Wow, I can't believe that I am actually posting this chapter. In a couple of days, it will be the four year anniversary of when I first posted this story which seems unreal. I know that there are a bunch of you out there who have been following this since day one and have suffered through many hiatuses and waits and frustrations. I just wanted to thank you and all of you guys for taking this journey. A lot has changed for me in the last four years and this has really been my only consistency so thank you for all of the support from the bottom of my heart.
I've been going through older chapters and working on editing and rearranging and making small changes (nothing too drastic). I experimented a lot with different writing styles throughout this story (which I'm sure you could all tell) and you always look back in hindsight saying "oh man, I should have done it that way" so I hope to eventually have a completely edited version of this story up. I will save listing it as complete until then. Also, I have a couple other ideas in mind so hopefully I'll be back with more soon.
Okay, I'll shut up now. Thanks again to everybody who is still reading. I hope you've enjoyed this journey as much as I have!
Chapter 54 – Epilogue
Santana P.O.V.
"Santana, your girlfriend is here!"
I hear my sister yell up the stairs and roll out of my bed even though I am supposed to be packing to leave for college tomorrow, not laying down and staring absently up at the ceiling.
I move as quickly as I can down the stairs. It has been almost four months since Andrew had almost killed me and although I have been off of crutches for some time now and in physical therapy all summer, I'm still recovering from having a bullet rip through the muscles and ligaments of my thigh. Long story short, I am not running any marathons anytime soon.
When I round down the bottom of the stairs, Brittany is already sitting on the couch chatting with Rachel. The two of them have become inseparable in their experience. A car-jacking and a bad accident might do that to a relationship. It is a tragedy that I had completely missed out on while bleeding out on the floor. I had heard the story about a million times and still, it's hard to believe what they had gone through.
"What are you guys talking about?" I ask, waving into the living room.
"We're planning Rachel's first trip to come visit us in New York," Brittany beams at me over her shoulder. "I remember the first time that I visited my older brother at school when he went to OSU. It was wild, Rachel. It's like a right of passage for younger siblings. You're going to have an awesome time."
Rachel turns towards me, hopeful. After much debate and some wild speculation, I had settled to attend NYU in the fall after Brittany had committed to Columbia. We weren't going to be at the same school, but we would be in the same city and Brittany and I realized that not being together all of the time while we were at college would be the best thing for both our relationship and our GPAs.
I am going to miss Rachel while I am away and she would certainly miss me, but the drive was not too bad and I would be home for the holidays and summers… Besides, she was ecstatic that I had chosen to settle down in her favorite city and we both knew that it would only be a couple more years until she joined me anyway.
Our mother had briefly entertained the idea of moving again. She wasn't sure that I would want to keep living in the house that I almost died in and honestly, I don't think she was sure that she wanted to live here either. After I had settled on NYU, she had entertained the idea of taking Rachel and following me to New York. She had almost found success in that city once before and now that she had the reputation of being a national champion show choir coach, she figured that it would be easy to get a job, but strangely, Rachel and I both decided that we didn't want to let go of Lima quite yet.
I found that every time that I walked past the spot on the dining room floor that I had almost bled out on, it made me feel stronger knowing that I was still here and when I spoke with Rachel about this, she agreed. While my sister was anxious to get to New York, she would do so in her own time on her own terms. Besides, she had Quinn here and ever since Quinn had decided to keep her now four-month-old daughter, she had Aunt responsibilities that she took very seriously. With time, every one of us would move on from Lima, Ohio but for right now, it was our home and would continue to be.
"I hate to say it, but Rachel is not getting wild anytime soon," I remind Brittany and watch both girl's faces fall. It's not that it is me who is reluctant to attend another party with my sister although I will not soon forget how the last one had ended, but it is my mother who, upon realizing that Rachel and I were not going to die that fateful night in April, doubled down and grounded the two of us for "the rest of our lives." While I thought that me getting closer to leaving for college might have gotten her to ease up a little bit, I have still yet to be paroled.
Needless to say, my summer has been dull with very few exceptions.
"You're still grounded?" Brittany gapes at me.
"Yup," I tell her, popping the P dramatically. Of course, I am exaggerating. It's not like my mother has restricted Rachel and I to bread and water all summer, but she is more than reluctant to let us go anywhere that she thinks might end in a party and I have a feeling that Rachel coming to visit me at New York City's number one party school for a weekend would be a huge red alert.
"Maybe next year, Little S," Brittany shrugs.
"Maybe next century," Rachel reciprocates with a small sigh. I smirk at her. I love the attitude that has been slowly creeping back into Rachel's personality in recent months; tough, no-nonsense. I love the way that Rachel would sing at random again when she thought that nobody was listening, how she would sneak downstairs in the middle of the night to watch videotapes of old musicals and take notes when she should have been sleeping. Mostly, I love how Rachel was starting to open up to people again, like a flower opening up to a sun after so many months of rain. It made everything seem so normal. It made us seem so normal.
"Santana, are you almost finished packing?" My mother's ears must be ringing from us talking about her because she walks into the living room with the question on her tongue a second later. She has been on me for weeks about packing for school, and even though I am now only twenty-four hours out of leaving, I still haven't started.
