Brittany opens her locker with ease and makes it to first period before the bell. Ms. Bletheim says nothing as she takes her seat; she doesn't seem to notice.
She fights to concentrate on what Ms. Bletheim says instead of thinking about Santana, and when she's handed a worksheet, she doodles in the empty spaces instead of trying to solve the problems..
She's stuffing the papers into her book and walking out before she knows it.
Everything slows down by third period, her eyes are heavy and unfocused .
In fourth period economics, she falls asleep. She gets in a pretty good nap before the bell jolts her awake. She slides her books off her desk and heads next door for English.
It's actually one of her favorite classes. Even though Ms. Mcleer doesn't acknowledge her often, Brittany thinks she's nice—and a pretty good teacher. The stories they read may not always be easy to follow, but she kind of enjoys them.
Luckily for her, they're watching a movie today: Freedom Writers. She's not sure she could even start to focus on actual work today, because she hasn't so far. She might just go back to sleep.
Once everyone is in the room and settled into their seats, Ms. Mcleer has Chris turn on the projector and Callie turn off the light. Amazon pops up on the smartboard and she makes the movie player full-screen. The room hushes as she presses play.
Brittany begins dozing five minutes in, so she only catches bits and pieces of what's happening, but she knows it's not that important. She's sure there are others not paying attention—it's not like they'll have work over it or anything.
As it nears the end of the period, she catches the scene of the teacher's husband leaving her like a total jerk. She knows it'll be cut off soon, but hopes they'll get to finish it later, even if she has missed the majority of it.
The mumbling of her classmates gets louder, but she doesn't pay much attention. When she catches Ms. Mcleer's hushed voice, talking to the students in the back like she often does, however, she tries to listen to two things at once—the movie and her teacher.
She wishes she hadn't.
"Now she's gonna go kill herself," Ms. Mcleer laughs. The words cut through her, blocking everything else out. Her entire body stiffens, completely awake now.
It shouldn't surprise her; comments like that are made all the time, even if it is usually only by students. But she's breathing harder, her body still, reluctant to allow the movement of her chest as her heart beats in her ears.
She doesn't notice the movie no longer playing, or the students talking loudly and slipping out of the room early. She can only hear the loud, uneven ring of the bell.
She jumps up, sliding her things off her desk, only seeing her feet and the small path in front of her she needs to make it out of the room. She can't get out fast enough.
She's almost made it through the hallway untouched, just three lockers away from her own, when there's a steering, purposeful shove into her back. It takes her a moment to comprehend what's happening, that she's falling forward.
Her legs scramble to right her, to keep her standing.
She lets out a yelp as her collarbone collides harshly with the metal of an open locker. She staggers back and takes in a shaky breath, barely registering the locker being closed as her mind continues to defog itself.
She braces herself and takes a look around, but no one is paying attention.
(She's never quite understood how a person could be bullied and ignored at the same time.)
Her hand shakes as she lifts it to her locker. She doesn't think of the numbers, she just turns by muscle memory. Right, left, right.
After a second failed attempt, she closes her eyes in frustration.
She takes her books with her to the gym.
Brittany lies on the floor, letting the coolness of it seep into her skin. She holds her phone on her stomach, one hand over the other.
(She is slowly beginning to breathe normally.)
She's almost surprised when she feels the slow, prominent throbbing of her skin. For a moment, all she does is feel it, letting it spread over her and sting, and then glances down. She can't see anything with her shirt covering her collarbone, but she still doesn't move.
The buzz of her phone makes her stomach quiver, and she slides both hands away, one hand wrapping around the phone. She doesn't pay much attention until she sees her name.
Are you out of class?
She tries to type back yes, but her fingers are shaking so bad it ends up Ytss.
Santana seems to understand, anyhow, because a second later the phone rings. Brittany stares for a moment before swiping her thumb across the screen to answer.
She puts the phone to her ear, but she's afraid to speak.
"Are you still awake?" Santana asks, her voice light.
Her lips twitch up in a smile, but it falls quick, too much effort required to keep it in place. She thinks barely, because that's how it's been most of the day. It still feels like that now, except she knows it's not tiredness she's feeling anymore. She means to answer, but instead, her mind keeps going.
She thinks, Pepper just wants attention.
She thinks, Now she's gonna go kill herself.
It's like she has all these little conversations and comments recorded in her head, ready to replay at the worst moments. Why is it the bad things that always stick?
She thinks, I was going to kill myself.
"Brittany?"
"What?" Her voice is so thick she imagines it comes out something like her text.
Santana's voice is no longer light as she asks, "What's wrong?" Brittany feels guilty for the worry in her tone.
(Santana knows.)
