CHAPTER THREE

Once upon a time, almost a year before I met a girl called Brittany S Pierce I went into the bathroom and broke the mirror above the sink. I did it with the heel of my left hand, so it didn't shatter, just splintered along invisible fracture lines. Affew drops of my blood fell elegantly into the basin. My pyschiatrist told me later that I broke the mirror because of the anger I had, but to be perfectly honest I don't believe that. I broke the mirror so I wouldn't have to look at my own face. I didn't care about those seven years bad luck. How could I? I went in there to swallow pills.

Imagine that.

I didn't last long. I stood there a second, holding them in my mouth before swallowing, almost unsure. It was pathetic, really. I looked down. I was about to swallow. But then something quite significant happened. I saw something and I spat them out. Want honesty? I saw a picture. It shouldn't have even been in the bathroom, my mom had been dusting the living room and needed somewhere to put them and was being lazy. It also shouldn't have been on the top of the pile, not really. It had a heavy frame, very breakable. It should have been wrapped in a sheet somewhere, shatter proof.

Andbutso it was a picture of my abuelita, propped up in bed in hospital. Dean took that picture, but he was little and he didn't understand what was happening. I remembered that day. I was there.

'Santana', she had said,' kiddo, I know you want to jump up on the bed with me, but my body is made out of cancer'.

Funny how a half-remembered voice can shock you to your very core. I spat into the sink like so many mornings.

Fast forward two months and my abuelita would be dead. Fast forward another half year and here I am. Standing next to a broken mirror, unable to remember why the flat palm of my left hand is slowly bubbling with blood. Go further, go back to present day.

I'll be waiting.

/

So yeah.

Friday morning I get up in time for a lift from my mom, who seems pretty happy about this. She loves my apparent progress, especially when it's self-motivated. I have a whole stack of leaflets at home about self-motivation, care of Miss Pillsbury. Mom must be dead pleased I'm finally implementing them. We both ignore the fact that I woke up only just in time, and I'm eating cereal in the car, expertly navigating the g forces to keep my lap free of milk. We are also both ignoring Dean, who is sulking in the backseat because I stole the front. I don't blame him. I pity him, actually. It can't be easy having me as a sister, or as any relation really.

Anyway.

So I am skulking around the cheerios locker room a good half an hour before the bell goes feeling a bit dumb and a bit awkward, fidgetting with a scab on my left wrist. And I hear a voice that says,' hello!'

I spin round and she's there, in her cheerios uniform, actually physically skipping towards me from the other end of the corridor.

'Hi-' I start, and then she's hugging me before I can say anything else, and the hug doesn't knock the breath out of me, just all the thoughts out of my head.

Ok, then.

'Sorry', she says,' I'm just excited to see you. I was talking to Quinn and she said you wouldn't come'.

'Who's-? Do you mean Quinn captain of the cheerios Quinn?'

'Yep. She said you wouldn't come. But you did!'

'Sorry- what?'

'Come on. My locker's over here. I'll show you the surprise'.

I notice a box, under her arm. A shoebox with affew holes punched through the top with a pair of scissors.

Feeling like I may have been left behind a little in this breathy exchange, I follow her to her locker, then proceed to wait while she stands infront of it, counting numbers on her fingers, the box balanced in the crook of her elbow.

'Are you alright?' I ask.

'Yeah', her forehead is furrowed in concentration,' just remembering my combination'.

'Here-' I take the box off of her, giving her free use of her hands.

She smiles,' thanks Santana'.

She mutters a rhyme under her breath, then keys in the numbers slowly and with great care. The locker door opens.

'Quinn told me that so I can remember. Otherwise I can't get at my stuff and that's not good'.

'Are you friends with Quinn?' I ask, because, not to judge or anything but Quinn Fabray is sort of a bitch. She's head cheerleader, it's practically in the job description. I couldn't imagine her deigning to speak with someone as quirky as Brittany, let alone striking up a friendship. Even if she is a fellow cheerleader.