"Um… I'm almost finished thinking about starting packing," I tell my mother, trying to put the most innocent look on my face that I can muster although I don't think that it comes across that way.
My mother glares at me hard. Her face displays a hint of disappointment, but I also know that she knows the exact reason that I am so reluctant.
As excited as I am for college, the biggest news of the summer had not been my plan to leave for school, but the progress of Andrew's trial.
Andrew has been held on no bond for the duration. Having him locked away has eased our fears a little bit, but now that the end of the trial is approaching, the possibility of him being back out on the streets has been settling like a knot high inside of my throat.
The lawyers had offered Andrew a plea deal in the beginning that would have helped him to avoid life behind bars, but the man was narcissistic enough that he still believed that he did nothing wrong and he refused to take it. He insisted that any jury would see things his way and the trial had proceeded, lasting the duration of the summer.
Andrew was facing a massive handful of both state and federal charges including attempted murder, kidnapping, false imprisonment, sexual battery, aggravated assault, and felony child endangerment. The prosecution had even thrown in a smaller handful of misdemeanors just for the sake of adding to his resume. It was more than enough that if he was charged, he would be facing life. The problem is that if he were found innocent, he would walk free with no question and that was enough to keep all of us holding our breaths.
Because me, Rachel, my mother, Quinn, and Brittany had all been sequestered as witnesses, none of us were allowed inside of the courtroom unless we were called, but the sheriff, Jon Walker who had cemented his place inside of our family's lives the day that he had saved mine and Rachel's lives has been checking in periodically and keeping us updated. The trial had gone into deliberation three days ago, which made me nervous. If I were on the jury, it would have taken me three seconds to find Andrew guilty. The longer the jury takes, the less confident that I grow. If I leave town and a day later, Andrew is found not-guilty and is back on the street, I know that I would never be able to commit to being in New York away from my family.
"Santana, you and Brittany are leaving for New York tomorrow. You do realize that, right?" my mother asks me, the disappointment laced on her tongue. She has been nervous about the outcome of the trial, too. I can tell even though she is trying to put a confident face on for the sake of Rachel and I.
The original plan had been for her and Rachel to come with me to New York in order to help me move in and see me off, but with the jury verdict still looming and Vocal Adrenaline's summer break coming to an end to start preparing for the upcoming school year, there is no way that my mother could find the time for the trip. Instead, Brittany and I would be loading up Brittany's brand-new SUV which her parents had gotten her as a graduation present after her Explorer had been totaled and would be driving to New York ourselves.
After Rachel had turned fifteen and a half in June and was able to get her driver's license, my mother had forced me to go get mine as well, citing that she was tired of driving me everywhere when other kids my age had been driving themselves for years. Even though I wouldn't need a car in New York, and Brittany's parents would be flying into the city to meet us and take her car home, I was excited about the prospect of having a couple of hours alone in a car with my girlfriend before I would have to share her with the eight million other people in New York.
"We'll stop her from procrastinating, Mrs. C," Brittany informs my mother pointedly, jumping up from the couch and dragging Rachel with her.
"I want that car packed by dinner time, Santana!" my mother calls after me as the three of us race up the stairs.
"Why do I have to help?" Rachel groans as she follows Brittany and I up the stairs.
"Because Santana doesn't know how to decorate a room," Brittany laughs, pushing inside of my bedroom, which is still the same color of navy that it was when we had moved in which seems to prove Brittany's point. "At least now if she tries to pack that disgusting tapestry, I have somebody to back me up when I tell her how ugly it is. Besides, if I'm going to be spending all of my time in Santana's dorm room, then I want it to look nice."
"Ugh, please," Rachel groans, sticking out her tongue with a dramatic gag. "I'll help if only you promise to spare me the details. Seriously, and you're trying to convince me to come visit and sleep in that room? On that mattress?"
"Sorry Little S," Brittany giggles, but she doesn't sound very sorry and when I catch her sending a wink in my direction, I know that she is not.
"Your roommate is gonna hate you, San," Rachel taunts. She is standing behind me so I cannot see her face, but I can practically hear the way that her eyes roll in a complete circle around her skull.
"I'll give her the keys to my dorm," Brittany swoons, wrapping her arms around my waist and latching on tight with a sly sort of smile that makes Rachel groan again, much louder.
Before Rachel can retaliate, the doorbell rings from downstairs, which at least spares her the need to have to listen to anymore of mine and Brittany's flirting. Moments later, I hear my mother open the door and then, the familiar wail of a newborn. Quinn must be here.
Despite the blonde's earlier insistence that she could not raise a baby without being doomed to be a prisoner of north-western Ohio for the rest of her life, she had gotten one good look at her daughter and knew she would never be able to let her go.
Maybe it had something to do with the level of emotion of the night, or maybe it was the conversation with Rachel and my mother while I had been splayed out on the operating table. Whatever it was, Quinn had turned a disappointed adoption agency away and, four months later, we all observed that motherhood actually looks good on Quinn.
She had named her little girl Lucy, not after herself but as a testament to the girl that an autocratic upbringing hadn't let her be. It served to Quinn as a reminder to never resign that same fate onto her own daughter.
