Chapter 26

I found her in the bathroom, bent over the sink. Her arms were spread out before her, her palms jammed into the ceramic. Her hot breath left a circle on the cold mirror.

I stood in the doorframe for a moment, studying her. She did look like a shadow then. Was I supposed to walk through her? How could I walk through her unless I was a shadow too? I tugged at the strap of her book bag, hanging off of my right shoulder.

She whirled around, her dark eyes wide and full of fear. "Shit," she breathed, slapping a hand to her heart. "You scared me."

"Hey," I answered, coming up behind her and letting the door slam shut. "I brought you your bag."

I set it down on the floor and scanned the bathroom. There was a mannequin in the corner, painted gold and covered with newspaper clippings. I wondered how long someone had kept them whole before cutting them up, if the stories were older than me and Santana.

"Thanks," she repeated. "You gotta pee?"

"No..."

"Number two? Those cookies probably did it."

"No. I was coming to find you."

She smirked. "Oh, yeah? You worried about me again?"

I bit my lip and stared until she blinked and broke it.

"Anyways, did you like that song?" she asked. "Did you understand what I was trying to say to you?"

I frowned and shook my head. "No, not really."

Her eyes fell. "That's okay." She flipped her hair over her shoulder and bent back into the sink. I watched her sigh, her fingers dancing across the porcelain. "Whatever."

"Can you explain it to me?"

"I'm not good at talking. Remember?" She laughed and I could hear the sadness caught in her throat. It was back again. "You know how sometimes music is the only fucking thing that keeps you together? Like sometimes I just wanna scream 'cuz I love it so much. Or stab somebody 'cuz I love it so much," she rambled. "You know, like when you hear a song and it says everything you're thinking, how good it feels to know that someone else is just as fucked-up as you?"

I looked down at her foot, tapping a black spot along the floor tiles.

"Is that really how you feel?" I asked.

She shrugged. The rest of her lay silent.

"I'm not smart," I told her. "But maybe I can understand. A little. Maybe, I think, you feel like you're only the shadow of a person sometimes. And you just wish that someone would notice you're there." I brought a hand to my mouth, my pinky, and bit at it. "But I don't know. I'm failing like all of my classes."

Santana pressed her lips together in a tight smile, her eyes filling with tears. She stepped towards me and took my hand in her own. Her thumb slid over my knuckles. It was so cold, cold from the sink. "You shouldn't bite your nails," she whispered, pulling my finger out of my mouth. "Guys don't like your hands to look like theirs when you suck them off. It's not hot."

"Yeah, I know," I mumbled, dragging my hands back into myself. I clasped them in front of me.

"Right."

I stood there gazing at her, her beautiful watery eyes overflowing with darkness. She was drowning me. She was gonna drown me if I didn't say it.

"Girls like it when you have short nails though," I spit out.

Santana gave me a funny look. And then it felt like a subway train was running over my chest and my ribs were the tracks and every single one of them was cracking. I drew in a breath and slid into the corner.

"What are you talking about?" she asked. "Brittany, what the hell?"

"Nothing. Never mind. Quinn told me never to tell anyone. And she likes Finn anyway."

"Quinn? Quinn Fabray?" Santana's eyes narrowed. She crossed her arms over her chest. "That prissy bitch who walks around like she's got a stick up her ass that's covered in peanut butter?"

I peered across the room at her and stuck my finger back between my teeth.

"She's in my history class," Santana said. She bent down and picked her bag up off of the floor, drawing her iPhone out of the front compartment. "Shit, it's 9:27."

"Really?"

She nodded, dropping her phone back into her bag and pulling it over her shoulders. "Okay. So we should go then. I'll walk you home." She turned her back to me and twisted the faucet above the sink. A stream of water rushed out. "And I'll go home too." She ran her hands under the water, then sent a splash to her pink cheeks. "Fuck, that's cold!"

When she came back around to face me, there were beads on her chin and beads in her hair, a gentle smile crossing her face.

I gave her one back, forgetting about Quinn for a moment, forgetting about my broken ribs. "Santana?" I asked. I tugged at the sleeve of my shirt, wringing its fabric into a knot around my thumb. "Do you wanna stay over tonight? At my house? I mean, you can. If you don't wanna go home. It's okay with me. I mean, I don't mind at all."

She dug a palm into her chin, sweeping the water away. "Sure. Why not?" Her boots headed for the door. "We should totally call Domino's though. I'm starving. And I'm pretty sure those poop cookies didn't do it for you either."