, but Grant knew that. He died to protect you."
Santana retreated a few steps and wept harder.
"Don't throw this shit on me. Don't throw that responsibility on me!"
"Wanting to hurt Brittany just to hurt Martinez? This is not you."
"People change."
"Not so, San. Not you." Matt took advantage of her friend's fragility and hugged her, allowing her to cry all she needed at that moment.
They returned to the group as people dispersed after the coffin had descended. All the vigilantes greeted Grant's parents and the sister before they left. There was no sign of Brittany, which was good. The group wasn't ready to face their friend yet, however innocent she might be. And Brittany really was. She didn't share anything with Martinez's actions. In fact, she was only one more victim he used as a sex toy.
Grant's death was a shock to the dancer. It was as terrible as to hear on the news that Martinez was the prime suspect in the murder. Something that the police would conclude with the arrival of the result of the DNA and corporal exculpation examinations (besides the testimonies of two people).
"How about a drink now?" Matt suggested "we should drink in honour of Grant."
"You go. I have to get Beth in school soon enough." Quinn stared at the others who barely understood her mother's responsibilities. No matter how serious and urgent the situation was, Quinn would always think of Beth in the first place. It was a fact.
"I'll give you a ride," Santana offered.
Matt handed the car keys and document to his girlfriend, and they kissed each other. While Quinn come back to her home, Matt, Santana, Artie and Mercedes went to the old and well-known restaurant. They ordered snacks and drinks stronger than a mere beer. There they made a small celebration and homage to the great friend. They remembered funny things, Matt well remembered the hatred that Santana felt because She couldn't hit a punch that was in the mathematician during the trainings.
"He pissed me off..." Santana laughed. "He pissed me off a lot."
"The coolest thing was when you ended up on the floor facing the dirty water in the gym gutter." Artie smiled.
"Pee drip, that's right. That water stank."
"Do you remember that time Grant wanted to prove to Santana that he wasn't a snob and invited us to that fancy reception?" Mercedes said with her mouth full of chips.
"Don't tell me!" Artie hid his face. "His mother was horrified when we left eating everything we could see... Then I saw her ask Mercedes if we had never seen food in our lives."
"Grant was having fun at our expense... that bastard." Santana drank. "For a moment I thought Mrs. Fish would send us to stay and wash the dishes as compensation for the loss of the crab meat."
"And also for stealing those expensive wine..." Artie laughed.
"It was a great wine." Mercedes smiled.
"The best" Santana finished.
"I can't believe you didn't invite me to taste the expensive wine," Matt complained.
"Huh? Come on! You're de adult here" Santana snorted with laughter.
"The worst thing is that Santana took a bottle for herself. So unfair!" Artie complained.
"It's not my fault that I have a metabolism that makes me take longer to get drunk. On the other hand, I can drink more! Die of envy."
They drank, they laughed, and at last Santana took them all home. Mercedes was most affected by alcohol, followed by Matt. Artie never had a habit of drinking so much. Santana left her friends in their places. Since Mercedes was completely wasted, Santana helped to take off her shoes and covered her with a blanket. Mercedes quickly fell asleep. The vigilante kissed her friend's head before sitting on her own bed and quickly becoming uneasy. She had to try to do something, anything, not to fall into the bullshit of hunting Martinez starting with an unpleasant interrogation involving Brittany.
But the phone rang. She got up, and answer it, and then she took the car keys.
...
"You mean you won't talk to Kurt?" Finn frowned.
He was in the living room at the Berry's house. Hiram was out, but Leroy was there to watch his daughter. Finn was expecting a cold reception from Leroy, but when Rachel received him indifferently, it was a shock. He expected kisses and go to her room. But he won a shy hug and was asked if he would like a glass of water.
"I spoke to Kurt yesterday. On the phone" Rachel defended herself.
"I mean, in person."
"I'm not ready to leave this house, Finn."
"Why? Help me understand how possibly you aren't prepared to leave the house? It's like you're self-imposed a type of punishment. It makes no sense."
"What happened. The explosion and everything, it's not easy for me."
"It's not for me either, and Kurt was at the hospital." Finn still refused to mention Santana, as if she had never been there. He did everything possible not to mention her name as if he wanted to erase Santana from his girlfriend's memory. As if to erase the memory of cheat.
"It was my fault" Rachel crossed her arms and asked in her mind for her boyfriend to stop insisting.
"So you're not going to the meeting tomorrow at my mother's house?"
"What meeting?"
"At least you opened your message box?"
"What meeting, Finn?"
"Let's decide things about the theater group. Only with Schuester, Emma and the original cast."
"What things?"
"The new date for the open night. The adaptations, vote."
"What a vote?"
"The main one, to begin with, about suing Santana for the damage she did."
"Damage?" Rachel was in shock. "You can't do that. She was a pain in the ass most of the time, but by no means thwarted our schedule of the rehearsals and wasn't responsible for the postponement of the open night. I was!"