About a month after graduation, Noah had left for Texas where he was only a week or so away from graduating from Air Force boot camp. He sent Quinn and their daughter money as often as possible, but Quinn has been spending the summer working as a sort of assistant to my mother; a stipulation that she had worked into her Vocal Adrenaline contract, the least that they could do for a national championship show choir. Quinn worked mostly during the day, and Judy in the evenings at a restaurant in town, but every once in a while, their schedules would cross paths long enough that Rachel and I got to babysit; a task that Rachel took to much more than I did.
"It looks like you're off the hook, Aunt Rachel," I smirk at her, crossing my arms. "It sounds like Quinn can use more help down there than we do up here."
Rachel doesn't need to be told twice. "I'd rather change a diaper than help you and Brittany decorate your sex cave anyway!" she calls over her shoulder, practically skipping out of my bedroom, leaving me gaping as Brittany struggles to contain her laughter.
"She's certainly getting a personality on her," Brittany smiles at me as we hear Rachel round the bottom of the stairs and greet all three generations of Fabray woman in the foyer.
"I'd usually blame the vulgarity on Noah, but I can't even do that with him gone all summer…"
"It looks like it's all your fault then," Brittany grins, and then I feel her tug at my waist, turning to face her, reeling me in. "You know, she does have a point, though. We're better off on our own. How are we supposed to decorate our sex cave the right way if we don't test it out first?"
I hear the smile in the fuzziness of her voice as she pulls her mouth into mine. Resisting the urge to press myself further into her body, I use my foot to kick my bedroom door closed and then push Brittany furiously towards my bed.
I throw her down against the mattress before falling down on top of her where my hands immediately begin to wander, slipping underneath her shirt to begin their sneaky assault upwards. I just find the clasp of Brittany's bra when I hear little Lucy release a wail from downstairs that feels like a knife stabbing in between my ears.
"Ugh," I groan, slipping my hands out from underneath Brittany's shirt before rolling onto my back besides her. "I love that kid but I swear, having her around is the best birth control of all time."
"That doesn't mean we have to stop," Brittany pushes, turning onto her side where she pushes herself hard into me. "Or do I have to give you a little biology lesson?"
She rolls over again so that she is the one on top of me. I grin against her mouth and push my hips into hers.
"Only if you do it in real time…" I murmur around her lips.
Her mouth detaches from mine. I feel her just start to make their slow descent down the side of my neck when somebody shouts up to us from downstairs.
"Santana! Brittany! Come down here, Judy brought a pizza!"
Brittany pulls away from me with an audible groan and when her body leaves mine, I have to resist the urge to pull her back.
"Ugh," I cry. "When do we leave again."
Brittany looks at her watch. "In roughly eighteen hours."
She rolls off of the bed, straightening her clothes and her hair so that nobody will be suspicious about what we were just doing in here.
"That sex cave is starting to sound better and better," she tells me, extending her hand towards me to pull me off of the bed as well.
"Rachel is right," I laugh, accepting her hand. "My roommate is going to hate me."
We start packing the car after lunch. Rachel, Quinn, and Brittany shuttle boxes back and forth from my room to the car while my mother and Quinn's watch the baby and wisely keep their distance. Meanwhile, I fill boxes lazily, moving slower than everybody else moves them.
"You okay?" I hear a knock on my door. When I look up, I see Brittany standing in the doorway. Only then do I realize that I am standing with an empty box at me feet, stuck inside of my own head.
"Yeah," I force myself to say, pulling my head up and out of my own thoughts.
"Really?" Brittany presses, clearly not believing me as she pushes further into my room. "Do you want to tell me why you're clearly procrastinating then?"
I sigh and look up at her. I am excited about leaving for college, really I am, but only now that it is right in front of me am I starting to realize just how actively I have been avoiding the idea of leaving Rachel and my mother behind. Now, it is all I can think about.
"I'm thinking about the trial," I admit. To my surprise, Brittany doesn't look particularly shocked about the revelation.
"I figured," she nods and takes a step further into the room.
"I didn't think that it would take this long for the jury to get back," I sigh. "It's been three days. I thought that it would be no question. I thought that he'd be rotting with a life sentence by now."
"There's no way that they're letting him off, San," Brittany tries to assure me. "Sometimes it takes a while. Think about everything that the jury has to sort through, all of the testimony, all of the evidence, all of the charges… It's a lot."
"I keep seeing him inside of that courtroom," I tell Brittany.
The last time that I had seen Andrew was when I had been called to testify against him just after graduation. It had been almost two months since the accident and most of the cuts and bruises had cleared from his face but his arm had been so badly broken that it was still wrapped tight inside of layers of bandages and stuck into his chest with a sling.
His lawyer had stuck him in a suit and tie. His hair had been cut short and his face freshly shaven. The one or two times that I had actually heard him speak, he had been articulate and polite. He put on a pleasant demeanor, but I saw the way that he was staring at me while I had been testifying, with a look like I had really done it this time. If he ever saw the light of day again, he would kill me. And he wouldn't mess it up this time.
It had taken a long time for me to get through my entire testimony. The prosecutors who had called me to testify had made me go through my life with Andrew from beginning to end. Afterwards, the defense had their opportunity with me where they attempted to pin the blame on me, insisting that if Andrew was as bad as we were claiming, Rachel and I would have come forward sooner.
