You met Brittany when you were eight. Sort of. You had noticed her before because she ran around with the boys. She was the only one that they didn't tease or make fun of. She beat them in races, and jumped farther than they did off the swings. You always sat at the swings, mainly because it was a place where teachers wouldn't worry if you were playing alone and you played alone a lot. At recess, when Mike went around showing off a dead worm, limp and bloody at the end of a stick, all the girls around you shrieked; hands covering their faces as he would shove it forward, close to their mouths. But not Brittany. She looked at it curiously, her mouth in a frown, her eyebrows furrowed and then – very suddenly – pretended to eat it, right there in front of everyone. The girls all screamed again and ran away, and even you were a little queasy until you saw Mike roaring with laughter. They high-fived and Mike ran to tell the rest of them what had happened, still holding the stick over his head, like a knight leading the charge. She was smiling at herself, as she turned towards you, having noticed you were still looking at her. You adverted your gaze quickly, and you weren't sure why. When you looked back, she was already walking towards the building. You noticed – as she walked – she would take a double step every now and then, the smallest of skips, as if there was music only she could hear.

You used to love the swings, especially that feeling you got when you had swung as far as you possibly could and the swing would pause, right in midair. You closed your eyes when you swung, because it made that moment feel a little longer. You loved feeling like you were floating, like nothing could hold you, like if you swung high enough you would fly away. You pulled your feet in and swung backwards, and then, with all the force you could muster, you threw your feet forward propelling you faster than ever towards that unattainable height. You knew this would be the highest you had ever gone, and for some reason you decided to let go of the chain. Your eyes were still closed and you felt the rush of wind at your face, you paused in the air and your hands gripped nothing, the swing went backwards without you, and in a split second you landed, hard, on the sand. You lay there for a few seconds, crumpled up in a pile of your own limbs, and took stock of yourself. Your knees burned from scrapes and your elbow throbbed from the impact, you tried to move but everything ached and twinged. You heard quick, muffled footsteps on the grass and then on the sand beside you. You tried to get up as fast as possible. You didn't want anyone to make a fuss, but you weren't moving at all.

"Are you alright?" came a soft and worried voice.

You looked up, but couldn't see who it was until she stepped in front of the sun. The afternoon rays shone past her bright and long blonde hair and her face was crinkled with concern.

"Are you alright?" she asked again, this time kneeling and placing a hand on your shoulder. She straightened you up into a sitting position and sat beside you.

You couldn't even look at her face.

"Yeah, I'm fine," you mumbled at the ground.

"I fall off the swings all the time, see?" She was gesturing at her elbow which was covered over with two Band-Aids making an 'x'. One of the Band-Aids was Little Mermaid and the other was Superman themed and for some reason you thought that was very cool. You smiled feebly.

"I have one if you need it," she said, pointing at your knee which was scraped and bleeding. You had been so distracted with seeing her that you had forgotten about the fall. Before you had time to answer, though, she had already taken your leg in her hands and gingerly brushed off the sand. Out of her overalls pocket she pulled out a small, see-through, plastic box. It held a tiny tube of ointment and a couple of Band-Aids. She took the tube out and squeezed out a little snake of ointment onto her finger.

"My mommy taught me how to do this, on account that I fall a lot," she said as she applied the antiseptic to your knee. You winced slightly at the cold contact of the ointment, but Brittany came closer to your knee and with her lips pursed right beside it, blew on it gently, cooling and soothing the scrape. "It's okay," she said almost in a whisper, "we're almost done." She closed the cap on the tube and took out to bandages from the box. "I have Elmo, and I have Wonder Girl," she said, offering you both so you could choose.

You finally looked up into her face and saw her looking relaxed but serious, as if this was a very important decision. You decided to consider your options thoroughly. For a split second you were nervous you would pick the wrong one.

"Wonder Girl," you said after a minute.

Brittany's delicate face broke into a smile, her nose wrinkled up and her eyes sparkled.

"Good choice," she said, opening up the paper wrapper and placing the adhesive on your knee. "I would have picked that one too."

You both smiled at each other as she took both of your hands and helped you up. When you were standing, your knee slightly bent and aching, you realized – to your surprise – that you were about an inch taller than she was. You noticed you were still holding one of her hands. You let go of it suddenly.

"I should go home," you said quickly.

"Oh, okay, yeah," she said.

You started to walk away from her, a bit slower than you had hoped because of the sand and because of your stinging knee. You could feel her staring at your back, still standing where you had left her. You turned your head over your shoulder, even though you never stopped walking and spoke loudly, "thanks for the Band-Aid!"

"You're welcome, Wonder Girl!" she yelled back.

You bent your head forward, stared at your shoes, and didn't look up until you reached your front door.

