Here's another chapter. Lovely reviews all around last chapter. A special thank you to JooBean, who gave me the best review ever! I think I said that it was in that review that I truly saw the fruits of my labor. So thank you. This chapter is really dialogue heavy, and not my favorite because I dont think its that well written, but at this point, theres not much I can do. I'll save my talents for the next chapter. :)
Puck awoke to a rhythmic grunting, and he wondered if he was still dreaming. But when he rolled on his side to look at the left side of the bed, he found a mess of Egyptian cotton sheets (that shit is amazing, even for PTSD'd war vets) instead of Santana. It was only after a moment that he realized the grunting was coming from behind…and possibly…under the bed.
"Santana?" he said into thin air, feeling foolish.
"What?" was the reply.
"Where are you?" he called again into the darkness.
"On the ground…" she huffed before returning to her routine. He scrambled to her side of the bed, and looked over the edge to find his lover on the floor, doing sit ups in her satin nightgown at four in the morning.
"What the fuck are you doing?"
"What does it look like I'm doing, dumbass?"
"Well, it looks like you're on your 67th sit-up in the middle of the night."
"Actually, it's 89th. Or maybe 88th. Don't really remember. Stopped keeping track."
"Right," he answered, as if exercising in the darkness was just a normal thing to do, "Come back to bed, baby. You're exhausted."
"I'm fine right here," she said, her voice breaking in the slightest this time around. She must have been on her 100th push up by now.
He didn't know what to say, because he knew she was exhausted. He just knew. She hadn't had a break in years. This was her first time in her adult life that she had nothing to do; was it possible that she had forgotten how to simply subsist? Now that she no longer had to go on, had life stopped?
"Santana," he started again calmly, acting nonchalantly.
"What?" she snapped, but still didn't stop. He got onto his hands and knees, and turned on the nightlight, revealing Santana to be covered in sweat.
"Jesus, how long have you been up doing this?"
"I don't know."
"Why are you doing this?"
"I don't know."
"That's it, you've fucking lost it, Lopez. Get up."
"No," she groaned.
He jumped down from the bed, and started to pick her up. She struggled, and would never give up without a fight. He successfully had her limber body in his arms, but she remained kicking.
"Let go of me, Noah Puckerman! I am fine!" She was fine. Nothing was wrong with her, for God's sake. She was healthy, successful, beautiful. There was no reason not to be fine at all.
"No, you're not Santana."
"No! No! No!" And then she didn't know why, but she started crying. Sobbing, even.
"Babe, what's wrong?" he said gingerly, placing her on the bed, where she crawled into a little ball on his side of the bed, letting the warmth that had come from his sleeping silhouette seep into her own self. He followed her onto the bed, and flicked off the light again, sending them back into the darkness.
"I…." she was at a standstill, because she didn't know. She just couldn't stop crying, a well had just sprouted from inside her and wouldn't stop. "I…I don't even know." She wasn't mad, or happy, or sad. She felt…incomplete.
"It's fine. You're fine, just like you said, Santana," he said, trying to be comforting. It wasn't exactly true, but he knew she would appreciate that kind of chick stuff.
"What's wrong with me? I can't stop crying. It's like, I can't even be a normal human being anymore. I don't even know how to function," she wept.
"That's not true," he said, stroking her arm.
"Yeah, it is. Like yesterday at the gym, when you just tapped me on the shoulder and I spazzed out. Or when I was at Whole Foods the day before, and I couldn't look at the snack aisle without wanting the vomit."
Okay, that was all true.
All of those things were completely understandable. She had a right to be on edge, because she had just gotten harassed by a psychopath for the last few months. She had a right to fall back into her supermodel lifestyle as a defense mechanism. She was only doing what she knew best. But she couldn't do it forever.
"What am I going to do?" she cried.
"I know."
He knew. In fact, he had known for a long while now, that this was what she needed. This was needed a long time coming.
"You do?"
"We're going to Lima."
At that, she jumped up out of the fetal position, and whipped her head around to face him. "We're what?"
"You heard me, we're going home." He was stern with his assertion, and although he couldn't see her face, he knew a look of fear flashed across her eyes.
"No, no. We have no home. Fuck, this is our home. There's you and me, and this bed with 1000-thread count sheets, and takeout menus from every restaurant in the city, and a hot tub in the basement. We have everything we need. We don't need to go anywhere. We have everything we need," she rambled. He couldn't possibly think this.
"Santana!" he interrupted, grabbing her shoulders, "We do need something. You can't just stay in your apartment all day and expect things to be okay. You need a fucking break, and nobody expects you to just go on like this forever." She appreciated that although he knew that this was all her problem, they were both going to fix it.