I remember how I felt on the stand. I remember feeling like I was in a sauna, I was so hot. All of the eyes that were on me felt like tiny pinpricks.
I remember how determined I was not to cry and how close I had come to failing, especially when I thought about Rachel – who had testified the week before me – sitting in front of this same defense lawyer, having to listen him tell her that it was her fault that Andrew had done everything that he had done to her.
We were all sequestered as witnesses, which meant that I could not watch Rachel's testimony. Not even my mother was allowed in the courtroom with Rachel. When I had asked her about how it went, she wouldn't talk about it and that scared me because that must mean that it had been very, very bad.
"He was putting his best show on, Brittany," I tell her, clenching my teeth. "I've seen him use his charm to get out of things before."
"He sweet-talked his way into your life, Santana, but he won't be able to fool a judge. He won't be able to fool an entire jury."
"What was he like when you saw him?" I ask, ignoring her assurance. She only shrugs at me.
"Honestly, I tried to avoid looking at him as much as possible," she tells me. "Have you talked to your mom about any of this?"
"She doesn't want me to worry but I don't think that either one of us expected this to take so long," I sigh. "What if I leave tomorrow to go to New York and the verdict comes back and Andrew is back on the street? I can't leave them in that kind of danger."
"Your mom has to have a plan…"
"She'll have to move," I tell her. "We already talked about it. Rachel and Quinn seem very determined to finish high school in Lima but he found us here once. If he is back on the streets, she'll have to leave Ohio."
"Where will she go?"
"New York or just outside of it," I tell her. We had talked about this before. While we had all decided that Rachel and my mother would stay in Lima until Rachel finished high school, if Andrew was found innocent and went back out on the street, we would have no choice.
"It sounds like you have to talk to Rachel about this one, Santana," Brittany tells me. I nod my head sadly but I have tried to talk to Rachel about it before. Understandably, she has been distant when it comes to this topic. I have been trying to get her to talk to me about it all summer and she has been avoiding it at all costs. Now, on the last day that I have to say something, I know that I am going to have to try harder.
My head is spinning with all of the questions that remain unanswered. I glance up over Brittany's shoulder, looking out of my window and towards the sky as though it could possibly give me a sign from up above but when I do, I realize that it isn't the sky that my answer is coming from, but the walkway up to my house where a man is making his way up to the front door. I follow his path back to the street where there is a sheriff's car parked and feel my heart seize.
Sheriff Walker has become an important ally for us in recent months. Besides the constant updates from the trial, he had also vouched for my mother when Lucy and CPS had inevitably come calling again. I know that there are only two possible reasons that he has showed up here today. Either he is coming to check in on us or the verdict is in. I am hoping for the latter.
"Sheriff Walker is here," I manage to get the words out to Brittany but I do not wait for her response. Instead, I peel out of my bedroom, barreling down the stairs just as my mother is opening the front door for him.
"Jon, hi," she greets him. Her voice is tight. I can tell that she is wondering whether the verdict is in as much as I am.
"Shelby," he nods, stepping into the foyer where he immediately spots me on the stairs and Brittany, coming in slower behind me. "Santana, Brittany, how are you girls?"
I swallow but I cannot seem to produce any sound, my throat is so dry.
"We're fine, thanks," Brittany manages for the both of us.
Rachel emerges out from behind the dining room to see what all of the commotion is about. Quinn is following. Rachel is holding onto little Lucy now, the designated babysitter after Judy had to leave for work. The tiny girl is wide awake and alert. Even she seems to be staring at the sheriff waiting for answers as she is bounced gently inside of Rachel's arms.
"Wow, you have a full house today, Shelby," the man comments, removing his hat and holding it close to his chest.
"Brittany and Santana are packing," my mother explains. "They leave for New York tomorrow."
"That's a big day," the sheriff comments to us. Before his eyes leave to find Rachel and Quinn, I notice a terrible sadness inside of them which makes me nervous. "Rachel, Jonathan says hello."
I watch color creep into my sister's cheeks and for a moment, I forget about why I was so nervous about Sheriff Walker being here in the first place and scowl. First Finn and now the sheriff's son? I am really going to have to talk to Rachel about her taste in boys. Or lack thereof.
"Tell him I say hi too, Mr. Walker," Rachel tells him with a mousy sort of voice that makes me have to resist rolling my eyes.
"How many times do I have to tell you, Rachel, it's Jon." The man has told my sister this every single time he has seen her since the day that he had come to check on the two of us in the hospital the day after I had been shot but as far as I know, she still hasn't been able to bring herself to do it.
"Is the verdict in?" I finally find my voice, breaking through the small talk because I can't stand to wait anymore. "Is that why you're here?"
The man looks at me sadly for a moment and I panic because I am afraid that that look is because the verdict is in and that I am not going to like what it is. But then, he shakes his head no and the disappointment rises inside of me all over again.
"No, no verdict," he tells me. "Actually, Shelby, I was wondering if I might be able to speak with you privately for a moment."
The man's tune changes immediately, cutting straight to business. My mother's brow creases curiously.
"Sure," she says. "Excuse us girls."
The four of us give them their privacy, retreating back into the dining room so that my mother and Sheriff Walker can speak in the foyer. Of course, all four of us shove into the doorway trying and probably failing not to make it obvious that we are trying to eavesdrop.
