Walking into school the next day I have this big smile plastered on my face. I couldn't be happier. I feel like I'm practically skipping to my locker which now that I think about it I probably am because I'm getting weird looks from everyone. When I reach my locker I see that there's a rose taped to it. I pull it off and my smile widens even more. As I go to sniff it I see a figure in the corner of my eye walking towards me so I turn my head and there she is, in her Cheerios uniform smiling at me. I smile back but as I do she stops dead in her tracks. Her face falls into a panic and I just give her a confused look. After that everything felt like it was going in slow motion. Like how you see on the movies. How the slow moving person starts yelling nooooooo as they run and jump in front of the person they are trying to protect. I still wasn't processing what was going on when Santana jumped in front of me. That's until the slow motion movie ended and all I heard was the gasps and saw all the shocked faces from everyone in the hallway. I also felt the light sprinkles of water? I wipe the small amount of liquid off my face and look at it. It's red. Oh my god there's only one thing in this school that's wet and red, a slushie.

"Santana?" I say cautiously. She hasn't moved in fact no one has moved. I take a step to the side just enough to see who threw the slushie and I see two very scared Cheerios girls.

"Katie, Molly" The girls eye widen in fear. "I'm going to wipe my face and when I open my eyes you better be gone" Santana's hand comes up to her face and the two girls make a run for it down the hallway. When she opens her eyes she looks around. "What is everyone looking at?" She snaps and just like that locker doors slam shut and students scatter away in every direction.

"Santana?" I say again and she finally turns around and looks at me. I frown when I see she's covered in red slush. I wipe some of it away from her face and hair. "Why would you jump in front of me?"

"Because…I totally forgot to call off the attack, I deserved it" She tells me as wipes more slush off her face. I know Brittany mentioned yesterday that Santana wanted to slushie me but I didn't think she would actually go through with it. "Coach is going to kill me when she sees my uniform like this"

"You don't have a spare?" She shakes her head no. "Oh" I say excitedly as I quickly turn to my locker and start turning the lock to open it. "Kurt gave me this emergency slushie cleaner"

"Emergency slushie cleaner?"

"Yes" I answer as I start looking for the cleaner in my locker. "It's some formula Artie created to get the slushie stain out right away. You know just in case someone forgot to bring extra clothes or got slushied more than once in the day"

"You guys really are dorks"

"Hey! These dorks and their inventions are going to help you get cleaned up so you don't get in trouble so I suggested you don't call them dorks" Santana shakes her head and laughs at me. "The only problem is it's going to take a whole period to clean and dry"

"That's cool I can ditch first" Santana says with a shrug and I fidget a bit. I've never ditched class before. Yes I've been late but I've never completely ditched a class. "You okay?"

"Yeah it's just well…I've never ditched a class before"

"You're kidding right?" I shake my head no. "Never ever?"

"Never"

"You really are a do…" She stops when she sees the glare I'm giving her. She smirks and gives me an unexpected peck on the lips. She steps back a little and just looks at me. I can tell she's trying to figure out if what she did was okay or not.

"You taste like cherry" I tell her to ease her mind and she grins. The bell rings and I grow a little anxious. "I…"

"Its fine, just give me the cleaner and I'll take care of this myself. I don't want you to miss class or freak out about missing a class"

"But I wanted to help you?" Santana raises her eyebrow.

"You just want to see me without my Cheerios uniform on don't you?" A rush of warmth starts growing from the back of my ears all the way to my cheeks and I know I'm turning bright red.

"I…that's not why…I mean I would…no…I just wanted…help. I wanted to help you" I stutter to say and she laughs.

"You're super cute when you're embarrassed. Come on then" She grabs my hand and takes me to the Cheerios locker room. I take a seat on the bench with the bottle of cleaner in my hand. I watch her open her locker and start unzipping her uniform top. She pulls it over her head and I feel like my heart leaped into my throat. My eyes start roaming from the waist line of Santana's skirt up her toned and perfectly tanned abs up to her red bra. I gulp my heart back down to where it's supposed to be and then bite down on my lower lip. She pulls her gym shirt over her head and I watch as it falls perfectly down her body.

"Liking the view pervert?" I snap out of my daze.

"Sorry I didn't mean to stare"

"It's okay. I mean I would stare too. I am pretty hot" I roll my eyes and get up, grabbing her top out of her hands and walking over to the sink. I start the water and begin to clean the top and Santana joins me seconds later with her skirt. "Let me take you out" I stop what I'm doing and just look at her.

