1 day later

Santana took a deep breath, trying to ignore the rain falling on her head that had continued from yesterday's storm, and walked through the doors into WMHS.

Yesterday, she had been excused to leave school early after she told the nurse that she was ill. When she had gotten home, her parents were out working (as usual, they were almost never at home) and she had fallen onto her bed and began to sob.

She didn't really understand why all of these emotions were suddenly exploding inside of her, so, just like she had done in the bathroom, after hours of crying on her bed, she took all of her emotions and sent them right down into a dark, lonely place deep inside of her. Even though the ugly truth about her own sexuality was now clear to her, she wanted to pretend like it never even happened.

This time, she made sure these emotions weren't coming back.

Santana walked through the hallway, trying to appear confident, but on the inside, she felt nervous. What if seeing this girl made all of these emotions come flooding back? She really didn't want that to happen again.

She walked into the room.

Immediately, her gleemates, as she liked to call them, all turned to her. They looked startled and concerned. Finn stood up.

"Are you okay?" he asked immediately. "You left so suddenly yesterday!"

"Calm yourself, I'm fine!" she said. "I just got a little sick yesterday, that's all." Santana's dark eyes drifted upwards.

There she was. Sitting in a chair in one of the back rows. She was wearing almost the same thing, with very similar jeans and the same letterman jacket, but a different shirt, and her long, brunette hair was wavier.

She could feel the emotions nagging to come out, to rush into her heart, but she held them back. But when she looked at Zoe she knew that they were there, that they were real emotions, and powerful ones, too. But she couldn't admit to herself that she had these feelings.

And to Santana's horror, she was the last one to arrive to class, besides Mr. Schue, which meant there was only one chair left to sit in. This chair just happened to be directly next to Zoe.

Santana gingerly walked up and sat down in the chair. She didn't dare look at Zoe, no matter how tempted she was. She averted her dark eyes every time she wanted to glance to her left side and look at her.

As Will was giving one of his lectures, Santana could feel Zoe looking at her. She felt her eyes studying her. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the girl ever so slightly smile.

Zoe leaned over towards her, and the next three words that came out of the girl's lips came as a complete shock to Santana.

"You're really pretty."

Santana almost fell out of her chair. A rush of excitement coursed through her body. She once again forced it down, afraid something would happen. She then made herself look at the girl.

She kept herself from gasping. She was even prettier up close. Her skin glowed, her wavy hair was messy, but on Zoe it didn't look bad. And her eyes. Her eyes were so green, Santana felt as if they were piercing through her own dark eyes. She was flawless, but at the same time, she most definitely wasn't. It was hard to explain, but Santana could also detect weakness and tiredness in her eyes. She noticed various scars on her face, and something about her looked... worn out. Even though this girl was young and beautiful, she could tell that she definitely wasn't perfect, and Santana liked that. She hated perfect people. Everyone has to have something that makes them... different.

Santana almost forgot to reply to the girl. She smiled. Santana's eyes were taunting and playful.

"As are you," she whispered back, crossing her arms, smirking. If Santana was really good at one thing, it was pretending to be confident when she isn't. She was using this skill in this conversation."I've got to admit I'm impressed. It takes a lot of courage to sign up for something that a bunch of seniors are a part of already."

"Thanks," she replied. Her smile grew. "Hey, what's your name? I never got the chance to meet you yesterday, after you, um..."

"Got sick and totally embarrassed myself in front of you?" Santana finished for her. Realizing that sounded like she cared a lot more than a normal person would about what Zoe thought about her, she quickly added, "And everyone else?" She felt the need to explain herself. "I'm not usually that dramatic. I... don't know what came over me yesterday."

Zoe looked down, still smiling. "It's okay, I get it." She looked back up. "As long as you didn't get sick because of me entering the room!" She laughed, obviously joking. Santana loved how she laughed. It was a very soft giggle, and she felt like she couldn't get enough of it.

"Santana," she said. "My name's Santana."

Just then, the ear-piercing sound of the bell hammered their eardrums. Zoe stood up and looked down at her. She smiled once again. Every time she smiled, Santana felt shivers rush down her back.

"Cool name. It's pretty. And it suites you well." She put down her things to re-organize them. "I think we could make really good friends."

And with that, she winked at Santana, picked up her things, and walked out of the room.

Santana kept herself from dancing around the room. Everything was going so well, and she could feel her heart beating hard. She cramped the feelings down back inside. I just want to be friends with her. Nothing else. Nothing more than that. It will be fine. We'll just be friends, and I'll deal with all of this. I'll get rid of these feelings. I'm sure it's just a weird phase I'm going through.

Her plan to be just friends with her was all so perfect.

But, it was too perfect.

Too perfect to be true.