"What do you think that's about?" Rachel asks in a whisper.
"No idea," I shrug, disappointed when I find that the sheriff and my mother are talking low enough that we cannot hear them from this distance. "They're probably talking about how to stop you from having a crush on that stoner loser Jonathan."
I can't help the quip and watch Rachel's face turn bright pink as she attempts to hide it behind the baby.
"I do not," she hisses back at me but before I can say anything back to her, I see the way that my mother's face falls from across the room and my gut sinks.
My mother is giving off a look of pure distress. Her arms are crossed defensively over her chest and her eyes are emotional as she weaves her fingers through her hair in that distinct nervous habit she has come to develop over the last several months. Is it possible that the jury had come back after all and Sheriff Walker simply hadn't wanted to tell us that Andrew was found innocent until our mother knew first?
My mother is the first to spot the four of us staring. We are not even bothering to try to hide it anymore, desperate for answers. When she sees what we are doing, her entire body somehow sinks further. She turns to Jon and presses a gentle hand down on his shoulder.
I need to talk to them alone. I see her lips move and read the words formed perfectly off of them. The blonde man nods his head and turns over his shoulder towards the direction that my mother is looking. When he sees all four of us staring, understanding seems to dawn inside of his eyes. He lets himself out with a wave. I do not hesitate to scramble towards my mother, searching for answers and hear the rest of my friends scramble along behind me.
"What happened?" I ask, skidding to a halt in front of her. "Was it the jury?"
My mother scans all four of our faces before shaking her head quietly. "No, it wasn't."
"Maybe Quinn and I should leave…" Brittany suggests. There is a clear sense of discomfort in the air now like it has been physically charged by Sheriff Walker's presence. Brittany and Quinn both look like they feel extremely out of place here, like they are afraid that they are interfering with something that they shouldn't be. My mother shakes her head at them, squashing that rumor quickly.
"No, Brittany, you and Quinn are both in this too. You have every right to know what happened." She pauses, taking a deep breath that lets the anxiety from all of this mystery stream even longer. She had said that there hadn't been any jury verdict but clearly, this had to do something with Andrew and I don't know what else it can possibly be. The distress inside of my mother's expression is making the stress pulse inside of my temples.
"Girls, Andrew was found dead in his jail cell this morning."
"What?" I ask quickly before her words really even have a chance to settle. Out of all of the things that I had been expecting her to say to us, this may have been the last.
For a long time, I don't process the news. I don't think that anybody else does either because a silence blankets the house like a thick covering of snow. It just doesn't seem possible. After all of this, how am I supposed to believe that it had all just ended for us, just like that?
"They think it was a suicide," my mother continues. "They said that his wrists were cut."
"H-how could that happen?" I hear my sister push out the question. When I turn to look at her, her face is sheet white. She looks sad in a way that only Rachel could be after hearing that a man who has hurt her so badly met his end the way that he did. "He was in prison. Wasn't anybody watching him?"
"I don't know how it happened, Rachel," my mother sighs. "They're going to do an investigation. Jon promised to keep me updated."
"But what about the trial?" I ask. Although the answer seems obvious now that Andrew is gone, I am having a difficult time believing that not five minutes ago I had been panicking about what the outcome of this trial would be. The idea that there would now be no outcome at all now seems like a cheap finish to a never-ending movie. This is it. It's over.
"It will be thrown out," my mother confirms and I feel myself gape at her.
"You mean to tell me that we did all of that for nothing?" I ask, stunned. I think about all of the pain that this trial had brought us. It had hurt so badly to have to sit up on that stand and recall my entire experience with Andrew. I know that it had hurt for Quinn and Brittany and my mother as well and although Rachel didn't talk about it, as the centerfold of this trial, I know that it must have been the worst for her.
I feel rage boil inside of me. I wonder if Andrew knew that he was going to end his own life from the beginning but had decided to screw with our lives one last time by having us all go through the process of trial, walk inside of that courtroom and force us to talk about the worst days of our lives when we were so desperately trying to move past them.
"It wasn't for nothing," my mother insists. "You girls stood up for yourselves in a federal courtroom and spoke up for what is right. That wasn't easy. That isn't nothing. You should all be very proud of yourselves."
"But he won't even be punished!" I insist. Despite my mother's insistence, it is not pride that I feel bubbling up inside of the surface of my stomach. Instead, it is confusion and resentment and a million other emotions that I cannot even place right now. Like so many other times that I find I am feeling too many things to sort, I feel my reaction swelter dangerously.
"He's gone Santana," my mother tells me with a tone that sounds like a desperate plea for me to calm down. She doesn't want me to do this here, not in front of our friends and certainly not in front of Rachel.
"What a coward," I feel myself mutter despite my mother's plea as I cross my arms in front of my chest.
"Are you girls okay?" she ignores my quip and blinks up at all four of us, scanning our faces in an effort to read our emotions.
"He's dead," I shrug, mostly just to test that truth out against my tongue. He is gone and although I wish that it had happened before he had managed to destroy our lives so thoroughly, I find that maybe this is a sign that there really is a cosmic wheel of justice somewhere out there. Maybe this is what retribution is supposed to feel like. "I feel a lot better."
