Here you are.

Sometimes I wondered what it would be like. To be the center of attention. Sometimes I would close my eyes real tight and picture myself walking down the hallway with all eyes on me. Was that what I wanted? Quinn Fabray was the most popular girl in school and she seemed to love it. Then again who wouldn't?

But being that popular means you have to be confident. I just didn't have that. I'd always been kind of shy, but that wasn't just because of fear, it was just that no one really paid me any attention. No one really cared. If I dropped off the face of the earth right now, no one would even notice. Somehow I just ended up vanishing. I would be standing near my locker or in the line at lunch and someone would run into me, but they wouldn't say anything. It was like I was invisible, like I wasn't even here. Slowly I was losing my place in this world. What would happen once I was completely gone?

I snapped myself out of my thoughts and opened my locker, trying to focus on the books I needed to take home. I did have to start working on that paper soon, but I could still put it off for another day. "Hey Rachel." I turned around and smiled when I saw Kurt walking towards me.

"Hi Kurt." He leaned against the locker next to me and laughed. "What's so funny?"

"It's just weird, I haven't seen you in a few days. Where on earth have you been?" This was odd, I didn't want to lie to Kurt, but I honestly didn't know what to say. He would freak out either way, but the truth was…I sort of liked having Santana as my little secret. My only getaway free card. She was a nice escape.

"I haven't been anywhere. Just focused on school I guess. Are you taking the bus home?" I asked him, he nodded. "I think my dad's going to pick me up later, but I'll wait outside with you." I grabs my books and stuffed them into my backpack, swinging it over my shoulder as Kurt and I headed for the entrance.

"How's the whole tutoring thing going?" Kurt asked as we walked outside. I could tell he was a little apprehensive about it, even when I originally told him, but he was still under the impression that this all happened at school. As it turned out, all of the tutoring had happened at Santana's apartment or my house, but I'd rather die than explain that to Kurt. "I mean isn't it weird? Does she even speak-?"

"She speaks to me." I told him coolly. "She's not so bad." Kurt arched an eyebrow as we sat on the steps of the school.

"So what's the dirt on her? Are you guys friends or something?" Kurt seemed so surprised that I almost didn't want to answer. Why did he care so much?

"Kurt I'm not telling you anything. I think she's starting to trust me and I really don't want to ruin that." Kurt rolled his eyes and I was going to respond when I heard a car door slam and saw Santana leaning against her hood smoking. "I mean look at her, it's so obvious that she's in pain." Santana spotted me and started walking over. As she moved closer, I began to perk up, it was nice to see her. "Hey, have you been hiding or something?" I asked her.

"Not hiding, just trying not to be seen." She gave me a smile before sitting on the steps next to me.

"That's the same thing." Kurt said without as much as a hint of a smile. Santana took his tone offensively and she looked down and away from him. Her cigarette still sat loosely between her fingers for a moment before she stuck it in her mouth and glanced at me.

"What's up with you?" She asked me.

"Nothing, just sitting here." Santana's grinned, and then stood up, she held out her hand towards me. "What are you doing?"

"Taking you out of here." I grabbed her hand and she pulled me to my feet. "Where do you wanna go? For a drive? To the moon?"

"Wherever." I said starting to follow her back towards her car.

"I thought you had practice today." Kurt shouted after me.

"I'll just skip, it's only once." He yelled something else but I was too focused on Santana holding my hand and leading me towards her car. She opened the door for me and took my backpack, tucking it into the backseat before she climbed into the car too. "Kurt doesn't like you." I told her honestly. "I mean, maybe that's not completely true…he's a little apprehensive, maybe over protective." I stopped and looked over at Santana who was giving me her undivided attention. "Sorry I'm rambling."

"Maybe he should be over protective." Santana told me. "He's knows I'm going to hurt you." Santana focused on pulling out of the parking spot, giving me time to adjust to her words. I took a deep breath, what did Santana even mean by that? "Let's go to the park." She suggested.

"Sure." Santana sped up, I didn't have the guts to tell her to slow down. Or maybe it was something else. Maybe I wanted her to swerve into a building, maybe I wanted her to hurt me that way because I knew if she hurt me any other way it would break me. It could've been something else, I might have wanted to just crash to see what it felt like.

We made it to the park in record time, and Santana got out of the car, heading straight for the empty playground. She climbed up the steps and slid down the slide with a light yelp. I jogged over and sat down next to her at the end of the slide. It took everything I had not to say what I was thinking. Not to say the truth. In the end I decided to speak anyway because I couldn't just hold it in. "You're high."

