Brittany might not have known some things, like the names of all the states or how to conjugate all the verbs in Spanish, but she knew an awful lot of ways to say "stupid".

Dumb.

Idiot.

Airhead.

Moron.

Retarded.

She's heard them all many times. So much so that she barely bats an eyelash anymore when someone catapults one of the insults her way. She figures it's not so bad when people say things like that; they are just words and words can't hurt her.

It bothers her more when people act like she won't understand what they mean.

She's... different.

She's special.

She's certainly one of a kind.

She knows that they're really just calling her stupid, but they're too afraid to say the real word. She hates how they take words that are nice by themselves and turn them mean. That's not fair to the words.

When her English teacher talked about similes and metaphors, she was able to recount plenty of examples that she had heard.

She's a few cards short of a full deck.

The lights are on, but nobody's home.

Her elevator doesn't go all the way to the top floor.

She's a low-watt bulb.

Metaphors were funny because they meant something completely different than what they said. She used to like finding metaphors in books or ones that people said and trying to figure out what they really meant. It was a fun game, until she kept on hearing ones that meant the same thing.

It got to the point where she could tell if someone was calling her stupid just by hearing to the tone of their voice, and not even listening to the words they said.

And what did it matter, how they said it, she would often wonder. It was weird how people were so willing to call her dumb, but put so much effort into making it seem like they weren't.

Maybe they thought they were fooling some people, but they never fooled her.

Most of the time, she didn't get upset when people called her stupid. She had heard it before. It only really upset her when people she thought believed in her did it.

I can understand why the three of you are on the team, but... Brittany?

Before then, she thought Mr. Schue was the only teacher who didn't think she was too dumb to learn anything. In Spanish class, he was always patient with her when she got words confused, and he would always remind her the lyrics of a song in glee club if she forgot. But she guessed that was what he really thought. At least he was nice to her about it, instead of yelling at her like a lot of the other teachers did.

And she never, never thought Artie would do it.

God, Brittany, why are you so stupid?

It was simple, straightforward, and he didn't use any fancy metaphors, at least. But it still hurt.

She felt really bad about cheating on Artie. She never meant to hurt him, things just always tended to... happen with Santana.

Santana. She was the one who was there for Brittany when she needed a shoulder to cry on (literally). Brittany started to feel better the moment Santana wrapped her arms around her, and then boop – Santana tapped her nose gently – it was almost as if it had never happened.

Santana would always be there for her, and she would never, never, call Brittany stupid.

As Santana walked with her to her next class, Brittany got an itch in the back of her brain. Maybe Santana never said she was stupid, but she was probably thinking it.

Everyone thought it, after all. It was true, after all.

A memory of one of their conversations echoed in her head... a brief sentence that in the moment, she hadn't lingered on. Now she realized, it meant a lot.

Santana did think she was dumb.

She added "breakfast is confusing for you" to her never-ending list of synonyms.