My mother closes her eyes, trying desperately to ignore my comment as she turns towards my sister behind me.
"Rachel?"
I turn towards my sister. She looks genuinely frightened, upset in a way that would never suggest that there had once been a time that she had to be talked down from shooting Andrew herself. I wonder if that has anything to do with her reaction. I wonder what it must feel like to spare a man's life only to have that same man turn around and take it himself. I try to think back to the time that I had held a gun up to Andrew's head and threatened to shoot him. I try to think back to all of the times that I laid awake at night wishing he were dead but I find that it makes no difference in my opinion.
"Did he have a family?" I hear my sister ask in a soft voice.
"I don't know, Rachel." I can tell that my mother is thinking the exact same thing that I am. She cannot believe that her daughter is asking about the well-being of Andrew's family and friends – should they exist – while she is struggling not to look too relieved towards the news that we never have to worry about him ever again.
"What are they going to do with his body if he doesn't?"
"Honey, I don't know," my mother sighs. "That's not our responsibility."
"They can throw it in the river for all I care," I interject with my own personal opinion, crossing my arms tight over my chest as though to prove my honesty.
"Santana," my mother's voice is stern, desperate. When I look at her, her eyes are begging me to cooperate, to keep my opinions to myself for right now. "Please, you're not helping."
"So we're just supposed to forget about all of the things that he did to us now just because he's dead?"
"I know what he did," my mother assures me. "And I'm not going to forget. This has been a very long year for all of us. Nobody expected it to end in the way that it did, but despite everything that Andrew has done, it's okay to have feelings about his death. It's okay to be upset."
"Well, I don't feel anything," I interject although I know that I have already made this opinion known. My mother closes her eyes at my lack of cooperation again but chooses to ignore me. When she opens her eyes again, she is looking straight past me, towards our two friends who are still looking remarkably uncomfortable.
"Brittany? Quinn? Are you girls alright?" my mother asks them gently.
"Yeah, Mrs. C," Brittany answers for the both of them but it is with a meek voice that tells me that she, like my sister, is experiencing some unexpected emotions regarding Andrew's death. Apparently, I am the only one here who remembers a time when he had literally almost killed every single person standing inside of this room.
"I'm gonna call your parents okay? Let them know what's going on. I'll be right back."
My mother turns past us and pushes further into the house in search of her cell phone, leaving the four of us standing silently in the cramped foyer. Even baby Lucy seems to recognize that something is wrong because she is just staring with wide, alert eyes without making so much as a peep.
"Wow…" Brittany is the one to break the silence. She is good in situations like this. She has built her entire reputation around mastering awkward small talk. "I can't believe that he's gone."
"Me neither, but I'm with Santana on this one," Quinn interjects. "He almost killed all of us. We are literally standing on the spot where Santana almost bled to death because of him. We were hoping that he would be in jail for the rest of his life, but isn't this kind of the same thing? I'm not sad about it."
"I don't think that I'm sad that he's gone," Brittany clarifies. "I think that it's more of a disbelief."
"I'm sad about it," Rachel informs us, silencing us immediately. "I'm sad that he's dead and I'm sad that his entire life had to be the way that it was. That's his story now. That's it."
All of us stare at Rachel, none of us saying a word. She had inarguably suffered the worst under Andrew's hands yet is still somehow the only one willing to be honest about her feelings towards not only how Andrew died, but how he had lived as well.
"I'm gonna go put Lucy down for a nap," she sighs after none of us have anything left to say and turns further into the house before any of us can say a word, leaving us stunned stupidly in her wake.
"Maybe we shouldn't leave tomorrow after all," Brittany breathes after a moment. She sounds as frightened for Rachel as I feel which is part of the reason why I love her so much.
"No, you should," Quinn insists. "Rachel is going to be fine. This just has to sink in for her. It has to sink in for all of us."
"She just looked so upset…"
"Wouldn't you be?" Quinn asks. "That man tortured her for months. We only had one bad night with him. It must be confusing. I'm gonna go talk to her."
Quinn pushes past the two of us towards the direction that Rachel just left in. I know that I should probably follow. I know that I have more of a sense of obligation to talk to Rachel than Quinn does, but Rachel is upset and I am upset and seeing how I am not about to take back what I said about my feelings regarding Andrew's death, I feel as though I am not the best person to talk her down right now. Thank God for Quinn.
"I wish that there was something that I could do," Brittany breathes into the air behind me as Quinn disappears around the corner.
"Invent a time machine?" I suggest with a shallow laugh. I am trying desperately to lighten the mood a little because this entire day seems to have flipped abruptly upside down on its head but I find that not even I am in the mood for cheering up and my face sinks all over again.
"Are you sure you still wanna leave tomorrow?" Brittany asks me, registering the way that my entire body seems to fall.
"No," I admit. "But I think that Quinn is right. Rachel will be fine, we all will be fine. All of this just needs to settle. Sitting here isn't going to help."
Brittany looks at me uncertainly. Quietly, I am thinking the same thing. I want desperately to believe the words that are coming out of my own mouth, but the reality is that the only thing that I can do is hope to God that I am right.
I lay wide-awake in my bed, pretending to sleep. The full moon is streaming through the window and I pretend that the light of it is the real reason that I cannot fall asleep when I know well enough to know the truth.