"Mr. Schuester thinks differently. And Puck. And Kurt. I don't know about Tina, but it doesn't matter."
"Are you telling me that the vote is merely symbolic? No matter what you say, you're going to file a lawsuit on Santana's back for nothing?"
"That girl... she's a troublemaker, Rach. Don't see? Look how much she stirred in your head."
"My head was shaken well enough before she kissed me, Finn."
"What are you talking about?"
"What do you think I'm talking about? You can't be that dumb!"
"Rachel, I'm here fighting for our relationship and to help you get over it. I'm here swallowing the fact that you had intimate contact with that girl and doing my best to get over it. Everything I have done and I do is aimed at the future of our relationship..."
"And I'm here trying to reconcile the image of my sweet boyfriend with the man beating a woman in the middle of my living room!" Rachel pointed.
"She didn't even hurt that much!"
"Is that your excuse?"
They both fell silent. A tense, full of hurt.
"You really let her stay between us and I didn't even notice." Finn put his hand on his head and moaned. "Worse, you don't even feel like trying to fix our relationship. I don't know how to say what you want anymore. It's not like it used to be. I always thought we were forever."
"Me too, Finn. Me too... but I don't know about anything anymore."
"All because of her..." he said angrily.
"I don't think so... my life... I've never planned to stay here in this city, but every year all I see is that I get tighter and tighter. I began to question certain things, about what I gave up doing, about risking, about staying here. To stay by your side... "
"We both give up things to be together!"
"What did you give up, Finn?" At the silencing of her boyfriend, Rachel continued. "Everything you have supposed to have given up hasn't even come close to the dreams I gave up, from my accommodation... from that illusion of a stable life in a small town."
"Illusion? We have a good life here. You work and study... and I work too and we have our musical theater group. Don't you see that we already have what many people just dream about? What a life in the metropolis, where you would be only one more, could be better?"
"I serve tables in a restaurant!" Rachel raged. "I've never even come close to what I've always dreamed of, Finn. Worst of all is that I let myself be accommodated because of a guy whose biggest ambition is to be a football coach of the school team!"
"Rachel..."
"I can't look at your face now, Finn. I love you, but I'm sorry, I can't look at you because all I see is my own failure. Santana... she's just passing through. She'll go away as soon as she graduate... go to the metropolis to design buildings and forget this city, while I'm going to be here serving tables until get pregnant and become a housewife!"
"Is that how you feel? That I ruined your life and your grandiose dreams? I've always supported you, Rachel!"
"Of course you did... it's me the wrong one, Finn. Make no mistake about it. You're the right one, the perfect one, the popular guy." Rachel turned her face and said in a low tone. "Maybe I'm not a good person for you right now, and neither are you to me."
"What!" Finn said aggressively. "Are you breaking up with me?" He grabbed Rachel's arm more tightly than it should have, making her nervous and uncomfortable. "Rachel, pay attention to what you're doing..."
"Finn, let me go," Rachel said firmly.
"No! You're not thinking straight after everything happened." Finn continued to hold her tight.
"Finn!" Rachel screamed and closed her eyes when she felt them burn.
"Rachel, look at me and answer that you don't love me anymore!"
"You'd better let go of my daughter, boy." Leroy appeared in the living room.
"Stay out of it, man. You're not even her father! "
Leroy's blood boiled. He was accustomed to being discriminated by ignorant people because he was black and gay. But to say that he wasn't Rachel's father was the biggest offense anyone could ever do to him, because there was nothing he loved more in that world than that girl he had raised since when she was just a baby who had been literally abandoned by the biological mother at the door of the clinic where Hiram worked.
"Drop. My. Daughter. Now."
Leroy said slowly as he approached the young man. Finn wasn't reasoning. He left Rachel, only to turn on Leroy and hit him with a punch.
"Stay out of it, you nigga!" Finn was completely unbalanced emotionally, as if a violent and racist monster had taken over him.
"Leave my dad alone!" Rachel screamed and shrugged, hugging her own body, feeling like she would explode again.
Leroy kicked Finn to gain time and run to the kitchen. He opened the drawer and took the .38 pistol. Finn might no longer respect the smaller, lighter man, but he certainly respected a gun.
"Get out of my property" Leroy warned.
Finn lifted his hands and stepped back. He walked out the front door and into the truck. He took a deep breath before starting to pound the wheel of the car in a hysterical attack.
When Finn knocked on the living room door, Rachel despaired and ran to her own room to try to control her own power. It wasn't easy. That wasn't what she had in mind. She wasn't planning to end a long relationship. She cried on the floor of her old bedroom, leaning against the wardrobe, and stayed there for over an hour. When she finally had the strength to get up, she went to the bathroom to wash her face. Rachel put her hands in the cold water of the sink, gathered a handful of the liquid, and washed her face. She wiped her face on the towel and looked at herself in the mirror, hoping she would reflect pure misery. The mirror played its part and showed more: Rachel saw her red eyes reflected. She panicked. Rachel felt she couldn't handle it anymore and ran to her cell phone.