You kept an eye out for Brittany for the next couple of weeks at school, but you were careful not be seen this time. You wanted to know what it was about her that made her different from all the others. It felt like an investigation, like Kitty Kittredge in your books at home. All of a sudden you wanted a magnifying glass and a her funny 1930s slang.

Your mom said she would be too late from work to pick you up, so you had to take the bus after school; and you would have too, had it not been for Brittany running and laughing in the soccer field next to the bus stop. She, Mike, and a few other boys were playing cowboys and Indians until Brittany had decided she would play the wild buffalo instead. You could tell who was who because of the assortment of Stetsons and feathers on heads. Britt wasn't wearing either. At first she charged towards the cowboys, making horns on her head with her fingers, she bent her body forward and took off towards them causing them to scatter. She did the same with the Indians. A couple of minutes after her buffalo rampage, one of the older boys yelled, "rope the buffalo!" and the crowd of cowboys took after her, galloping on invisible horses and twirling make-believe ropes over their heads. She shrieked in delight and put her horns up again, taking off in a sprint. She would dodge and turn and leap and twirl gracefully around the boys, not one could manage to tag her. She never stopped smiling, even as they dissolved the teams and were trailing her in a mob, she looked over her shoulder bent forward and accelerated even more, leaving them all in her dust. She kept running even after she reached the end of the field.

"Hey!" yelled Mike after her, "Where are you going?!"

"I have to go dance!" she hollered back, turning and running backwards for a few steps, "See you tomorrow!" she yelled and waved at the throng of boys who were all looking enthralled and disappointed.

The school bus came and left with full with its new cargo of students, but you weren't among them. Instead, you found yourself in the balcony of the auditorium, crouching behind one of the seats watching Brittany's dance class. You watched her warm up and stretch, you watched her do pas de bourrées, and grape vines. You held your breath during her solo in the routine and your mouth gaped open a little bit when she did five beautiful pirouettes in a row. Even the other dancers couldn't take their eyes off of her. The hour and a half of class flew by and all of a sudden the dancers started packing up their bags, zipping up their hoodies and bidding each other goodbye. Except for Brittany. She stayed behind even after the teacher had left and it seemed like she did this a lot.

"Nice work today, Britt," said Ms. Bacon, the dance teacher.

"Thanks, Jen," Brittany said back. You were astonished that Brittany could refer to a teacher by their first name. She seemed so grown up and in control.

You made your way towards the stage slowly, making sure that no one was there to see you creep around. Brittany had turned on a boombox on the stage and was still dancing along to the track, but this time she was much less precise and meticulous with her movements. It was like she wasn't even attached to her body and it belonged to the music and to the air that surrounded her. You were on the stage now, but behind the curtain on stage left, or was it stage right? Brittany pushed her arms forwards and around her head, she moved her feet along to the beat, leaping and turning and bouncing and twirling. You noticed that her eyes were closed when she leaped up high, the same way yours were when you were on the swing. You felt yourself smile. As she came down you saw her foot avoid the ground and she fell on her knee, then on her thigh and then forward as her body somersaulted downwards gracefully. You realized then, that she meant to fall after that jump, but it hadn't stopped you from gasping loudly. You covered your mouth and hid behind the curtain when you realized what you had done. You shut your eyes tight and stood very still, like you were trying to melt into the curtain and become invisible because you could hear that her rhythmic footsteps had stopped and so had the music.

"Hello?" her airy voice asked the silence. You could hear her soft footsteps growing closer. "Hello?" she asked again.

You stood so still, you were even holding your curtain swung away from your face and when you opened your eyes you were face to face with Brittany. And she was smiling at you.

"Hi, Wonder Girl," she said brightly.

You were a little shocked by her friendliness. You thought she would be confused to see you there. You weren't sure how she knew you were there in the first place.

"How did you know I was here?"

"I saw you come in at the start of class," she said matter-of-factly. "Also I could see your feet." She pointed at her toes. You looked down and saw that the black stage curtain you were hiding in was actually three or four inches off the ground, and your bright white sneakers were clearly visible under it.

"Oh." You blushed slightly. "My name is Santana."

"I know," she said. "I'm Brittany."

"I know," you said. She smiled.

She took you by the hand and pulled you away from your hiding place and onto the stage before you had a chance to protest. She turned on the music, and without saying a word, starting dancing with you, taking your hands in hers and moving you along to the rhythm and to the beat. You had never felt this feeling before, or maybe you had, a couple of weeks earlier when you were in the air – you were flying.