'Hmm', she replies noncommittally, and then she ever-so gently takes the shoebox off me, smiling widely, excitedly,' take the lid off'.

'Your surprise is shoes?'

She shakes her head, grinning from ear to ear,' go on, take the lid off!'

I go for the lid, and she retreats, suddenly looking worried,' no. Slower. You've got to be gentle or you'll scare him'.

Ok. That's a little concerning.

I gently ease the lid off, a little gingerly as well. Peering inside. At first, it just looks like a box filled with torn up tissue paper, all thickly twisted together. And then there is a rustle inside, and a tiny head emerges, cheeping feebly.

'Oh my-' I glance up at her in disbelief, to find her smiling face closely watching my reaction, looking proud. I can't help but smile too, because it is honestly the most amazing thing I have ever seen. The baby bird is grey and beaked and ugly and gorgeous and making little mewling noises inside the box,' that's amazing! That's so cool'.

'I found him on the pavement outside my house. The google says he probably fell out of his nest and I can't put him back there so I'm going to look after him until he is old enough to fly'.

'How?'

'Well I need to keep him at the same temperature and feed him honey and water and not milk and not with a big spoon because otherwise it could go in his lungs and he could die. Also, I have to take him home at night because he needs feeding every 2 hours at night time and in the day every half an hour'.

'Every half an hour?'

'That's why I thought you could help, you know, cause I can't do that by myself'.

I look at her, over the bird.

'I can't look after a bird', I say, suddenly slightly panicked,' I can't even keep my fish alive long enough to form a secure emotional attachment, this is way out of my league'.

'It'll be fine', she says,' you just give him honey water. The bottle's in my locker. I figured we could have a rota, that way he could get to know both of us'.

I gently reach in with my pinky finger and gingerly touch the beak. I stroke the bird's head with the gentlest edge of my pinky nail. It kind of shudders under my touch and I withdraw and we watch it for a second. It cheeps.

'That's amazing Brittany', I say.

'I can take toilet breaks to care of him during lessons', she says,' so you don't have to worry about that. I was just hoping you could look after him at lunch… and after school if I have cheerios practise or glee. Please say you will'.

'Yeah- sure'.

She grins and bobs up and down on the balls of her feet,' yay!'

'But…' I withdraw my hand from the box,' why me? Why can't any of your friends help?'

'I thought you would want to more', she says simply.

And so I find myself spending the next twenty minutes before class gently spooning warm honey into the beak of a tiny baby bird. When Brittany takes the spoon to have a go I look up at her face and the corner of her tongue is jutting out of the side of her mouth in concentration. I can't help but think that she looks more adorable then the baby bird. It fills my brain with all sorts of squeeness: such a ridiculously happy thought.

Adorable. Not a word I use regularly.

When the bell rings she gently covers the bird over in paper and softly slides the shoebox into her locker. She looks at her watch and nods to herself,' I've got math next they won't mind me slipping out. Will I see you at lunch?' she asks.

'Um… yeah, I guess'.

She smiles at me,' thanks Santana'.

Then she bounds off to some cheerios thing, before I can ask her 'what for?'

/

Puckerman catches up to me in the corridors later on in the day. I say catch up in the literal sense: he's been chasing me for some time through the sea of students.

'Lopez', he says.

'Puckerman', I say. I don't know why.

He doesn't know why, either. I clearly take him surprise, probably because I have been avoiding and ignoring him for the past month.

Before he can respond, I move away.

/

At lunch, I eat with Brittany by her locker. We switch between feeding our own faces and feeding the bird's. Luckily this is a corner of the school people are unlikely to wander past for no reason, meaning for the most it's just me and her and the sunlight streaming through the bay windows and this small, feathery head sticking out of Brittany's fist.

'I wonder whether he's scared of us', I say.

Brittany shakes her head,' he couldn't be scared of us.' She said,' we're his mommies'.

