A new journey
Santana finds herself being driven by her father's minder Jason along winding dusty roads the next day; they had been on the road for over 6 hours. Her parents had bundled her in the car that morning with the suitcase she had already packed, they both kissed her cheek and told her rather firmly that she needed to snap out of this teenage angst she had been in for the past few years and to embrace this 'vacation' and come back to them as a 'different' person.
Santana had barely acknowledged them, she grunted as she got into the car, not looking at them. She had no idea of her destination, as she had asked no questions, she was numb to her feelings and her surroundings. She felt herself drift into an uncomfortable sleep as her mind wonders back to last night, the car coming to a stop brings her out of her slumber, Jason puts the car into park and comes round to open her door.
Santana pulls her sunglasses to cover her eyes and stretches her arms and legs, she looks around and see's she is at a small port, birds are flying all around, squawking, but apart from that it is clam. There are 4 boats lined up on the huge lake and as Jason pulls her case out the trunk, she follows him down to a group of men. At first she stands back observing them but because they are all about the age of 40 they loose her attention.
She looks down at herself and notices that she is hardly dressed for a boat trip, her boots are high, her dress is short and her hair is still wavy from the way she had curled it last night, she feels like she should be mad at her parents for just shipping her off to some 'camp' for 5 weeks but actually, she had wanted to get away from Lima for so long, to be isolated from people to just think and find herself. She just hoped this was somewhere where that could happen.
Luckily she still had her phone, her Papi had tried to get her to leave without it but after a few choice phrases from Santana, he had given up the argument and let her take it. As she looks at it now she has 3 unread texts from Puck and 4 from Quinn, she was not in the mood to read either.
Instead she walked to the nearest boat as Jason called her, the boat was dark blue on the outside, along the side was the name Brittany Spencer in yellow, in cursive writing, next to it were small pictures of ducks, it reminded Santana of a child's drawing, they were spread out randomly, some facing different ways and they were all different sizes, almost like they were a family.
Jason introduced Santana to a tall, good-looking man, named Daniel, he offered out his hand and a huge smile to Santana who returned the handshake but not the smile.
"Hi, I'm Daniel Pierce, but you can call me Dan, this is my boat and I'm going to take you across to the camp, it's about a 20 minute journey so get comfortable, everybody's waiting to meet you." He gleamed as if this was something to look forward too.
"Great" Santana muttered as she climbed aboard and stomped her way to the back of the boat, there was a younger boy around the age of 10 already on board trying to untangle a long thick rope, he looked up at her squinting as she walked past, he had to be related to Dan she thought, he had short blonde hair too, bright blue eyes and had the exact smile.
He followed Santana with his eyes as she dropped her suitcase and bag on the deck, she sat down and pulled her feet up so she could pull her boots off, as she did so the boy grinned at her.
"Nice socks" he said
Santana looked down about to roll her eyes but saw she had colorful stripy ones on that looked like rainbows, despite herself she smirked at him.
"My sister will love them" he burst, "she loves rainbows and ducks and especially unicorns."
Santana pictured a 4 or 5 year old girl, but stopped when he continued, "oh, here she is, she went to get us cokes from the shop, hey Britty!" he shouted, Santana turned her head to see the tall gorgeous girl bounding towards the boat, she was breath taking, she watched as the girl approached Dan who she guesses is her father and handed him a coke, she then kissed him on the cheek, and then she nodded to Jason and they exchanged a few words.
During this time Santana found her eyes wandering up and down the girl, she had lighter blonde hair that Dan and the boy, but the smile was the same, if not even bigger, she couldn't see her eyes yet but she would also bet they were bright blue. Her hair was pulled up in a messy bun with wispy bits pulled down around her face, she had a lilac shirt on with a black vest underneath, letting the top 4 buttons be undone, she had short denim shorts on which fit her perfectly and as Santana's eyes raked down her long never ending legs she saw white converse on the girls feet, she looked so fresh and happy.
It was then that Santana heard the girl laugh, something in her stomach twisted and Santana looked up to catch her gaze, the girl offered a wave and a giant smile, Santana waved back as quickly as she could and tried to turn her gaze away but she couldn't, she was drawn to her.
Santana felt her breath catch in her throat as she tried to swallow, 'wow' came to mind as she watched the girl converse with Dan and Jason. As she tried to steady her breathing she watched the girl interact with the two men, she had her hands full with 3 cans of coke but still made hand gestures when she spoke, 'how cute,' Santana thought, then stopped herself, wait a minute, when had Santana Lopez ever used the word cute to describe anyone? Overcome with the sudden change in her body temperature, Santana tried to rationalize these feelings in her head, how could this girl have such an effect on her?
