Part 4: [The Silence]
Little by little you show Lex things about your past life. You show her pictures from high school from the Cheerio's pictures to the Glee pictures.
"Who's the blonde one?"
"What do you mean?"
"Blonde hair, blue eyes."
"That's Brittany," you sigh, then quietly add, "first love."
You don't say anything else and she doesn't press it. She sits quietly, content with your answer as she watches you curiously.
"I met her in fourth grade. We were instant best friends. She, Quinn, and I we were going to rule the freaking school. And we did from middle school to sophomore year in high school. Britt was my first everything. First kiss, first love, first heartbreak. First everything."
Lex nods and pulls you closer encouraging you to continue.
"She and I kissed in eighth grade as 'practice' for when we did it with guys. We had sex in freshman year as 'practice' for the guys. We would date guys and we had sex with lots of guys but we always came back to each other."
You pause again to catch your breath and build up the confidence to tell the next part of the story.
"We loved each other. But I was scared to be gay. So I used guys as beards and pushed her away. She found a guy who was willing to love her the way I should have. I told her I loved her. She broke up with him. I couldn't come out. She waited for me. I couldn't come out until my last day of high school."
The tears start falling more rapidly and you know that what's happening is inevitable. You're soon sobbing uncontrollably into Lex's arms.
"I never got my chance with her. I waited too long and I ended up with nothing."
She holds you tight allowing your tears to soak into her shirt. She whispers in your ear that you didn't end up with nothing and that you've got plenty in your life. She whispers to you and tells you things, anything and everything, until you've both fallen asleep.
You realize that you have a lot of learning to do. You've spent half of your relationship with Lex figuring out exactly how to be in a real relationship. You know how to go on one date with many people, not many dates with the same person. And you know how to initiate a booty call but not a cuddle session. You have a lot to learn.
You've never had to think this hard for a date idea in your life. Sure, you know Lex well. You know she loves boxing, wants to 'see the world', plays the bass guitar, and loves hiking.
You're pretty sure you'll get the shit kicked out of you if you get in the boxing ring with her. And besides you'd both be shirtless (cause that's how people dressed in boxing rings right?) and that's just too tempting.
You don't really have the funds or the time to take her sightseeing around the world. And though you've had many heart-to-hearts with her and she's met your parents an extravagant trip seems extreme.
You've already taken her hiking and you sing to her bass playing all the time.
You're officially stumped.
And then you have an epiphany.
-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-
"How did you get tickets to this?"
"I bought them?"
"Tana. This is like the biggest concert of the year. It's nearly impossible to get tickets."
"Well. I'm just magical like that."
"I can't believe you were actually able to get us tickets for Sarah Chang. I mean that woman is a goddess on the violin. I owe you a freaking spectacular date."
She hugs you tightly before squealing again then jumping up and down.
You've never been a fan of classical music, but this is the one performer that Lex insisted you had to see regardless of whether or not you liked classical music. By the end of the concert you understand exactly why Sarah Chang is Lex's favorite performer.
Not only does the woman move and sway with the music, but watching the emotions flit across Sarah Chang's face as she plays almost inspires you to actually listen to the classical music. You never knew that there could be so much passion without words.
-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-
"So your mom emailed me."
You frown, trying to figure out how you mom got your girlfriend's email address. And why was you mom emailing your girlfriend and not you?
"What'd she want?"
"Well she wants us to go back to Lima for Christmas."
"Oh."
"I told her it was a good idea seeing as you haven't been back to your hometown in three years."
"You don't think that there's a good reason for that?"
"What?"
"I don't want to go back to that small town. I came out here for a reason. I needed to escape that tiny minded town."
"Santana…"
"No. Don't Santana me. You didn't grow up there. You didn't have to try and figure out your sexual orientation there. You didn't have to fall in love with your best friend and try to come out there. You don't get it."
"I get it. Probably better than you think."
"This is my call."
"Your call? You're deciding for us now?"
"Yes."
"I'm sorry I thought this was a partnership, not a Santana Lopez is the dictatorship."
"I'm sorry I thought that you would understand how some of us don't want to confront our past."
"Your mother invited us to spend Christmas with the family."
"What's your point?"
"Did I not make myself clear? Your mother, your family, wants you there for the holidays."
"We're not talking about this."
"No, of course not. Now that you've decided that."
You watch Lex storm out of the room faster than you can say "I'm sorry". You're immediately regretful because you didn't mean to ruin your relationship over something so petty and inconsequential.
Lex doesn't come back that night and when she does arrive back in the morning she grabs her books and leaves before you can even say anything to her
She's all silent and glaring for the rest of the night. Frankly, you're not sure why she's glaring at you when she's the one that stormed out and left the relationship.
"What the hell is your problem Lex?"
"My problem? I'm not the one with the problem."
"What, so you're saying I have a problem."
"That is exactly what I'm saying. Yeah just twist my words."
"You don't get to be bent up about this you broke up with me."
"Wait. When did I do that? Why would I break up with you?"
