*This chapter deals with a little bit of the trauma a rape survivor might feel, including flashbacks and hyper-sexuality. If you would like more information and maybe want to know where I am going with this tying into Santana's character, look up Rape Trauma Syndrome. Thanks for the reviews! Hope you enjoy!*
Chapter 9
After that day, I went back into my life as usual. Or at least I put on a mask of old Santana. Inside, I struggled everyday with fear, and guilt. I continued to have dreams about the attack, ones that were vivid. I could almost smell and taste it all. I would wake up at night in a cold sweat. Then I would call Britt's number and she would sing me back to sleep. It became an almost ritual of ours. On weekends, and on particularly bad nights, she would sneak into my room and hold me. On those nights, I didn't have any dreams. She seemed to shield me from all of that. She was still protecting me from him, and she didn't even know it.
Dear God, I hated that time. I remember believing it had been my fault. If I hadn't had sex with Marcus and Puck, maybe he wouldn't have seen me as a slut. I blamed myself, for the clothes I wore, or the way I presented myself. I kept this blame deep inside, knowing that if Brittany knew about it, she would be hurt that it existed at all. I started to wonder why I was hiding from the world, and from guys in particular. Maybe Kyle was right and I was only good for sex. Maybe that's the way of washing away the dirty feeling he set into my skin. So I had sex. Lots of sex. Sometimes with people I didn't even know. I was never raped again, but I think part of that was because I never said no.
Britt watched all of this, and tried to tell me to stop. I, of course didn't listen. Secretly, I begged her to make me stop. To shake me out of the hollow world I was trapped in, and set me free again. But she never did, and eventually, she just watched with sad eyes as I hooked up with all of the guys. I made jokes about it, and I could almost feel the hurt radiating from her eyes. She hated that I made jokes.
I found myself flip flopping from happiness to anger, even around Brittany. I yelled at my the people at my school. I made it my mission to make someone feel the same fear that I did, so I wouldn't be counted as less than them. I wanted to be the one feared, not the one being afraid. Britt tried to reign in my anger, and sometimes, I hate to say, she was on the receiving end of the anger. One time, I was very angry at some girls who had called me a slut. I tried to punch them, but Britt held me back. I turned on her then, and pushed her away from me. "Get your hands off of me! You is Loca!" She tried to tell me I needed to calm down, and I advanced on her then. "Get your hands of me." She went to touch me again and I spat out anger at her. "What are you...stupid? I said don't touch me."
To this day I remember the look in her eyes. She flinched away from me, and the tears came on fast. I saw her bottom lip tremble and she raced away, and I was left standing, kicking myself for pushing away the one person that loved me despite what I had become.
I want to make it clear that the mask I put on was a mask that I would wear for many years to come. I had always been a bitch, but the mask I put on was that of a person that had no tolerance or feelings for anyone else's feelings. I had become the Santana that haunted McKinley's halls, and I'm sure, many a freshman's dreams. Inside however, I was a scared little girl. I still saw him around every corner. I still flinched when someone touched me. I still cried after having sex. I still woke up in a cold sweat, terrified that it was happening all over again.
I don't remember how I made it up to Brittany. Perhaps I never did, and she simply forgave me. That seems like a Brittany thing to do. I do however remember the night she decided to come to my place again. I think it had been a few weeks since we hung out, and when I heard my window opening, I sat up in bed, terrified that he had found my home. Instead of his large silohette, I saw a graceful, tiptoeing one. The bed dipped beside me, and a cold footed Brittany wrapped her arms around me. We hadn't kissed since that weekend after it had happened, and I found myself desperate to taste her. For the first time since that night, I felt aroused. In a way I couldn't understand, none of the guys I slept with could take away the dirtiness of sex, because sex was rape. But with Britt, I knew just kissing her would cleanse me, if only a little. So I turned around, my head against hers and kissed her.
I felt electricity shoot through my body as her lips met mine. She moved closer, pushing her body up against mine, sending a million tiny bolts of lightning through everywhere her skin touched mine. I could feel her smile, and I deepened the kiss, begging her for entrance to her mouth, my tongue dancing around hers. I slipped out of the fear drenched world I had grown used to, and into a world where love existed again. Love in the form of Brittany.