"Nothing," she lies. The unsteadiness of her voice gives her away.
"Did something happen?" Santana asks, tight and full of concern.
The throbbing seems stronger now. She doesn't know if it's that or Santana that's making her want to cry.
"No, it's just um—" she cuts herself off, the tremble in her words too much.
"Are you still at school?" Santana's voice is higher now, and Brittany wishes so much that it wasn't because of her. She grits her teeth as a tear pushes out of her eye, sliding across her skin. "Can you leave or something?"
This stuff happens every day, and she can't figure out why it's bothering her so much now. It all seems rougher this week—or maybe she'd just gotten spoiled by the comfort of Santana.
"Brittany, please answer me," Santana says, and it's so much like a plead it makes Brittany want to cry even more.
She curses herself and swallows, clearing all the gunk clogging her throat. She croaks out, "Santana."
"Go home," she says, her voice a little shaky now, too. "Check yourself out. You can do that there, right? If not you could tell your parents or, or I could call and—"
"Yeah," Brittany says.
She hears a little sigh, and then Santana repeats, "Go home."
"Okay," Brittany says, her voice still frail, but calmer now.
She winces a little as she sits up, but tries to ignore the pain as she gets to her feet.
She still has her phone pressed to her ear when she walks out of the gym, when the bell rings a few seconds later.
"I'm gonna go home," Brittany says.
"Call me back, okay?"
Brittany agrees to call back, and then wipes at her cheeks before she walks into the building.
She's glad her mom isn't home when she gets there; she wouldn't know what to say to her.
The loud meow she hears as soon as she closes the door, though, makes her happy. It only takes a minute for Lord Tubbington to come striding into view. He rubs against Brittany as she crouches down, leaning into her touch, but avoids being picked up.
Knowing this means he's hungry, she stands back up. He immediately turns and heads for the kitchen. She follows.
She grabs a can of Fancy Feast from the pantry and hears another meow from her cat as she opens it. "I've got it right here," she tells him, shuffling toward his food dish because he won't get out of the way.
She pushes him back, petting him with one hand while dumping the food with the other. His face is in the dish as soon as she pulls away. She turns and throws the empty can in the trash.
She smiles at him when she turns back, and then lowers herself to the floor. She criss-crosses her legs and strokes his back. He lifts his head, glancing at her briefly before going back to his food. She leans back against the cabinet for a minute before pulling out her phone.
The walk home did a lot to calm her, so she's pretty sure she can actually talk now.
The phone barely starts ringing before Santana answers. Brittany's smile sticks a little longer this time.
But Santana still sounds a little stressed, and Brittany can't help but say, "I'm sorry."
"What—" Santana stops herself, and Brittany silently wonders why, petting Lord Tubbington once again. "How about neither of us says sorry?"
Brittany's smile makes her face sting a little, and she rubs at her face again. "Okay," she says quietly.
Brittany doesn't fight the silence. It seems right, to her, to sit there and say nothing.
Lord Tubbington turns when he's done eating, meowing quieter now. He rubs against her knee, and then climbs into her lap when she scratches behind his ears. If her butt wasn't starting to hurt from the hard kitchen floor, she would probably just stay—for a while, anyway. But it is, so she gathers her cat in her arms, groaning as she pushes herself off the floor and to her feet.
Brittany senses Santana waiting for an explanation—or maybe she just feels like she needs to give one—so she says, "Lord Tubbington is heavy."
Santana huffs out a laugh. Brittany trudges up the stairs with her phone trapped between her ear and her shoulder.
She pushes her door closed with her foot and then lays Lord Tubbington on the bed before crawling onto it herself. She leans against the headboard and pulls Santana's cover over her lap before taking the phone back in her hand.
She takes in a deep breath. She knows she shouldn't leave Santana hanging, with no explanation for earlier.
"I got a little overwhelmed today," she says.
"Yeah," Santana says. She doesn't want to push.
"I think..." she licks her lips, pausing to watch Lord Tubbington settle on top of her legs. He pushes his nose into the cover and begins to knead it. "I think I was a little too tired, and I couldn't..."
She shrugs, her face scrunching up as she struggles to connect the feelings in her head to words, and make those words come out. She wants to tell her about what happened in class, about Ms. Mcleer's words and how they struck her so hard in a way she doesn't understand. She's heard it so many times.
(So why does it feel different?)
She wishes she could explain better.
She wishes she didn't have to.
(She's never really had someone she could talk to about this kind of thing. Someone willing to listen.)
Despite today, she can't help but feel like things are better. Not as a whole, not even close to good, but better—Santana means so much to her.
"Thank you," she whispers, knowing she would probably still be in school if Santana hadn't suggested otherwise.