"Is that your way of asking me out on a date?"

"Uh…yeah. I'm sorry. That was horrible. I'm just a little nervous"

"Santana Lopez nervous?" I tease.

"When it comes to you yes" I don't know how she does it. How she can make her words give me a tingling feeling that goes throughout my body. "Let me try again" She clears her throat. "Rachel, will you go out on a date with me?" I pretend to think about it for a second and she just glares at me.

"Yes I will" I say with a laugh.

"Saturday at two okay?"

"Sounds perfect" We both smile and she takes the cleaner bottle and starts cleaning her skirt while I finish up her top.

Saturday couldn't get here soon enough. I've been anxious since the moment I woke up. Even though Santana and I have seen each other every day this week I feel like I haven't seen her in forever and today is the day I finally do.

"Sweetie Santana is here" I hear my dad yell from downstairs and that's when I start to go into panic mode. I'm not ready. Okay maybe I am. I've been ready since twelve but what if I'm too dressy or not dressy enough? Santana didn't tell me where we are going or what we are doing so I don't really know how to dress. She wouldn't even give me a hint. "Sweetie"

"I'm coming" I yell back. I look at myself one more time in the mirror. I have on my red dress with a black bow around my waist, with my black stocking and black shoes. Hopefully this will be okay. It has to be. I grab my purse and make my way downstairs. "Ready" I say as I reach the bottom.

"Hey" Santana says as she gets up from the couch. I look at what Santana is wearing. She has on tight black pants with a white tank top covered with a black leather jacket.

"I over dressed didn't I?"

"Not at all, you look adorable" I give her a shy smile.

"Remember what I said Santana" I hear my daddy say.

"Uh yes sir" My daddy gives me a kiss on the cheek before heading upstairs. "I'm going to go wait by the car before he comes back down with a baseball bat or something" I give both my Dad and Santana a puzzled look. I thought Santana was joking but when she actually left and walked outside I turned and looked at my dad who chuckled.

"What did he say to her?"

"Something about breaking all her limbs if she breaks your heart"

"Daddy said that?" I asked shocked. "But he's the nice one" My dad raises his eyebrow at me.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Dad when I told you Sara and I were together she was scared to be around you for two weeks because of all the new rules and the very painful consequences you said you would do" He laughs.

"They were just jokes"

"She didn't know that" He laughs again.

"Go on don't keep Santana waiting" I shake my head and give my dad a hug before walking out the door. I notice Santana leaning against the car and once I get closer to her she opens the door for me and I mouth a thank you.

"So where are we going?" I ask as soon as Santana gets into the car. She buckles her seat belt, starts the car and drives away without answering me. "Still not going to tell me?" She looks at me and shakes her head no. "Fine" I sulk into the seat. After driving around for a while we arrive at a park. I look over at Santana and she grins. She parks and then comes around to open my door for me. When I get out I look around. The park seems empty for a weekend. There are only a few people in sight from what I can see.

"Come on" She reaches for my hand and I gladly give it to her. A swarm of butterflies instantly attack the inside of my stomach when we make contact and I'm pretty sure this smile I have is going to stay permanently on my face for the rest of the date. "I don't know if you were expecting the typical movie and dinner date but… I thought I would do something different. Something that can just be about us without any interruptions" She tells me as she leads me into the park.

"Sounds perfect but umm…where are we going?"

"It's just a little more. Past those trees" Santana says with a laugh. We continue to walk and once we reach the trees I stop moving. I see a small pound that has water shooting up in the middle of it. I also notice a blanket laid out underneath a tree that's right by the water.

"You set up a picnic for us?" I ask really excited my face is practically lighting up. Santana just smiles and I start dragging her towards the blanket. As we reach the blanket I notice a small basket on top of it. There's also a bouquet of roses and container of dipped white chocolate strawberries. I giggle to myself when I hear Santana's mom's voice in my head. Hard shell all mush inside.

"What's so funny?" Santana asks me.

"It's nothing" I let go of Santana's hand and take a seat on the blanket. She follows right after and just looks at me like she's waiting for me to tell her what's so funny. I sigh. "Your mom" is all I say.

"Oh god what did that women say to you?"

"Nothing bad, she just mentioned to me one day that even though you have this hard shell you're nothing but mush inside"

"That sounds kind of gross" Santana says with a disgusted face.

"I think it's cute" She rolls her eyes.