When I hear a soft knock on my door, I realize immediately that I am not the only one in this house tonight whose thoughts are keeping her up at night.
I sit up inside of my bed and look towards the door, waiting for it to open. I know that it's Rachel even before I see her pale circle of a face poking inside, quietly checking to see if I, like her, was struggling with the concept of sleep.
"Santana?" she whispers into the darkness. "Are you up?"
I am surprised that she is coming to me, especially so late. I had made more than one mental note to talk to her earlier, but the day had proven chaotic and I hadn't exactly gotten around to it. Instead, Brittany and I had finished packing reluctantly on our own while Quinn talked Rachel down from whatever emotional stronghold Andrew's death was holding over her. I kept my distance while my head flip-flopped relentlessly about whether or not it was the right move to leave for New York in the morning. I had been doing this for weeks only this time, it is not the fear of Andrew's return that was leaving me hesitant, but the fear that his death would leave Rachel in an emotionally vulnerable state that I didn't want her to experience alone.
Our opinions on the scope of whether or not this can be considered a tragedy differed so much that I didn't even think that she would want to talk to me about it, yet here she is. I have never felt so relieved.
"Yeah," I call out to her and that is all the invitation that she needs. Rachel bounces inside of my room. She is still several feet away from my bed when she launches herself into the air like Superman and flies right into my side where she belongs.
I move over to make room for her. It's been a long time since Rachel and I have done this. While I was recovering, my mother had set the couch up downstairs for me to sleep on so that I wouldn't have to crutch up and down the stairs. Sometimes, Rachel would sleep on the Lazy Boy next to the couch and watch movies with me until I fell asleep, but that is the closest that we have come for a long time.
We used to do this a lot. I think back to when everything had started with Andrew. She used to sleep inside of my bed with me every single night, pressed hard into my body, certain beyond a reasonable doubt that I would protect her. I think about how much has happened since then, how much has changed. We have come so far, all of us, but on this front, I am glad that some things never change.
"You couldn't sleep either?" Rachel asks me, cutting through the quiet.
"No," I sigh. "I've just got too much on my mind, I guess."
"Me too," Rachel agrees.
"What are you thinking about?" I ask her, turning onto my side so that I can look right at her.
"That I can't believe you're leaving tomorrow," she admits to me. "That I'm going to miss you so much. I don't know how I'm going to survive with you gone."
"You'll be fine," I promise, and now with the threat of Andrew gone, I really do mean that. "You have Quinn and mom and I'm only a phone call away if you really need me, too. Plus, I'll be home for Thanksgiving and for Christmas and come summer time, you'll be stuck with me for months probably wishing that I was out of your hair."
"I'd never wish that," she murmurs, inching closer into me like she is trying to hold onto this moment while she still has it, like she is never going to have it again. She is talking like after tomorrow, she is never going to see me again. I wonder if she is thinking about how Andrew is gone and about how I am leaving and if she is having a hard time in her emotional state discerning the two situations which makes me wonder, not for the first time, if leaving tomorrow is really the best idea.
"Maybe I should hold off leaving for a few more days," I voice my opinions out-loud, reopening the suggestion. "Just until things calm down around here."
"No, you shouldn't," Rachel rejects the idea immediately and her reaction seems genuine and determined. "Seriously, Santana, you can't do that. Andrew is out of our lives forever now. We're free from him. That means no more holding back on account of him. He's taken enough from us."
It sounds almost forced, like as much as she knows that it is the truth, she is having a difficult time believing even herself. I think back to her reaction earlier, to how upset she had been and how disagreeable I had been with her when all that she needed at the time was a little bit of understanding. I wonder if this is the reason that she is pushing for me to leave tomorrow. My heart breaks at the mere thought of her thinking that I can't help her anyway.
"Are you sure?" I ask her and when I see her eyes darken slightly before she turns away from me, I feel my stomach drop.
"Earlier, I was thinking about all of the times that I used to stay up at night wishing that he was dead," Rachel admits to me with an air of guilt inside of her voice. "Now that he is, I'm staying up at night wondering why the hell he did it. I can't stop wondering if somehow all of those things make this my fault."
I breathe heavily through Rachel's guilt. My little sister has always had a tendency to harbor emotions that were much bigger than her. From her Broadway dreams to wondering whether or not she was somehow responsible for her abuser's suicide, she has spent her entire life bearing the weight of the world on her back. Rachel feels so much that most of the time, it is difficult to believe that she is only fifteen years old. She shouldn't have to be wondering about things like this or feeling the feelings that she is and I feel myself pull her in subconsciously closer as though closing the physical gap between us might be able to squeeze some of those emotions out of her and onto me. I would gladly bear them if it meant freeing Rachel from them for just a moment.
"He had a lot of problems, Rach," I tell her, stating the obvious. "Even before he met us, he had a lot of problems. He carried them around with him throughout his entire life and never got the help that he needed and it caught up to him. I'm sorry that his problems had to become our problems, but it happened and even though I don't know why it had to, I do know this: you have absolutely nothing to feel guilty about. Not today, not ever."
"I just wish that it could have been different," Rachel sighs. "I guess I just thought that I would be happier about this. Does that make me a horrible person?"