I snort,' you're like a child'.

'Oh', she says, and I suddenly panic.

'I meant- it's good. I like that. You're really happy'.

She beams at me as I collect my thoughts,' okay', she says.

'Okay', I agree.

And just like that, Brittany becomes a friend and an ally.

Things rarely happen that swiftly and neatly in my life, but falling into a friendship with Brittany is simple and lovely and easy to do. And I become happy- or at least, as close as I am ever going to get to it. Because let's face it, I'm screwed up, but it is very hard to hate life when at the end of each class a pinkie finger is always there to find yours and take the long way round to their lessons, just so they can talk to you. Brittany seems to have endless enthusiasm for the world, and oddly enough, it doesn't annoy me or tire me, even though I am the complete opposite. She can talk endlessly about any subject and it wouldn't bother me. And her laugh. When she laughs, it's this giggle, and I usually hate it when girls pull that crap, but with Brittany it's not like it's fake. It's like she is being tickled by life. It's reality. A tiny glimpse of how she sees the world. I think it must be nice to be inside her brain.

About a week after she first shares her secret with me the teachers have started the exam-stress process, and Baby bird has now become a little more mobile. And she has now named it Kurt,' like this boy in glee. He looks like him'. 'Kurt' can now flop around and make half-hearted attempts to escape the box, as opposed to just lying there I guess means he is getting better. Brittany says that soon we'll have to teach him how to fly. She says in reality baby birds learn by copying their mothers, but we will think of something.

'Do the teachers not suspect? Have they not noticed how many times a day you go to the bathroom?'

Brittany nods, sagely,' I had double spanish yesterday. Now Mr Schuester thinks I have a urinary tract infection'.

That makes me laugh, out loud at the lunch table, which let me tell you has never happened before. Brittany looks at me with these shiny happy eyes like she knows what a big thing the laugh is, and I shrug and take a swig out of my bottle of water.

Pretty much everyone at school has an after-school activity. Mine is walking home.

Not today though, due to the fact that when I lower the water bottle, Brittany leans forward conspiritorially and announces brightly:

'You should come to the Gay-Straight-Alliance meeting after school today'.

I'm suddenly grateful that she waited for me to finish drinking, as I probably would have choked. To put it lightly this statement surprises me on more than one level. For starters, I didn't even know that McKinley had a Gay-Straight-Alliance. From the evidence I'd seen the Straight side didn't seem to care about the lack of allegiance but whatever.

'Why?' I say, carefully, wondering how she knew, could she know, she couldn't know, seriously. But then, why ask?

'Because I go along and its fun'.

OK. Ok. Have to admit to a slight leap of all my internal organs there, in her direction. G or S, G or S? I realize with a crushing finality that shes probably the capital S Straight half of the initialism, and is only asking me about it because she has heard the drunk girl kissing story and wants to bolster the ranks of the club.

'I don't think that's a good idea', I say, hating the hurt I can hear in my voice. For fuck's sake.

'It's really good, honestly. Please'. Brittany looks at me with these adorable wide eyes.

I stare at her. What else am I doing? I think. Shit.

'Fine', I mumble.

'Yay!'

She claps her hands together in delight, making me smile in spite of myself. Then, she grabs a pen out of my bag and grabs my hand, scribbling a room number onto my skin, mercifully the opposite side to my scars. I still snatch my hand away like she'd spat on it.

She looks hurt.

'Sorry', she says, looking a little unsure.

'No- it's just… I fell on that arm and it's still sore'.

'Awwww- can I see?'

'No!'

Now she's staring at me like I'm insane, and the fucked up thing is this really bothers me- I want her to think well of me. I want her to like me and want to know me. But that can't happen- not if I show her the spidery pink lines dug into my arm. I serrupticiously twitch the long sleeves of my jumper up to cover my wrists.

'I'll see you there', she says.

'Okay', I say.

She smiles,' okay'.

Okay.