"So…" Santana begins to say.

"So…" I answer back and we both laugh.

"Why was this so much easier in my head?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean…I had everything planned out. How the date would go from start to finish and now that it's actually happening I can't even think of anything to say to you" I smile at her.

"You know you're really not as tough as you make yourself out to be" Santana gives me a questioning look and explain myself. "At school you come off as this sarcastic jerk or a big b if you will that everyone fears when in reality you're nothing but a girly mush ball"

"I'm not a girly mush ball and what's a big b?"

"You know, the b word" Santana just shakes her head like she doesn't know what I'm talking about. "You know" She smiles and shakes her head again. "Are you really going to make me say it?" Her smile widens. "Fine you're a big bitch. There I said it" She starts laughing and I roll my eyes. "And if it makes you feel better I'm a little nervous too. I haven't been on a date in a really long time. Sara stopped taking me out after we reached two years" Santana's eyebrows narrow in a bit. "Shoot I'm sorry that was so stupid of me to say. I should have never brought her up" I shake my head in my hands. I can't believe I mentioned Sara.

"It's okay" I hear Santana say as she moves my hands away from my face. I look up at her and she's smiling. "It's okay to bring her up. It's going to happen. I just looked upset because she stopped taking you out"

"I'm still sorry. Here we are on our first date and I go in mess it up by bringing her up"

"You didn't mess anything up, its fine" I frown and then Santana leans in and lightly kisses me. I give her a small smile when we part and it's like the awkwardness between us just disappears.

"So…what's in the basket?" I say changing the subject.

"Roast beef sandwiches" It's my turn to make a disgusted face.

"Umm…Santana I think I should have mentioned to you that I'm a vegetarian"

"I know" She says with a small laugh.

"How did you know?"

"I pay attention" She says with a shrug. "The days when you bring your own lunch to school you never have meat. You usually bring some weird looking tofu and a bag of grapes and then on the days you do buy lunch you usually just get a salad"

"You noticed that?" Santana nods her head yes.

"So…" I watch her open the basket and pull out two small containers. "I brought us salad" She then pulls out another bigger container. "And some of your weird tofu, which by the way I had to look up online on how to cook and prepare" I grin at her.

"Totally mushy" She rolls her eyes at me again.

"Can't you call me romantic or something? Mushy sounds so gross" I laugh. "And I wasn't finished yet" She reaches in the basket one more time and pulls out two zip lock bags of grapes. "I couldn't forget your grapes" I don't know what to say. I'm really happy right now. She brought all my favorite things. She knew what my favorite things were without me having to tell her. This is all so much and before I know it I feel myself starting to tear up. "Are you crying?"

"No" I say wiping away my tears feeling extremely embarrassed at that fact that I'm starting to cry. I mean who cries on dates?

"Did I do something wrong?" Santana says in a panic. "Did you not want grapes?"

"No. No" I wave her off. "This is so embarrassing. I didn't mean to cry I'm just really happy right now" I see Santana sigh in relief and then laughs.

"Oh god maybe I should cancel the second part of this date then"

"Second part?" Santana gets up and then reaches her hand out. I take her hand into mine and she helps me up to my feet and walks us over to a nearby bridge.

"You first"

"You're not going to throw me off are you?" She rolls her eyes at me and pushes me forward. When we get to the other side she takes my hand again and leads me down this walkway until we reach a small dirt trail and I freeze. Standing in the distances are two Cheerios and…

"Horses? You got us horses?" Santana nudges me a bit and we start walking closer to them.

"Molly here was kind enough to let us borrow her horses for today. Isn't that right Molly?" The young Cheerio has this terrified look on her face as she shakes her head yes. "You can both leave now. We'll be back in an hour" Both girls turn around and take off and I just stand there with my hands on my hips. "What?"

"You didn't have to be so mean to them"

"They slushied me and since I didn't rat on them they both owed me a favor" I tilt my head to the side clearly not amused. "Besides they're baby Cheerios they should be used to being told what to do and when to do it. Now stop fussing about it and let's test these little bad boys out"

"Have you ever ridden on a horse before?"

"Nope"

"But San..tana" I say in a small hesitation and she just smirks at me.