She asks me the question and I feel myself deflate. After everything that Andrew had put Rachel through, she still manages to cling to her remorse and her sadness and confusion. Meanwhile, I have been doing nothing but celebrating ever since I heard the news. If anything, I think that that makes me the horrible person.
"No," I tell her defiantly. "It makes you human, Rach and that is what has always separated you from Andrew. It's what always will."
"I just wish that I could feel more like you do. You don't seem that upset."
It's not an accusation but it hits me like one. It is difficult to see Rachel this confused about how to feel. She has always been so good when it comes to processing her emotions, organizing them and understanding each one individually. Eventually, it got to the point where this became so painful that she decided that it was simply easier not to feel at all. I haven't seen her put up this type of shield in months and watching her struggle with it again is painful to see. It brings up so many terrible memories. It was up to me to help her and instead, I had let myself say things that I didn't mean in front of a sister who deserved so much more. I frown and try my hardest to be honest with myself if only for her sake.
"I don't know what to feel yet," I finally admit to her, finally admit to myself. "I know that I acted like I didn't care earlier, Rachel and to be honest with you, I'm not sad that he's gone. I'm not sad that I'm not going to have to stay awake at night terrified that he is going to show back up to our house and hurt you and mom while I'm six hundred miles away in New York. I'm not sad that in thirty, or forty, or even fifty years, I won't have to worry about him getting out of prison to come after you again. But I am sad. I'm sad that he didn't want more out of his life than this. I'm sad that his tragedy had to become ours, too. I'm sad that things had to turn out the way that they did. I'm just sad. Does that make sense?"
"I think so…" Rachel breathes. "I don't think that I know what I'm feeling yet, either. I guess I just can't believe that it's finally over."
"It will never be over," I sigh and I know that we both know that that is the truth. What happened to us will be with us for the rest of our lives but for the first time, I am starting to think that maybe this will not always be a bad thing.
Like Rachel said earlier, Andrew has taken enough from us already. What he did to us is going to stay with us for the rest of our lives but now that he is gone, the only thing that is left to do is move forward, move upward. Tomorrow, I would be leaving for college despite wondering if this day would ever come a couple of months ago. New York would be an entirely new world for me and in a couple of years, Rachel would follow and I can guarantee that she will have that city in the palm of her hand the second that she crosses the border. She would not be held back by what Andrew did to her. She would not be held back by anything. If anything, her experience would only make her move faster and I knew that if Rachel could do it, then so could I.
"I keep thinking about that night on the golf course," Rachel breathes after a moment and I feel myself stiffen to attention because she has never talked about this night with me. Never. "They kept asking me about it at the trial. The prosecution was trying to use it as a way to prove how screwed up Andrew made me, the defense was trying to spin it to prove I lacked any credibility. Both of their arguments hurt to hear. I wanted to tell the prosecutor that Andrew didn't screw me up, that I am still me and nothing would change that. But then he asked if I really wanted Andrew dead and when I thought about it, I realized in that moment that I did. I really did. That is when I started to think that maybe he really did screw me up more than I thought he did."
"Rachel…" I breathe, but she shakes her head at me, indicating that she is not finished yet and I grow quiet, waiting for her to finish telling her story.
"That night, while I had the gun on Andrew, everybody kept trying to talk me down. They kept telling me that it wasn't worth it. They kept telling me that the police would take care of Andrew, that this was over. I didn't believe them. I didn't care if he was going to spend the rest of his life in jail, I wanted him dead because I thought that he killed you. The last thing that I saw was you bleeding on the floor and I was so sure that you were dead that I knew the only way to get him back was to kill him too. Then mom told me that you weren't dead and everything changed. It still scares me how close I came to shooting him that night, but you were the one who made the difference, San. I know that it hasn't been just the two of us in a long time, but that night, it was. In a way, I guess that's what it always boils down to."
I smile at her through the darkness. I wonder if she knows that the fact that she can even sit here and be so honest with me after everything that she has been through, after everything that I had put her through is enough proof that she is going to be just fine. She has changed so much in the last year and while I wish that it didn't have to have happened the way that it did, her strength is unparalleled. Watching her grow into the person that she has become, watching her mold relationships not just with other people, but with me and our mother as well has been incredible. Because of Rachel, we have all become better, not because of our circumstances, but in spite of them.
"You're incredible, do you know that?" I breathe after a moment and I can see her blush even through the dark.
"I learned from the best," she nudges me, never able to take a compliment when I give it to her despite her ability to absolutely absorb them from anybody else.
I wrap my arm around her shoulder and pull her in close although I do not say anything. I don't have to. I think about how long that it had just been the two of us, the roles that we have always played amongst each other and how much they have changed over the last year. I always knew how much Rachel meant to me, but that was especially true after we almost lost each other. I was going to miss her like hell while I was away at college, but I am not worried about her. Somehow, I am starting to understand that I never had to be.
So much has changed in the last year yet at the same time, so much more has stayed exactly the same. The two of us laying here together tonight, just like we used to do when we were so much younger – and not just in terms of years – proves that.
I feel her fall asleep with her head against my shoulder after a while and make it a point to stay awake for a couple of minutes longer after she is out, committed to remembering that no matter what happens, I would forever be my little sister's watcher if only it meant that she could dance forever.
