CHAPTER TWO
"Me and My Broken Heart"
Lopez Residence: Saturday, June 27
Her eyes fluttered open to a dark room. The blinds were drawn. The night light was unplugged from the wall. The only light came from underneath the bathroom door. She rolled over and reached for her phone sitting on the table beside her bed. When the screen lit up, she recoiled like a vampire confronted with a crucifix. It took a few moments for her eyes to adjust to the bright light emitting from the screen.
"Mija," her mother called from the other side of the door. "I've got someone who wants to see you."
Santana sat up suddenly and flicked on the small blue lamp next to her bed. A warm glow filled the room. She flung the covers back and saw that she was wearing a gray Buckeyes T-shirt and a pair of ratty boy shorts. She used the back of her hand to wipe the dried sleep from her eyes. She drew in a deep breath and then let it go before she looked over at her bedroom door.
"I'm not feeling well," she managed to croak out. It wasn't exactly a lie. Whatever it was she'd last ate or drank had her tummy all in knots. She felt under the pillow next to her until her fingers made contact with a half empty plastic water bottle. She unscrewed the lid and finished off the bottle before returning it to its hiding spot.
There were voices on the other side of the door, one of them being her mother's. She couldn't make out who the second person was. She'd only been home for a day and the half and the only people who even knew she was in town was her mom.
There was a knock at the door followed by the sound of the knob turning. Santana opened her mouth to say that she was undressed, in hopes of deterring whoever was about to enter her room, but it was too late. The door slowly creaked open to reveal Dave standing in the doorway. His chest filled the short-sleeved red shirt he was wearing nicely. The top two buttons were undone revealing a thin splatter of chest hair. His massive thighs threatened to pop the seam of his madras shorts.
He took a tentative step inside the bedroom and closed the door behind him. He moved to stand at the end of her bed, his arms crossed over his chest. The veins crisscrossing his arms were quite prominent. His hair had gotten considerably longer, nearly grazing his massive shoulders, since the last time she'd seen him. Was that a dragon tattoo on his leg? And the Magnum PI mustache was kind of working for him.
In other words – Dave Karofsky was hot AF.
"What are you doing here?" she asked pulling her covers up to her chin.
"You weren't answering my texts," he said. "So, I called Brittany and she said she hadn't heard from you as well." Dave moved over to stand next to her. "I called your mom and she told me you were back in Lima."
She rolled her eyes and said, "I decided to come home for the weekend. Didn't think it would be that big of a deal."
Dave sighed. "Tana, what's going on? It's not like you to go radio silent. Especially with me."
"I don't wanna talk about it." With that she pulled the covers over her head.
"Nope," Dave said. "We're not doing this." He walked back to the end of her bed and yanked the comforter off in one fell swoop. He then looked around and said, "This place is a mess." His eyes went back to her and asked, "When's the last time you showered?"
She sat ramrod straight against the headboard of her bed with her arms folded over her chest. She shot one of her infamous death stares in his direction. Dave ignored her and looked down at something on the floor. He crouched down, picked it up, and then stood back up. He looked at the empty food container in his hand and then over at her with a look of disgust plastered on his face.
"You're judging me," she whined as she looked down at her lap. "We promised we would never do that to each other."
"I'm not judging you," he said sitting the container down on top of her dresser. He looked back over at her and frowned. "I'm worried about you." He swallowed back the lump in his throat. "I always pick up the phone for you, no matter how I'm feeling. Always." He chewed the inside of his cheek for a moment as he tried to compose himself. "When you didn't respond – when you didn't answer my call -."
He didn't need to finish the sentence. The last time she hadn't answered his phone call was three years ago. Dave had only called three people that afternoon. Kurt. Azimio Adams. And her. Neither of them had bothered to answer.
Santana flung both legs out of bed and stood up. She carefully moved over to where he was standing and threw her arms around him his neck. She folded her body around his like a cocoon and squeezed him as hard as she could muster. He placed his chin in the crook of her neck and she thought she could feel something damp against the side of her face. He eventually relented and placed his arms around her tiny waist. The two of them stood at the foot of her bed holding onto each other as if the universe depended on it.
"I'm so sorry," she whispered, her fingers biting into his upper back.
"It's okay," he muttered into her shoulder.
"No," she said. She pulled back a bit so that she could look him dead in the eye. She shook her head and said, "It's not okay. I should have picked up." She cleared her throat and used the sleeve of her T-shirt to wipe at the tears staining her face. "I guess I owe you an explanation."
"It can wait," he said. "First -." He walked over to the door in the corner of the room and opened it. "You need to get in the shower ASAP."