"You know its okay to call me San or S or anything else you want to call me right? You don't have to use my full name all the time. I feel like I'm in trouble every time you do"

"Okay"

"Now come on let's ride" Santana helps me up on my horse. She goes around to hers and I start laughing hysterically at all the failed attempts she's done to get on her horse. Finally on what seems like the millionth time she gets on and sticks her tongue out at me. We ride slowly following the trail and I'm laughing the whole time. Santana's horse doesn't like her at all at keeps stopping and making those funny horse noises. By the time we get back from the trail I could see the look of pure happiness on Santana's face. "Never again" She jumps off her horse and comes around to help me off mine.

"I liked it"

"Never. Again" Santana repeats. We head back to the picnic set up and eat our food. As the sun sets we head back to the car. I asked Santana about cleaning up but she said the baby Cheerios would do it and I rolled my eyes at that. Of course they would. Santana pulls up to my house and then walks me to my door.

"Thank you for today I had a really great time"

"I'm glad you liked it but seriously never again with the horses" I giggle. "I better get going. Call you later?" I nod my head yes. Santana leans in to kiss me and I start leaning in as well but then I hear the door open. We both turn our heads and there standing in the door way is my daddy with a baseball bat.

"Goodnight Santana" He says.

"Uh…good…goodnight sir" Santana stutters to say. "Night Rach" She gives me a scared smile and heads back to her car. I watch her drive away before taking the bat out of my daddy's hands.

"Really daddy? A baseball bat?" He smirks and shrugs his shoulders before walking away.

AUTHORS NOTE:

(you don't have to read it has nothing to do with the story)

I was on a road trip already falling asleep in my hotel room when my sister called me Saturday 7/13/2013 10:51pm and told me "Cory's dead" I laughed and said Cory who? When she said Cory Monteith FINN! I told her she was lying but then she said it was all over the news. I was in utter shock. I told her I'd call her back and went directly to twitter (not the best source but sometimes it is). I started reading R.I.P. Cory Monteith and still did not want to believe it. I stayed up all night reading everything that had to do with his sudden death. The next morning I woke up and checked twitter again hoping that this was all some sick twisted joke but the only thing I saw was more R.I.P. Cory and Pray for Lea. I still could not believe he was gone. I still can't.

I used to think it was silly to see people crying or taking a celebrities death really hard. You didn't know them. They didn't know you so why do you care so much? Although that's true it's also so very false. You may not personal know them but watching them on tv, following their everyday lives on twitter, facebook, youtube or just the plain internet period you grow an attachment to them. Even if they don't know it, they can bring out the best in you and make you happy. I didn't think Cory's death would affect me so much but I can't even explain how much it has. I'm sad. I'm angry. Mostly at the media for blowing up his drug problem. Yes we all know he used and that's what took his life but he tried to get help. Heroin is the worst drug to be addicted too and some say you can never complete be clean from it but he tried. He put himself in rehab. Anyone that goes and asks for help has my respect and should be respected by all.

I keep looking at pictures and video's of Cory and I feel myself tearing up. I even go to his twitter page waiting for him to tweet something. I keep telling myself "this can't be real. Cory's not dead. He's not" I really feel like I lost a family member and well in a way we all did.

I wasn't Cory's number one crazy obsessed fan but I was still a fan of his. I admit used to make fun of his constipated singing face, his lack of rhythm on Glee and the way he pushed his lips together and squinted his eyes when being photographed all the time but I did it out of love. You tease the one's you love right? His character Finn also wasn't my favorite but at the end of the day Cory was our Finn and Glee will not be the same without him.

Sorry for this long and very depressing authors note but I thank anyone who did read it. I just needed to get this out. No one understands this tragic lose better than our own fandom so here I am venting to you all and if you want to talk about Cory go ahead and pm me and we can. Also don't believe everything you read. When the autopsy came out everyone was quick to judge and say "once a junkie always a junkie" which wasn't the case. I don't think Cory had been using since coming out of rehab but Saturday he did for whatever reason and his body just couldn't handle it since he's been clean for so long. But none the less new things are going to keep popping up about him or about his relationship with Lea and that's not how we should remember him. We should remember Cory as a tall, awkward, canadian, actor, drummer, person :)

Also keep Lea in your prayers. Honestly I don't think she'll ever fully recover from this. That happy go lucky girl we all come to love is gone. It's like she'll just be going through life instead of living it. But hey I could be wrong. Maybe she will get passed this. Maybe I'm not giving Lea enough credit so I hope she does prove me wrong and she shows me what a strong person she is. Fingers crossed!

R.I.P. Cory Allan Michael Monteith (May 11, 1982 – July 13, 2013)

"he took the midnight train going anywhere"