"I…" She couldn't shake the feeling that the looming dread that had been building for a decade now had finally caught up with her, anchoring her into a hole that she had dug herself.
"Sleep on it, baby. It'll sound like a really good idea in the morning," he said with his classic smug confidence. As if he knew exactly what she needed, but now wasn't that a lie. He was fairly certain going back to Lima, the one place that she had betrayed for hurting her, would never seem like a good idea for her. But if he didn't force her to go back, she never would.
She didn't respond, which naturally meant she was considering it. But she silently accepted the half tablet of Valium he'd taken out of the bedside drawer and swallowed it whole. Maybe it would sound better in the morning…
But of course, she didn't get a chance in the morning to ponder the idea deeply, because she awoke with his hands between her legs, making her lose whatever thought she would have conjured up in that moment.
"Already? It's only ten," she said mid-pant.
"You woke up at four in the morning to do sit-ups so you don't get to judge. At least what I'm suggesting is enjoyable," he continued, pulling her nightgown over her head, as she giggled.
"Okay, fine. But only once," she relented, not really meaning it of course.
But of course, once turned into twice, which turned into thrice, which turned into…well, there really wasn't a cool word for that. They'd fucked their way ahead of their high school vocabularies.
When they had finished, both of them breathless on those precious Egyptian cotton sheets she adored so much, she had nearly forgotten what he had brought up a couple hours before.
"So…Lima?"
"God, Puck. Way to ruin the moment."
"What? You only have two weeks of vacation left. If we're going to go, let's go. What are you waiting for, Lo?" He would never make her do anything she didn't want to, and the thought of him going back alone didn't even cross his mind.
"I don't know, I mean, I do want to see my mom, but I doubt she wants to see me, and I sure as hell don't want to see anyone else." She was mindlessly rambling again. If she talked enough circles around the subject, maybe he would drop it.
"So call her."
"My mother?" Okay, she didn't expect him to really think she was going to.
"Yeah." Did she think he was that stupid? Of course Santana was bluffing.
"Maybe I will," she snipped.
"Yeah," he countered.
"Okay then," she huffed, getting up and storming out of the room.
"Okaaaay," he shouted from his spot on the bed, "I'll be waiting."
Shit! Now she would have to call her mother for sure. He of course, smiled, because his stupid reverse psychology tactics had gotten him exactly what he wanted again, by accident.
"Wait. You know what? I'm not going to take your shit, Noah Puckerman. I'm going to call my mother if I want to, and I sure as hell don't," she yelled as she stormed back into the bedroom.
He knew she had been bluffing.
"Santana, that's a copout and you know it. Call. Your. Mother."
"No. Fucking. Way."
"Don't pussy out." He gave her his signature smirk.
"I'm not!"
"Sit down," he demanded, tapping the spot next to him on the bed. She obliged, and stared straight ahead.
"Have you been loved enough?" he asked in all sincerity, turning her body with his hands to face her.
"What? You wanna go again?" she asked in surprise. The sex was amazing as usual, but even she needed a break.
"No," he answered emotionlessly, casually, "I didn't mean today. I meant your whole life. Have you been loved enough?"
Then she understood what he meant.
She thought about it for a moment. She certainly hadn't started her life out loved. She thought about all the loves she had lost: Brittany, Lima, God. She didn't know if she could classify her family in that category just yet. And then she thought about all the loves she had gained: Katie, New York, him. And in that moment, Santana Lopez realized she was loved.
She didn't have everything, but she sure as hell wasn't going to get any closer.
"Yes."
"Then what do you have to lose?" was his only response. Sometimes she hated how someone like him could boil down the most complicated questions to the simplest answers.
She didn't reply; she only got up and quietly walked out the bedroom door.
She went out to the living room, feeling the lofty apartment air weaving in and out of the spaces her body created, and started the coffeemaker as she grabbed her phone. As she tried to dial the number of her childhood home, the thought that maybe the number wouldn't be the same anymore suddenly occurred to her. Was she really doing this? Voluntarily calling her mother, the mother who made it perfectly clear that she would have no problem never seeing her only child ever again?
She punched in the number, and now she waited, hoping her father wouldn't be the one to pick up. Most likely it wouldn't be him, since he didn't really like to concern himself with the outside world, which was why he was so closed minded about everything. But Santana didn't really blame him. It came with living in Lima. She was like him too, until she moved to New York. She watched the coffee maker drip the steaming liquid into two matching mugs, anxiously waiting for someone to answer the phone on the other line. There was a little bit of a thrill, in calling her mother while she was buck naked, but also an intense fear.
