She couldn't sleep that night. Not just because of the damp smell of mould in her bedroom, but because her mind was going at what felt like the speed of light, all these thoughts and ideas flying about her head, each one to do with Brittany. She struggled for a moment - what had actually happened to her after the accident? The impact came and wrenched her hand from Brittany's, and she was hurled up into the air and hit the cold, hard highway with a bump and a shattering of bone. Her legs felt as if they were on fire, so she hauled herself using only her arms over to a small huddle on the other side of the burning lorry. Looking back, nobody knows how she found the strength of body and of mind, but she made it over and grabbed at Brittany's arms, shaking her again and again as if that would wake her up. She shut her eyes and was transported back -
"No. No! Shit, no, please." The words Santana spoke got louder and louder, until she was screaming at Brittany - "Wake up! Move! Please. Baby. Please." She pulled her eyelids back and tried to check for dilation. But it was a beautiful night, the stars above them shone brightly and they reflected in Brittany's gorgeous pale blue eyes, which were unmoving. Santana sobbed now, and lay across Brittany's torso as if to protect her from any further dangers, surrounded by the sparks raining down from the burning lorry and lit up by the oddly bright waning moon. Help, somebody, help. Help her. She was still breathing, Santana felt, but she was bleeding from a head injury, and aside from the slow, weakened rise and fall of her chest Brittany wasn't moving. She pushed herself away from Brittany and held her hand under the blanket of night sky, and shut her eyes, wanting nothing more than to be where Brittany was.
Sorting through her memories in her mind, Santana realised that she had fallen unconscious before she had seen Brittany die. She was unconscious for days longer in hospital; the exertion of finding Brittany after the crash having taken a lot out of her, her battered body needing rest. Her friends and Mr. Shue had been told Brittany died at the scene of a haemorrhage, and her family had taken her body away from Lima and supposedly to their traditional graves near Gildersleeve Mountain. Again, she thought how nobody she had known was invited to the funeral, not even Artie, whom Brittany's parents had approved of and 'loved as if he were their own'. She was Britt's girlfriend, for God's sake, she had made her happy, and her parents couldn't even look past their own selfish idealism and realise that Brittany would have hated the idea of none of the friends she loved and cherished could be present at her funeral. And if she was still on this earth in Wisconsin, she wouldn't have been able to bear leaving her friends alone with no knowledge of her state.
Strange, the whole thing was strange. Santana had a brainwave then, suddenly and out of the blue. She knew Brittany had suffered a head injury as definite, and she rolled out of bed, stumbled over to her laptop and googled implications of a head injury sustained . There it was. 'Persons will experience heightened risk of amnesia and memory problems.'
"Oh my God." Santana spoke out-loud, her voice shaking a little. Shit. Shit. Fucking hell.
"Where are my cigarettes?" She was talking to herself.
"The first sign of madness." She said and laughed a little. Maybe I am crazy, she thought, but who isn't? And who wouldn t be in my position?
"Fuck." Stop it, she thought. You're getting carried away. Hope is the deadliest of all emotions, in a way, when it is destroyed you're lost, you can't do anything to stop the come down. It's like a drug, taking you so high and making your forget all your inhibitions, carrying you away from reality and actuality.
The Wisconsin white pages couldn't come fast enough. She would book her time off from the restaurant in the morning.