Before Santana could think anymore, the girl made her way onto the boat, so gracefully, Santana thought. She tried not to follow her with her eyes but it was no use. The girl walked over to the boy and handed him a coke and ruffled his hair.
"Here you go kid," the girl sang.
"Thanks Britty," he replied as he dropped the rope and opened the can.
"Hey, you must be Santana, I'm Brittany," the girl said as she turned her body towards her and made her way over, as she did she handed a coke out to Santana.
Santana went to stand up to take the coke but as she was concentrating on the girls eyes, which were bright blue like she predicted, she got her foot stuck in a part of the rope on the floor and tripped forward, landing on her hands.
"Oh no!" gasped the girl, bending down to help Santana.
'Kill me now' Santana thought inside her head, but only muttering could be heard verbally from Santana.
As soon as Santana felt Brittany's hand on her shoulder she jerked back like she had been burnt, Brittany jumped back too, from Santana's reaction. Santana's skin tingled from the touch of Brittany's hand; she had never felt anything like it.
"Are you ok? I didn't mean to startle you," Brittany said
Santana could tell Brittany was worried she'd done something wrong.
"It's fine," Santana muttered as she wiped her hands together to get them clean. She could feel her cheeks were hot, 'how could she fall over in front of this perfect girl?'
Brittany stepped over the rope and placed the can of coke to the side of Santana and took a seat next to her, she took her time plumping the cushions before sitting back with her legs cross, again Santana watched the girl closely, she noticed the way her nose scrunched up when she was concentrating, this led Santana's eyes to follow the cluster of freckles across her nose and along her cheeks, again the word 'cute' came to mind. 'What is wrong with me?' she thought.
She looked up to find Brittany looking at her; she smiled brightly and held out her hand this time.
"Shall we start again?" she asked.
Santana nodded, "Sure, in fact can we pretend the whole falling over thing didn't happen?"
"Are you kidding?" Brittany smirked, "it's not everyday pretty girls fall at my feet."
Santana felt her breath catch in her throat, was she flirting with her? Just then she was jolted when the boat hit a small wave, Brittany giggled as Santana's can of coke started slipping away. The can of coke however, was not what made Santana's heart skip a beat, it was the giggle that came out of Brittany's mouth, Santana's eyes found their way up to Brittany's mouth and lingered on her lips. 'What the hell has gotten into me?' she thought.
Trying to distract her attention from Brittany's lips she asked "What is the camp like?" trying to act and sound as normal as possible.
Brittany turned her body to face Santana and her face lit up as she began to tell her all about the camp. It turned out Britney's dad was the camp maintenance guy and Brittany had been coming here since she was 6.
"It's so much fun," she continued, "there's lots of activities such as hiking, swimming, yoga, craft making, singing, dancing, almost anything you want to try, you can. But the best night of the summer is the final night where everyone treks to the highest point and we pitch our tents and roast marshmallows, we take it in turns to tell stories and dance around the camp fire, most people stay up until sunrise, it's so beautiful, I can't wait for you to see it."
Santana got lost in her words, all those activities sounded terrible to Santana who wanted to spend time alone with her journal and her thoughts, isolated from other people. Except now, all she could think about was doing all of them with Brittany, although she didn't say that to her.
"Actually, I've come here for some peace and quiet," she said, not meeting Brittany's eyes, she knew she was being rude but she needed to save herself from whatever was happening to her from being around Brittany. "I just want some alone time." She continued, "I need a break from people and activities, I'm not the nicest person to be around at the moment."
Brittany's smile faltered as she looked at Santana and listened to what she said, then reaching over she placed her hand on her knee and gave it a small squeeze.
"This is the perfect place to think and reflect on things, but it's also a place to let go and relax, I hope you change your mind about some of the activities, I'm sure you'd have fun and I'm betting you look even better when you smile," her eyes sparkled as she said it, "I can just tell."
Santana raised her eyebrow and offered her a small shrug. She then pulled her legs further into herself and wrapped her arms around them, looking out across the water she could land in the distance; her eyes began to slightly water in the corners, she would later blame the wind but something inside her was telling her that if only she could be free and happy like this girl, her life would be easier, as if it was that easy though, she let out a sigh and leaned back and closed her eyes.
"5 more minutes guys then we'll be there," Daniel shouted.