"We had an argument yesterday."
"Yeah an argument about why you don't want to go back to Lima for Christmas. Your mom really wants to stay home this year. And to be honest I'd really want to meet all these people who you went to high school with."
"We had an argument."
"What's your point Tana, we argued. We disagreed. I don't remember breaking up with you."
"Wait. Hold up. So you storming off wasn't you breaking up with me."
"No. Why would you think that? I was just cooling off so I wouldn't say anything stupid or hurtful. It gets pretty hard to keep my cool around you."
"So storming off does not equate breaking up."
"Did you ever date in high school? Have you ever watched a romantic comedy?"
"I went on a lot of dates, but never two dates with the same person. I was also a closeted lesbian having sex and being in love with my best friend. I didn't really have the most healthy relationships."
"Okay. Relationship 101. Just because I yell, scream, shout, walk away, storm off, or whatever, doesn't mean I've broken up with you. If I ever break up with you, which I don't plan on doing, I will tell you 'Santana, I am breaking up with you.' Is that clear? And no, that was not me breaking up with you."
"Stop treating me like a toddler."
"See. Right there. You're so damn infuriating sometimes. This is why I need to storm off. You could say 'Thanks Lex' for teaching me how to be in an adult relationship."
"I could. But I think you'd love me less if I was that nice."
"You know what? I'm going to class now."
Lex playfully dodges your attempt to give her a kiss leaving you standing in your doorway pouting slightly. But, before she turns the corner and descends the stairs, she blows a kiss back in your direction, leaving you chuckling to yourself.
You've got a couple of hours to kill before your next class so you decide to call up Quinn. Ever since graduation the two of you have exchanged texts pretty regularly and now that you've been at college you've even Skyped with her a couple times.
Now that high school is over, you two have become good friends again. There's no jockeying for positions on the pyramid or any of that. With the end of high school, Quinn doesn't feel like she needs to pick between Santana and Brittany. Santana's so far away from them that Quinn doesn't feel like she's upsetting anyone by being Santana's friend.
"Q."
"S."
"How is NYU? How is the big bad NYC?"
"The same as it was last week when you called."
"No need to be so unusually dry with me Q."
"Shut up S."
"I – this feels weird coming out of my mouth. It almost seems emotionally supportive. What's going on? Because I may be across the country and emotionally stunted but you don't sound right. You kinda sound like that time you tried to cover up the vase breaking when we were nine."
"I don't sound right?"
"You know what I mean Q."
"She's been asking about you."
"What do you mean?"
"She found out that we Skype and that you still keep in touch with me."
"So…"
"So she's a little hurt that you're keeping in touch with me but not her."
"You know why I can't do that."
"Why not? You've got Lex, who by the way I want to meet. Brittany's not going to scheme to split you guys up especially when you're so happy with that Asian girl."
"I – I just need to take a break from all those emotions."
"That's what senior year was for S."
You sign resignedly, "I'll try."
"Good. Cause she's here right now and she wants to talk to you."
"Q. Quinn. Quinn Fabray. What are you doing? Qui– hey Britt."
"San!"
You watch Quinn watching you in the background before turning your attention back to the screen where Brittany is enthusiastically telling you about New York.
"–it's so big and there's always noise outside. I tried telling the city to be quiet, but Rachel told me that it wouldn't work so now I just have ear plugs."
"Awesome Britt. I'm glad you're liking it."
"Of course I like it. Wait. I want you to tell me all about Berkeley."
You laugh to yourself because she's acting as if nothing's changed. As if you both didn't confess your love to each other only to never end up together.
She's acting like you're best friends and like you haven't gone a day without talking to each other. She's acting like nothing's changed. Except everything's changed.
But this is still Brittany. You're not really sure how you feel inside as you tell her about all your classes and how your Math professor sucks cause he's giving you long problem sets to do in only a week's time.
You feel right back to sophomore year where you would share everything with each other. You end up talking to Brittany for two hours before you realize that you have a class to be at.
"Hey Britt, I gotta go. Before you hang up can you put Q back on?"
"Sure."
You pause before you say goodbye. There's never been any other way to say goodbye to her. So you just say it.
"Love you B."
"Love you too S."
Quinn's amused face pops back up on the screen.
"Shut up Fabray. But do me a favor? Teach her how to use Skype? She wants to talk more often."
"Was that Santana Lopez asking for and not demanding something?"
"Are you going to do it or not?"
"No need to get huffy. Yeah I'll do it. Happy?"
"Talk to you next week Q."
"Bye S."
Brittany calls again the next day; this time from her own account.
She shows you her new dance moves from the postmodern dance class she's been taking. You show her your diagram of your dream house you drew for your architecture class.
You call her later that day when you're bored and you know she's out of class. You two watch old episodes of South of Nowhere together, until she falls asleep and you hang up.
Pretty soon you're talking to Brittany every day for at least an hour. You talk to her for fifteen minutes between classes, in the half hour it takes you to get dressed in the morning, and then at night.