Santana frowned and lifted her arm. She sniffed at her right armpit and asked, "Do I really smell that bad?"
"The answer is yes. Now scoot. Hope you have enough shampoo and conditioner to tame that rat's nest on top of your head."
"Asshole," she hissed as she squeezed past him through the doorway.
"You love me," he said right as she slammed the door in his face.
Santana got a glimpse of herself in the mirror and shook her head. Dave was right. Her hair was a mess. There was dried up drool along her jaw. The T-shirt she was wearing was stained with something she hoped was mustard. She stepped over to the tub in the corner of the room and turned on the showerhead. She set the water temp to scalding and immediately shed her clothes. She stepped underneath the spray and immediately felt all the tension leave her body.
After several cycles of lather, rinse, repeat and a thorough washing of her hair, she shut off the showerhead and stepped out onto the red bathmat. She wiped the fog away from the mirror above the sink with the sleeve of her terry cloth bathrobe and confronted her reflection once more. She looked slightly more human than she did about ten minutes ago. She opened the top drawer and pulled out her hairdryer. Her regular hairdryer was in her dorm room back in Ohio and this one she hadn't used since high school. She plugged it in and was relieved when it turned on.
After blow-drying, brushing, and flat ironing her hair, she finally felt brave enough to look in the mirror once more. Her hair had gotten considerably long as well over the last several months. With bone-straight hair, she looked like 60s-era Cher. The bronze highlights had been her roommate's suggestion as well as the butterfly tattoo on her left shoulder.
Ten minutes later she emerged from the bathroom feeling a little less like she'd been hit by a Mack truck. She tightened the belt on her robe as she looked around the room. In the short time she'd been pulling herself together, Dave had managed to make her bed, pick up the clothes off the floor, and throw away any empty food containers and drink bottles. He'd even laid out some clean clothes for her to put on.
"I appreciate you doing all of this." She quickly pulled on the gray sweatpants and her favorite McKinley sweatshirt, careful not to mess up her hair. She grabbed a hair tie off the top of her dresser and used it to pull her hair back into a sleek ponytail. "That's better," she whispered.
"Tana," Dave spoke from the other side of the room. She noticed he was standing with his back to her, next to her closet. He slowly turned around and held up something in his hand. It was a small box. A small red box with the logo of her Uncle Reggie's jewelry store on the side of it.
Santana felt her heart break all over again. What little warmth she had in her body disappeared as the blood in her veins turned cold. She couldn't help but stare at the tiny red box in his hand.
"What's this?" Dave asked in a voice that indicated he knew exactly what it was but needed to hear it confirmed out loud.
"It's a -." She coughed until she was able to clear her throat. "It's a ring, Dave. An engagement ring."
Dave's eyes went wide as he looked from her to the box and then back to her. "Excuse me?"
"I'm sending it back," she said. "My uncle says he'll give me a full refund. I doubt he'll ever do business with me again."
Dave held his hand up to stop her from saying anything more. "Hold on," he said. "Back up a bit. This -." He looked once more at the box in his hand. "Is an engagement ring? Does that mean you asked Brittany to marry you?"
"I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want to be with you forever."
"I can't."
I can't.
I can't.
I can't.
"Yes," she blurted. "I asked her to marry me a few days ago."
"And -."
Santana sighed and rolled her eyes. "Well, you tell me, Dave. You're standing there with the ring in your hand. What does that tell you?"
Dave audibly gasped and immediately clasped his hand over his mouth. He shook his head.
"Don't look so shocked." Santana muttered. "I guess karma finally made it back around to bite me in the ass."
"Did she give you a reason why?"
"No. Can't say I really gave her a chance to. The moment she said 'no', I got out of there and haven't seen or talked to her since."
"Oh, Tana," Dave sighed. "I am so sorry. This is … shit."
"Yes, shit is the best word to describe all of this. The last several days have been nothing but shit."
Dave gave her the most pitiful look. He then moved over towards her bed with the energy of someone who weighed at least three times his size. He took a seat on the side closest to the door and patted the spot beside him.
Santana briefly considered high tailing it downstairs, hopping into her car, and getting as far away from Lima as possible. She decided her friendship with Dave could not handle one more instance of her avoiding him, so she willed her limbs in the direction of where he was sitting. She dropped down in the spot next to him and made a sputtering noise with her mouth.
"You definitely don't smell like a dumpster anymore," he said quietly.
"Ugh, seriously?" She balled up her fist as tight as she could and punched him in his left arm. He didn't even budge. She jerked her hand away and wiggled her fingers. She winced a bit and shot a glare in his direction. Dave seemed otherwise unbothered as he stared at the collage of photos taped to the wall in front of them.