Oh, who was she kidding? Even her backwards parents must have Caller ID by now. Surely they were letting her call sit unanswered, the bellows of the rings echoing through their empty house.
She imagined how the conversation would occur. She would apprehensively tell her mother/father she was coming back to town. Her mother would say, "Oh, Santana" in that awfully timid and tortured voice of hers, never fully revealing her emotion. Her mother would stand there at the telephone in shock, maybe even dropping her Bible to the floor, and her father would most certainly ask what was wrong from his pity chair. Then when her mother would tell him (because she definitely would), her father would swear a couple times, in a couple languages. And by the time both of them recovered from the shock and picked up the phone again, their daughter most likely would have already hung up.
She was going to hang up right now.
"Hello?"
What?
"Hello?" the softspoken voice on the other end repeated, and Santana suddenly felt her throat closing up. She wanted to scream, yell at her mother. Mom! It's me! Your daughter, remember? But she was trapped in her own bubble, created from her own mind, and no matter how hard she pounded the glass, she couldn't break free.
"Alright, I'm hanging up now, whoever you are. Good day."
Click.
Another opportunity had wasted by.
A deep voice shook her out of her reverie.
"Santana? Are you okay?" He was yelling from the bedroom, probably antsy to hear about her "conversation" with her mother.
"Coming!" she yelled back. She picked up the coffee, not even caring that they were scalding and brought them back to the bedroom. She found Puck sitting up on the bed in his boxers, her laptop sitting on a cushion atop his lap. She smiled, because she had been bugging him for weeks now to quit laying the laptop on his lap directly. Something about scientific studies proving it was bad for your libido. The focus of the article had been about virility, but she didn't really care about that. He was wearing his glasses, and when he saw her come in, he took them off and set aside the laptop.
"What'd she say?" he asked.
"Oh, no one was home," she tossed out nonchalantly, a gulp escaping at the end.
"Well, that's too bad." He looked a little crestfallen, and she couldn't stand that poor puppy look on his stupid mug.
"No, baby, it's fine," she reasoned, setting the coffee down, and crawling back into bed, siding up next to him. And all of a sudden, she started treating the situation as if she was the one feeling guilty because they couldn't go back to Lima. As if she was the one who wanted to go in the first place.
"What?"
"Shh, baby, we'll go," she purred, stroking his bicep. He sat in confusion and crinkled his eyebrows. Was this some ambiguous Latina way of saying that she indeed wanted to go?
"Huh?"
"I mean, if it means that much to you, of course we will," she continued.
"What? I mean, yeah. Yeah, Santana. I really want to go." He didn't mention that he was pretty sure she wanted to go too.
"Then it's settled, we'll leave in the morning," she said assertively, jumping out of bed to look for her silk robe.
"Good, I already bought the tickets with your Amex. You had the airmiles anyways. First class all the way, baby."
"You would," she teased. She wasn't surprised, although she was a little amused.
"Well, don't you sound excited all of a sudden?"
"Jesus Christ, Lo. Would it kill you to calm down?" he grunted, attempting to keep up with her as she scurried through the hall from 6th period to the pep rally.
She was already going to be in trouble with Coach Sylvester for not getting to the gym ten minutes earlier. Who knew janitor's closets could be so fun?
"No!" She continued down the hall, her Tiffany charm bracelet jingling against her slender wrist.
"Why does this even matter so much? It's just another stupid pep rally."
"Don't you understand? That reporter is coming." The arrival of Tracy Pendergrass in Lima, Ohio was front page news. Lima didn't get too many visitors, no less Pulitzer Prize winners.
"So? It's just a stupid cheerleading magazine. Unless you want to be a professional cheerleader, which I don't think is even a real thing, he's just as lame as the rest of the losers sitting on the bleachers."
"Shut up. This is just the beginning, Puckerman. I already have stacks of college recruit pamphlets at home. If he notices me, I'm going to get my free ride to USC," she said affirmatively.
"Don't settle for mediocre, Lopez."
But didn't she know she was better than cheerleading? He was sure she was good at other things. All she had to do was wait, and something else was sure to come along.
"Baby, they're the ones who should be scared. A celebrity's coming to town."
Q's to think about and answer if you wanna make me happy!
1) What's up with Santana? Has she really forgotten how to be a human being? If so, when did she stop living? If not, how will she get better!
2) Does Santana have a right to "pursuit of happiness"? She's mentioned she doesnt like her job. But she's guilty for wanting more, when she's already got so much. Should she just "settle" and deal with it? And has she "settled" before (like in Lima)?
Also, how's my writing? What do I need to improve on? What am I doing right?
I'm taking APLA this year, so although I will have less time to write, I will be more inspired. I think its a fair trade, no?
Drop me a message!