You tell yourself it's because Lex has been so busy with her engineering classes. She's been staying out to midnight on a good night and later than that on problem set nights. You tell yourself that you're only using Brittany to fill the loneliness that's been left because you're used to having Lex around.
Except that even when the craziness of classes die down you're still spending a load of time on Skype and Lex is still spending a load of time out of the room.
She tells you that she's just hanging out with her friend from high school who's transferring in the fall and taking classes in the meantime. You don't fight her or tell her off for spending more time with this friend than with you.
It's easy to ignore the space growing between you and your girlfriend when you've got those clear blue eyes waiting for you on the computer screen.
You can feel the problems bubbling beneath the surface, and there's a nagging itch in the back of your mind telling you that you need to deal with whatever this 'thing' with Lex is.
Instead you call Brittany with more frequency. In fact you're pretty sure that you get to see Brittany more than your own girlfriend nowadays.
You're fine with this. You can allow your girlfriend to do whatever she's doing with her friend as long as you've got Brittany just a click away. But as with everything in life, the tentative established equilibrium goes to pots as soon as you get comfortable with it.
-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-
It's your birthday weekend and you wake up and instantly you're calling Brittany on Skype. Lex wakes up not long after and goes about her morning routine silently. Every couple of seconds she stares hard at your computer as if she can will it to combust with her eyes. You notice and quietly sign off with Brittany.
"What's wrong with you?"
"Nothing." Her tone is sharp and bitter which surprises you a bit only because you've never heard her talk that way.
"Sure. Nothing's wrong. That's why you're glaring at my computer."
"Just leave it Santana."
"I'm not going to leave it Alexandra."
"You wanna know what's wrong? What's wrong is that you spend more time on the damn fucking computer with your high school flame than with your real in the flesh girlfriend."
"Well maybe if my real in the flesh girlfriend wasn't fucking cheating on me with her own high school flame then I wouldn't have to spend all this time on the damn computer."
"So it's my fault that you're emotionally dependent on your ex-lover."
"Well I don't know? Is it your fault that you decided to cheat?"
"I'm not cheating."
"Sure. Because normal people spend all their time with their purely platonic friend instead of their girlfriend."
"Well, every time I come home you're fucking on the damn computer with her."
"Because you're not here."
"It started before that."
"It continues because of that."
There's a silence while you both regroup and try to ease the tension. She breaks the silence first.
"I feel like I'm losing you Tana. And I feel like I'm powerless to stop it."
"What do you want me to say? What am I supposed to do about it? I'm right here next to you. I'd say it's pretty clear where I've chosen to be."
"You're here physically but you're not with me emotionally anymore."
You feel the anger flame up and go straight to your head. You've lost your cool now and you wouldn't be surprised if some Spanish leaked out of your mouth.
"I'm not here emotionally? Let's talk about you and your emotions shall we."
"Tana– "
"No. You do not get to "Tana" me."
"Oh. I don't?"
"You know what? You've got a hell of a lot of nerve to act like I'm the only one that's still hung up on her high school buddy."
Your words just hang in the stuffy air of your apartment. Lex looks a little bit like someone's kicked her puppy, but mostly wears an apologetic look on her face. Your hands are covering your mortified face as you try to figure out how to get yourself out of this jam.
"Brittany."
It's not a question. Just a statement. Lex sits down heavily next to you.
"Yeah."
"Love knows no bounds."
She looks at you with sad eyes and you're almost fearful for the next words to come out of her mouth.
"Lex– "
You can explain it away. You should be good at this. Why does lying feel so wrong? Oh yeah, because it's Lex and until now you've both been truthful to each other.
"It's okay Tana. It's okay."
"I love you. You know that right?"
"Just not in the same way."
"Do you love her Lex?"
"His name is Carter. I would never cheat on you."
"I know that. But do you love him? Does he love you?"
"Yes. I don't know."
You both just sit there clinging desperately to the material of the other's clothing.
"I can't give this up," you whisper.
"What?"
"I can't give you up because I don't even know if there's someone waiting for with my heart in New York. If you want to end this you can. But I won't be the first to let go. I can't give you up."
"I guess that makes two of us."
"I still love you."
"I know. I still love you too."
"Just not…"
"Yeah."
You hug her tightly and you can't help but think that you're both trying so hard to hold onto something that's not there. That thought doesn't stop you from trying as hard as you can to hold onto the one person who led but didn't push you, who loved you but didn't smother you.
You have to hold onto Lex because she's been here next to you for the past two years. You don't want to chance her leaving because you broke up.
You hold her to your body because it makes you feel closer to her than you have in months. You need to reconnect, to understand when it started to decay. Neither of you really want each other, not in that way, but you both desperately need each other.
You've been a part of each other's lives for so long neither of you can let go. Neither of you remembers how to be alone.
"Where did we go Lex?"
"I don't know. I don't know."
That night, for the first time since you've met Lex, you feel that familiar ache settle itself back inside your ribcage.