Most of them had been taken throughout high school; a few of them were from college. Santana with the rest of the glee club at Nationals. Santana standing at the top of the Empire State Building with Rachel and Kurt. Santana and Dave on one of their many hiking trips at Camp Black Bear. Santana looked absolutely breathtaking in every single photograph.
Her eyes zeroed in at the centermost one. The picture had been taken towards the end of senior year. The red dress she wore in the photo fit her body like a glove. Brittany looked amazing as well standing next to her in front of a dinosaur-themed background wearing a white tuxedo jacket with matching hat with an ice blue dress underneath.
What an eventful evening. Quinn got out of her wheelchair after weeks of being paralyzed. Rachel won prom queen – with a little help. Finn got kicked out of prom for the second time. Oh, and Santana had lost out on being crowned prom queen for the second year in a row.
Santana looked over at Dave with a weary look on her face. "So, where shall I begin?"
Dave met her gaze and offered her a weak smile. "At the beginning, I reckon."
Her shoulders slumped a bit as she wracked her brain for all the important details of the past several weeks. "It started on Mother's Day." Dave nodded giving her permission to continue. "Usually, me and my mom and my dad go to abuela's for Mother's Day. Ever since Mom and Dad split up, my mom and I – we've carried on the tradition. My abuela has always liked my mom and even took her side during the divorce. My dad was pissed.
"Anyways, we head over to my abuela's and the everything is going pretty okay. We have lunch, like usual. My mom and abuela open their cards." Santana lifted her head to look at Dave. She returned his smile and said, "It actually felt like old times."
Dave reached between the two of them and grabbed her hand. He gave it a comforting squeeze.
"I actually thought that after everything we'd been through that she'd finally gotten over me being … gay. We almost went two years without speaking. If it weren't for my mom intervening, we probably would've never spoken to each other again." Santana dropped her head and looked down at her bare feet. "She asked me about my life. About school. Who I was dating. I … I didn't want to lie. Lying to her has always felt bad. I told her that my classes were going great and that I was thinking about going to graduate school. She seemed very happy about that. She used to teach high school, so education has always been important to her.
"She then asks me about the guy I was dating. I was confused at first but then I saw the look on my mom's face." Santana looked over at Dave and said, "We have this saying in my family – the sin is in the scandal. It means that certain things are okay as long as they are kept quiet.
"Three years ago, I would've played alone and told her that I was dating this guy, the son of a politician or a wealthy businessman, who is on the rowing team and who is getting his law degree. But, in that moment, something in me snapped. I wasn't angry or anything. I was just … tired. I spent four years trying to be two people and it was exhausting. I refuse to do that anymore.
"So, I told her that I was still dating Brittany and that I was planning on asking her to be my wife. I then asked her for her engagement ring – the ring she promised she would give to the man who wanted to marry me so that he could give it to me."
Dave clasped his hand over his mouth for the second time. There were a million questions written all over his face, but he kept quiet.
"She told me, in so many words, that it would be a cold day in hell before she allowed her ring to be used in a sinful manner. I asked what she meant by that, and she refused to say the words out loud. She refused to say that she wasn't going to give me her ring because I was gay and was planning on giving it to my girlfriend."
"What did you do?"
Santana hung her head and said, "I said some things I'm not proud of. Some things I can never take back. She told me to leave her house and never come back and I happily obliged."
"Oh, Tana," Dave whispered, his thumb stroking over the top of her hand. "I am so sorry."
"I could almost forgive my grandmother for being old school if she wasn't such a hypocrite about it. She treats me being in love with another woman as the worst thing ever. Meanwhile, my uncle Enzo has been arrested twice for engaging in highly inappropriate behavior with a minor. Guess where he's at on the holidays. Right there at the dinner table with the rest of us, his sins forgiven. Oh, and it's a well-known secret that my abuelo cheated on his wife on up to the day he died but she forgave him every single damn time.
So basically, according to my abuela, pedophilia and adultery are A-okay as far as she's concerned. Me being in a consensual, healthy, and lovely relationship with someone who just so happens to be a woman is unforgivable. Make it make sense!"
Santana leaned over and placed her head against Dave's shoulder. He took his hand off hers and raised his arm to place it around her. The two of them had been in this position several times over the years. Sometimes she was the one with her arm around him, comforting him as he bared his soul.
'You do know there is absolutely nothing wrong with you loving Brittany and vice-versa, right?" he asked quietly.