...
Santana arrived in less than ten minutes as soon as she received the phone call from Rachel. Her heart racing momentarily forgot her average drunkenness and the fact that she had buried a friend that morning. She parked in front of Berry's house and ran. She found the front door open.
"Rachel?" No answer. "Rachel!" He insisted.
"She's in her room," Leroy warned. "She doesn't let me in. Maybe will be luckier."
Santana ran upstairs. The door of Rachel's room was locked, but Santana thought she didn't have time to be subtle and broke the lock. Let Rachel's parents fix the door afterwards. She found her friend sitting on the floor with her hands on her head, swaying clearly in discomfort.
"I can't explode. I can't explode. I can't explode."
"Hi." Santana spoke softly and approached cautiously. "Your father said you were locked up here."
Rachel opened her eyes still red.
"I can't explode... I can't."
"Maybe you can." She offered her hand for Rachel to get up. "Come with me."
"But..."
"If you trust me, come with me."
Rachel took her friend's hand and then found herself being led out of the house toward the car. She panicked at being unprotected from those walls, in a public environment, with red eyes. Santana took the old car and drove it as fast as she could out of town. The vigilante knew a place, an isolated one she'd camped with college friends in her freshman year.
"Hold tight. Just a few more minutes."
Santana turn to the gravel road and walked a few meters inland. Then she stopped the car and ran to open Rachel's door.
"Come," offered her hand once more.
Rachel held her without hesitation, and they walked a few yards to the clearing used for encampments.
"Now blow it up, Rach. Give your best!"
Santana lay on the ground and waited for the powerful wave of air movement. It came in seconds. She was unharmed. Santana thought seriously that the force of the wave was overrated, since in the open environment it seemed to be weaker. The Vigilante counted to ten, then looked at the side where Rachel was. She found her friend still standing. Rachel was panting.
"That was a good explosion," Santana said softly as she stood up. "How it feels?"
"Better... much better... I'm relieved."
"That's good. This is very good. But may I ask you now what led you to lose control?"
"Finn."
"What about him?"
"He went to my dad's home. We... we argued about some things and we broke up. He fought with me, with my father. Things went wrong, but he ended up leaving."
"And you broke up with him, like that all of a sudden?"
"I can't tell you," Rachel whimpered.
"Come here." Santana opened her arms and offered shelter, but was refused by Rachel. "What is it?" She frowned as she saw her friend take a step back.
"I need some time, Santana. I need to think."
"I'm just offering you a hug."
"For me it's so much more than that. Your hug is not just a ordinary hug. It mean something."
"Okay." Santana accepted the refusal. "Would you like some tai chi before you go home? It will help you until you are strong enough to control that energy within you."
"Thank you, but no. Today I just want to go home and stay in my room crying."
"Are you sure? You can walk a little bit. I can wait for you in my car, if you want."
"I want to go home, Santana."
Santana didn't want to argue with Rachel, so they got in the car and made their way back, this time unhurriedly that could get them in trouble with traffic cops. Silence prevailed. No music, no radio. As Santana stood in front of Rachel's parents' house for the second time in the day, she looked at her friend and gave her a weak smile.
"Call me if you need me."
"I know... and Santana?"
"Yes?"
"I saw your message saying that Grant would be buried today. I think I can imagine what you felt and yet you ran to help me. Thanks."
Santana just nodded and Rachel got out of the car. The vigilante waited for the friend to enter her house and then to leave. She was frustrated, sad and desperate to get drunk. Santana went to a market and bought a bottle of vodka. She would drink the whole liquid. When she arrived back in the dormitory, she could no longer see Mercedes lying down. She didn't even see a sign from her best friend. The vigilante had no idea where Mercedes might have gone. But she didn't care that much at that moment. She opened the bottle and drank.
…
Santana woke up suddenly because of an insistent cell phone. She wanted to throw the device out the window and go back to sleep. She was half dizzy with her dry, bitter mouth. She felt like crap and depressed. She picked up the cell phone, it was dark in the room, and answered the call.
"I hope you're not so drunk," said the male voice. "It would be too bad if you weren't in a position to try and rescue your sweetheart." Santana pounced on the bed.
"What?" She shouted.
"Wear you lame uniform, vigilante, and let's settle our deal at the place where your supposed secret romance began. But if you're late, I'll finish doing the work that Howard started."
Santana ran to the closet and put her old trousers on, stumbling to attention from Mercedes, who had just entered the dormitory. The mask was within reach of her hands.
"San? What are you doing?"
"Rachel."
That's all she said before she opened the door and ran.