"Brittany," Santana says tenderly. Brittany doesn't feel like she's done anything to deserve it, the way Santana says her name, but she knows right now it means of course, so she accepts it.
She leans down over Lord Tubbington, hugging him loosely, and she feels the vibration of his loud purring. His paws are still kneading at Santana's blanket, but she ignores the occasional claw sticking into her leg.
"You know you can tell me anything," Santana says apprehensively. Brittany leans back again. "Right?"
That fact alone makes her smile. "Yeah, I know."
(But how do you go from keeping it all in to sharing it with someone else?)
"Something kind of happened in English, is all," Brittany says.
Santana waits for her to continue.
"Have you heard of Freedom Writers?" he asks. Santana agrees. "Well we were watching that today. It's probably just because I was so tired—"
"Sorry," Santana says meekly.
"Don't be," Brittany says, meaning it more than Santana will ever know. "Anyway, it was at that part where the teacher's husband decides to leave her because of her focusing on her students or whatever... and then I heard my teacher say, 'She's gonna go kill herself now.'"
Santana doesn't respond right away, but then, "That is not okay, Brittany."
She no longer knows why she thought Santana might say she was over-reacting.
"I know," Brittany says.
She makes sure to leave her house before her mom gets back. She has to go get her sister anyway.
Santana stays on the phone with her for the majority of the walk, but as the school comes into sight they hang up with a promise to talk later.
Brittany takes the long way around her school on her way to the elementry, not even pausing when she remembers her homework still sitting in her locker. It's not worth walking back inside for.
She finds her usual spot on the sidewalk, watching as all the little kids spill out of the building, loud and happy as they find their parents or whoever it is picking them up. The others tagging along with older kids or teachers head for the busses, and Brittany catches a girl, just a little older than her sister, walking by herself. Her gaze follows the black head of hair to the second bus in the line, and then slides to the 4 by the door.
It was her bus when she was younger, and technically her sister's bus now—but she practically never rides it, favoring the walk home with Brittany. Brittany, however, used to ride it all the time, fourth seat from the back on the right, from first grade all through middle school. The high school has a separate set of buses, though.
And that's when everything changed.
Her first day of high school wasn't a big deal to begin with—it wasn't the best, but it wasn't horrible, either. It was a different story after the final bell.
It's a painfully clear memory, Her bus had changed from 4 to 14, and it took her a few minutes to find the right path to the busses; she started to worry she'd miss it. She was extremely relieved when she made it outside—until she got on the bus.
It was full of students moving around and talking excitedly as Brittany made her way up the steps and into the aisle. There was limited seating, so she stopped at the first empty seat she saw, somewhere near the middle. The guy sitting by the window barely looked at her as he moved his bag into the empty spot next to him.
"You can't sit there," some girl said behind her. She turned to her and, "he's saving it for his girl."
She had no chance to say anything before the girl turned, talking to the people in the seat behind her. Something brushed her arm and she turned just as another guy tried to push past her, a whole line of people behind him, trying to make their way down the aisle. With nowhere else to go, she backed into the small space in front of the backpack occupied seat.
The guy next to it shot her a disgusted look, like she was being the most annoying person in the world.
"You can't sit there!" the girl from before barked.
Brittany swallowed. "I'm just—"
"That seat's taken," said a guy sitting in the seat in front of them.
Everything just seemed to get louder, and she had no chance to explain that she was just trying to get out of the way.
As soon as the line passed, she moved back into the aisle. She took a few steps toward the back, but that was all it took for her to see it was all full. She twisted around, heading back to the backpack had been replaced with a girl.
A few seats from the front, she stopped. There was nowhere for her to sit.
"Everyone sit down!" the bus driver called. Brittany glanced up to his mirror, hoping he would help. He said nothing else. He didn't even look at her.
The bus jolted forward.
Brittany stumbled back.
She took hold of a seat on each side of her, looking around again in case, but no space had magically appeared.
The bus pulled out of the parking lot with her still standing. She felt her eyes sting with tears as it drove down the road.
She was thankful for her house being one of the first stops, and she walked off the bus with shaky legs. She wiped at her face hastily as she walked in front of it and up her driveway, not wanting her parents—or anyone else—to see.
She never rode the bus again.
Brittany clears her throat, forcing her eyes back to the cluster of kids. She spots her sister quickly, walking with her friend Sara and a boy Brittany's not sure she's seen before.
It makes her happy to see her sister with friends
The three split apart and her sister finally looks over with a big grin. Brittany smiles back, offering a hand when she gets close.