Santana tensed for a moment before leaning back on the slide. I didn't down at her but I can feel her eyes on my back. "I know." She said quietly.

"Why?"

"Because it felt like my skin was ripping apart and I couldn't take it anymore." She rested her hand on my back, I could feel her fingers toying with my shirt, but I didn't say anything. "It feels like hell Rachel, so I decided to stop feeling. Have you ever felt like that?"

"Yeah." I told her truthfully. "Isn't it obvious?" Santana moved her hand under my shirt, rubbing my back slowly before pulling me down, so I was lying next to her. I looked over and she was already looking back at me. "Santana…"

"Yeah?"

"I feel like my whole world is crashing down and I don't know how to stop it. I thought it was just pressure from dance, and school, but it's not…it's all coming from me. How do I stop it?"

"You don't." She looked up at the sky for a brief moment, like she was taking in everything at once. "I don't know what to do."

"About what?"

"You."

"What about me?" Santana sat up and dug into her pocket, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it. Suddenly she seemed upset, or at least frustrated. "I'm sorry if I'm doing something to stress you out or-."

"I don't think I should get close to you." She said honestly. "I think it's a really bad idea."

"And getting high and driving is a good idea?" I joked. It fell flat but Santana still smiled. At least that was something.

"It was a stupid idea, but bad is different. It's worse. I wasn't kidding when I said I was going to hurt you. I don't know how or when but I will and that's not what you want."

"Well what do I want?" It was a serious question directed at her. I was so confused at this point that I honestly wanted her to answer for me. I wanted her to tell me why I was sitting on a slide in the middle of a deserted park with a drug addict. "Because honestly…I know who you are, I know what you are, and I'm still sitting here, and I don't know why."

"Maybe you're just tired of your cheap suburban life cycle, it's not life. Life is more painful than sitting around at McKinley High and going to ballet lessons. Maybe you want to feel some of that pain." I thought about letting her think that. I thought that maybe she would just assume I was a little nobody, with nothing to bring to the table except my brains and a smile. I was more than that, I didn't live my life with blinders on. All of my pain was real too.

Sometimes it was so real that it paralyzed me. Made me wish for a new world to live in. Made me want to restart all together.

"Do you even know what it's like to hate yourself?" Santana stood up, like I was infected and she needed to get away from me as soon as possible. She stood looking at me, wondering if I was just trying to make a point. "Because I do." I crossed my legs and tried to bite the inside of my cheek to focus on pain rather than the tears that might fall. "I don't like my body, actually I think I might hate it…so when you were talking about your skin ripping apart, I actually kinda wish that would just happen to me." Santana just stared at me like she was trying to figure out a way to tell me something. I refused to look back at her, realizing now that I was so busy trying to get her to open up to me that I'd shared too much.

"I don't get it, maybe you could think that if no one ever said one good thing about you but…I told you that you were beautiful-."

"And I told you that you shouldn't use drugs." I snapped. "But we're not enough for each other, those words aren't enough for each other. I don't even know what you are to me."

"I'm your student, Rachel. You tutor me-."

"I wish it was that easy." I confessed. "But it's not. So we can't lie and say that it is."

"Should I take you home?"

"We should talk about this." I encouraged. "Or we never will and it'll hang over us forever." Santana just shrugged and continued smoking. "I think we should be honest with each other."

"More honest than we already are?" Santana scoffed.

"Yes." I replied. "I just…I'm really trying not to care. I really wish I could be apathetic but I can't. I care too much."

"It'd be a lot easier if you were just trying to use me." She said with a halfhearted laugh.

"We're not easy, remember?" Her smile returned and so did mine. "I'm going to ask you something and you're going to say yes."

"So then why ask?"

"Because I just want to hear you say it." Santana rolled her eyes and waited. "I want you to come over to my house tonight. You can sleep over too, no you should. I want you to."

"Why?"

"I think you need to take a break from your apartment. A brief hiatus." Santana smiled, nodding in agreement. "And we can order food and watch stupid movies and stay up past our bedtimes."

"I don't have a bedtime."

"My bedtime." I emphasized. "Whatever, just say yes."

"Yes." Santana pulled out her car keys and pulled me up to my feet. "And just for the record, I would've said yes anyway."

I hoped you liked getting more into Rachel's head, I needed you all to know that she's just as complex as Santana.