That was the unofficial beginning of you and Brittany, at least, that's what you have always thought. Ever since that day, you both would find each other in the halls, at recess, at lunch; you would pass notes in class, you had your own jokes. Every now and then, when you were alone one of you would reach for the other's hand. You would be sitting by the lake, or on a bench, or on the couch in your living room, and your fingers would be interlaced. Sometimes her thumb would trace the line between the knuckles on your hand, she would do it softly, and sometimes you would do it back. You remember the first time it happened the little hairs on the back of your neck stood straight up for about 20 minutes. At the movies you would lean your head on her shoulder and, if it was really scary, she would put her arm around you. A few years went by and you forgot where one of you ended and the other began. You became a notorious pair, and your friends knew that you were a package deal; no one invited one without the other.

Seven years after the day at the auditorium, at Mike and Matt's joint birthday party, Puckerman decided that he would make the night's beverages. He showed up with a cooler the size of an aquarium full of a sugary-smelling red liquid and you knew that it was going to lead to trouble.

"Enjoy a frosty glass of 'Puckerman's Famous Party Punch!'" he said as he opened the lid and dipped a few cups into the liquid and handed them to you and Mike.

Mike took a swig of it and asked, "What the hell is in this?"

"Wouldn't you like to know," said Puck with a grin.

"Ah, to hell with it," said Mike and he bumped his cup to yours. "Bottoms up."

You both knocked back a big gulp of the drink, and you tasted fruit punch and a hint of some things you weren't familiar with. It was fucking delicious. You dipped your cup back into the mix to refill and filled up another to take to Brittany, who was busy tearing up the dance floor and making every single guy want her. She saw you approaching with her cup and danced over to you, moving her hips seductively and taking yours with both her hands, grinding up in front of you, as you help the two red cups over your head and reciprocated her movements. Your faces were very close together. You heard the standard whooping and hollering that you usually did whenever you and Brittany danced together; it used to bother you but Brittany said once that those are the sounds boys make when they want something they know they can't have. You loved having something that others wanted.

"Is this for me?" she asked, grabbing one of the cups.

"Yep," you said from inside your own, taking another big swing of Puck's punch. "Careful though, it's effing tasty."

"Holy shit," she said, taking another big gulp.

"I know. Puck's a genius."

"Never thought I'd hear you say that," she said.

"Whoa, me neither."

You smiled at each other.

"Let's dance!" she said as she pulled you onto the dance floor, so you could make everyone else jealous. You danced all night, pausing for refills every now and then.

You don't know how it happened. You remember being in the kitchen, and you were leaning against the fridge. You remember arguing about who was taller out of the two of you and Britt standing closer to you to measure, even though she was wearing heels and you were wearing flats. She leaned in close to you and kissed you, right there in the kitchen, full on the lips. The next thing you remember is pushing her up against the door of the bathroom, and falling out of the bathroom in a pile when Matt opened the door. You woke up in Brittany's bed the next afternoon, unsure of how you had gotten there, unsure why your side was sore, and very much unsure why you and Brittany were tangled together, and wearing nothing but your underwear. You closed your eyes tightly, to avoid the light because of your splitting headache and a flash of you and Brittany kissing on the lawn in front of your house played inside your eyelids. You opened your eyes in shock.

"Oh shit," you whispered to yourself.

Now, you found yourself on the shore of the lake at Schoonover park, tangled, not in Brittany's arms and legs, but in this mess of an unsatisfactory situation where you had shoved the two of you. Long seconds had passed since Brittany had said it, those words that you had practiced saying to her, that you mouthed silently when you were in the shower, the words that you fantasized about hearing, and for some reason you hadn't said them back. The wind blew a little harder and the shimmering lights on the lake dimmed and paled. The night grew darker.

"Oh shit, what?" she asked you. There were tears in her voice.

You extracted yourself from between her legs and turned around to look at her.

"Why are you sitting so far away from me?" she asked. The tears were streaming silently down her face. She wasn't acknowledging them, and that made it so much worse. You wanted to reach over and wipe them off her face, but you couldn't.

"Brittany, I..." you started to say, but halfway through you realized you didn't know what you were going to say.

Her face contorted into full fledged sorrow and she let out a loud and wet sob. "You don't love me back," she finished for you, and looked up at your face for confirmation. You were so shocked by what she said, so broken after hearing that sob, so scared of making any movement that could mean losing her forever that you didn't say anything to quell her fears. So she just stood up, and left you sitting on the grass, watching her walk away, her arms crossed over her chest and her head down, there was no skipping this time.

The next morning you made your mom drive you to school early.

"But you usually ride with Brittany," she said, as if you had forgotten.

"Can you just take me, please? I have a test," you snapped back.

"Fine, let me grab my keys."

You walked to your locker without looking at anyone else, but making sure that Brittany wasn't anywhere near your locker when you went to grab your books. You planned on grabbing all you needed for the day so that you wouldn't have to see her. You were scared, and you knew it. You walked up when you were sure the coast was clear and you saw something stuck on the door.

A single Wonder Woman Band-Aid.