They begin to walk hand-in-hand as usual, and Brittany doesn't even have to ask before she's being told all about the new boy. She usually waits until they're home to go into detail, but on days like today, when something really exciting happens, she tells Brittany on the way home, and then again when they get home with their mom.
Brittany doesn't mind listening.
She misses when everything was so simple. When friends were made easily because when you're little like that, people don't mind weirdness as much.
She squeezes her sisters hand and tries to focus on what she's saying. She hears the name Kyle.
Just like she thought, her sister retells the story of her day when they get home to their mom. She actually listens this time, and realizes how much she missed on the way home.
They're eating baby carrots today, and Brittany munches on them as her sister talks.
She bites one in half when her phone goes off. She chews slowly as she pulls it out of her pocket, and smiles when she sees a text from Santana.
Remind me to never watch anything with Rachel berry ever again
She hadn't really thought of how odd it would look until she sees her moms raised eyebrow and inquisitive eyes.
"Mommy," her sister says, tugging at her sleeve, "are you even listening?"
Her mom smiles again, nodding as she looks away from Brittany and back to her sister.
She pops the other half of her carrot in her mouth and drops her eyes back to her phone.
Never watch anything with Rachel berry. Noted. Why?
She half-listens to her sister as she waits. Lord Tubbington makes his way over, standing on his back paws, putting his front ones on her leg. She reaches down, and he jumps with her assistance.
He sticks his nose towards the table, and she grabs another carrot. He stops her arm, and she lets him sniff it—she knows he won't eat it. When he's satisfied, he releases her, settling into her lap. Brittany bites into the carrot.
It's torture. You can avoid it for a while, but you forget how bad it is...and then you get tricked into it again!
Brittany looks up, noticing the silence and the way she's grinning at her phone.
"What's for dinner?" she asks.
"We're making chicken wraps!" her sister answers excitedly.
"Right." She nods. "I'll be back down for that."
She guides her cat off her lap and stands up, turning away from her mom's gaze, ready to go to her room.
"You don't want to stay and help?"
"Um." She looks up to her mom and sister, to her phone, and then back. She's somewhat of a terrible cook, but she's a pretty good helper. "Of course."
(The three of them cook together a lot, especially if it's chicken wraps.)
Tell her you have a better offer
Her mom stands up with a smile and her sister jumps up to follow. Brittany gets the plates and big pot, her sister gets the small utensils, and their mom gets the chicken and other ingredients needed.
Brittany goes to the sink and starts filling the pot with water.
What kind of better offer?
She leans against the counter, typing back quickly.
The kind where you get to cook chicken wraps with me
The sound of the water flowing changes and she glances back. The water is spilling over. She twists around fully and slaps her palm against the handle to stop the flow of water.
"Oops," she mumbles.
Her phone dings once as she pours some of the water out, and again when she's placing it on the stove. She doesn't turn it on—she caught a rag on fire once, so now she just leaves it for her mom.
"Why's your phone keep making noise, Bit?" her sister asks.
They are both looking at her.
"It's um.. letting me know... that.. I'm talking to someone,," she says, muttering the last part.
(Why is that so weird to say?)
"Oh," her sister says, going back to placing utensils on the counter.
Her moms gaze catches her again, and then she smiles curiously. Brittany flashes a smile back before looking away. She walks to the other side of the kitchen and plugs in the grill. She turns her phone to vibrate before looking at Santana's texts.
That's perfect
"You're abandoning us on movie night to cook murdered chickens!?"
She smiles, trying to imagine Santana saying that.
You're definitely invited but I don't know if I can eat now
"Water's boiling, Britt," her mom says.
She looks up, and over to the pot. She walks back over and her sister hand her the box of macaroni before she can ask for it. She dumps it in the water.
Don't say that! I'll come help make the best damn chicken wraps you've ever had
The grill sizzles as her mom places the strips of chicken onto it.
Okay
Brittany walks over to her sister and lifts her up, laughing at her happy squeal as she sits her on the opposite counter. She hops up next to her.
Wear something comfy. We'll watch our own movie after
They swing their legs as much as the cabinets allow—which isn't much—and wait for everything to cook.
This plan just got more perfect
Her dad gets home not too much later. He joins them in the kitchen, talking happily as they wait the few minutes for everything to finish cooking. He helps put everything together, and the three of them sit at the table with plates of chicken wraps and mac'n'cheese.
Brittany sneaks a picture and sends it to Santana.
Between good food, time with her family, and talking to Santana, Brittany doesn't stop smiling at her phone for pretty much the whole night.
(Today was a reminder of why she almost did it)
(Tonight is a reminder of why she didn't.)
I know it's been a long time, but I'm finally back to working on this story. Hope you enjoy it and keep reading!