"Yeah," she whispered back. "I know that. I've known that for quite some time. I just wish that she'd figure that out. Everyone in my family is okay with me being gay except for her. And just because she's the matriarch, everyone tiptoes around her, and I'm forced to not talk about it. Everyone gets to talk about the person they're married to. In love with. Except for me."
"She's wrong to treat you this way."
"Thank you." Santana sniffed and Dave plucked a few tissues from the box next to her bed and handed them to her. "Thank you for not making excuses for her. I love my mom but every time I bring this up to her, she's always like, I know mija but that's your grandmother. She comes from a different time. She just hasn't caught up to how things are today.
"You know what? Brittany's grandmother is the same age as mine and she is super accepting of the both of us. She even flies a rainbow flag outside her house. So, miss me with the whole, she's too old to understand bullshit. I wish my abuela would just come out and say that she hates gay people because she believes her god told her to do so. At least then I could respect her.
"But then she would never say that. Because then she would have to admit that the same book she uses to denounce me is the same book that also says that my uncle and her husband are bad people as well."
"What can I do?" Dave asked after a few minutes passed without either of them saying anything.
"You listening helps," she said. "Helps a lot actually. I don't wanna be this resentful person."
"You have every right to be resentful, Tana. The person who you've loved unconditionally has placed conditions on loving you. I know how that hurts."
Yet another thing she and Dave had in common. Dave hadn't spoken to his mom since he'd come from the hospital three years ago. Even though he didn't talk about it much, she knew it was something he thought about every single day.
"What about you and Brittany?"
"That part I'm still trying to wrap my head around," Santana spoke. "Since my grandmother refused to give me her engagement ring, I convinced my Uncle Reggie to let me buy one from him. It arrived a few weeks ago. I had it shipped to campus.
"I knew Brittany was leaving to go to space camp last weekend, so I thought I'd drive in to surprise her. I planned this big dinner at Breadstix which is like our spot. We both got really dolled up and then we headed to the restaurant. I had asked our waiter ahead of time to bring the ring out when we ordered dessert. I was so nervous.
"Long story short, our dessert finally arrived along with the ring. When Brit saw the box, her eyes got really big. It was like everything came to a stop. I remember looking around and the people sitting around us had stopped eating and were watching us like they knew exactly what was about to happen.
"That's when I presented her the box and told her that I have loved her since the moment I saw her." Santana reached up and dabbed at the corners of her eyes with the fistful of Kleenex in her hand. "I asked her if she would like to spend the rest of her life with me and she said, 'I can't'."
Dave winced and tightened his grip on her. "Oh god," he whispered. "I'm so, so sorry, Tana."
"Me, too," she whispered into his shoulder. "What's worst is that I keep playing it over and over and over in my head. It's like having someone jab a knife into my heart repeatedly."
"I get that. There's nothing worse than having your heart broken."
"No," Santana said shaking her head. "I've had my heart broken before and it was nothing like this. This … feels so much worse. It's like my soul's been ripped out. I don't even know how I'm alive right now."
Several more moments of total silence passed between the two of them. The only thing Santana could hear was Dave's breathing and the faint sound of the radio playing downstairs. She buried her face into his body and felt herself being lulled by the rise and fall of his chest. She was on her way to dreamland when Dave lifted her off him so that he could look her in the eye.
"We need to go somewhere?"
"Where?" she asked, brow knitted in interest.
"Far away from here," he said. "I think a change of scenery will do us both some good."
"Are there cruises for people like us?" she asked.
"I dunno – I don't think being on a boat filled with depressed people in the middle of the ocean is a good idea," Dave answered with a laugh.
"Good," Santana said. "I hate the ocean. I hate the beach."
"Does that hatred extend to lakes?"
"I don't mind a lake," she said. "Don't forget we spent a whole entire summer by the lake. Sigh – I wish I could go back to those days. Life was way less dramatic back then."
"Are you kidding?" Dave asked, a look of mock incredulousness on his face. "Do you even remember everything that happened that summer?"
"I remember you and Kurt finally stopped pussyfooting around each other. Finn coming out as bi was a bit of a surprise."
"Three words," Dave said. "Truth or Dare."
Santana palmed her face and shook her head. "Ugh, don't remind me. Not exactly one of my finest moments."
"But you survived," Dave said. "And you'll survive this, too. I promise."
"I wish I had your optimism."
"Oh, trust me – I blame all of this on the new meds."
"You're on new meds? Since when?"
"It's been a few weeks," Dave said. "Hey – why don't we grab something to eat? That way I can catch you up and maybe persuade you to come with me."
"Where?"
Dave grinned and asked, "Have you ever heard of Lake Chautauqua?"