Hey everybody, I hope you're enjoying this story. Have a nice day and I hope this chapter doesn't disappoint!
Chapter 2
I'm arriving at exactly eight ten at school, same as always. Quinn, Brittany and I have made a name for ourselves in our Freshman year. And now we're called the unholy trinity, because Quinn wanted to join the celibacy club and it's not like we have a very 'clean' reputation. I don't care about that, as long as I can be with Britt and people leave us alone, then it's alright with me.
Glee club is a different story, because, again, reputation is everything at McKinley High school. And that's why the unholy trinity agreed to always arrive at the doors of school at eight fifteen, so that we can make our famous walk in the school hallways. Quinn in the middle, with Britz and I flanking her left and right side. As I'm walking to the doors, I see Quinn already standing aside, waiting for us.
"Yo Quinn, how's it going?" I ask nonchalantly, like I care and all that. I see her rolling her eyes at me, first of many for this day I'm guessing. "I'm allright. Have you thought about glee club? Did Britt found a way to convince you? Because we're going to join that club, whether you like it or not." I give her my famous death glare, because although Quinn seems in charge of our little group, she is in charge because I let her. And she knows that… Sometimes
We had a rough beginning last year, but as we joined Cheerios together as Freshmans, we saw the potential in each other, reputation wise, in long term maybe friendship wise too, not that I'll ever admit that out loud. I never show her my true self like I show Brit that, but I consider her an almost close friend now. And now that we're co-captains of the cheerios, we have a stronger bond. But she knows that she can't come between me and Brittany.
Last year she had some trouble with understanding Brittany, and I get that, with her strange one-liners and sometimes unpresence and naïve way to look at the world, she's not that easy to get. She's the most friendliest person you'll ever meet, and you can't say a bad word about her, but to voluntary bond with her, that's another story. But it seems like Quinn's getting there. Especially starting this year, she's starting to see what I'm seeing in her.
We're meeting more after school nowadays with her. Brittany and I, we're almost always together during the summer, which made our unbreakable band. Quinn sometimes joined us if she wasn't at church camp (which she went to voluntary?!), which made us both see that Brittany is completely different when she starts to trust you and is not surrounded by dozens of other people. And if you take the time to ask her to explain some things she says, then there's always a logical explanation to it, it's the rest of us that are too stupid and 'thinking like society wants you too' that makes you doubt what she's saying.
Since summer came and Brittany started to talk more and let down her walls a bit more, Quinn started to see what potential I see in her too, so she gets it now. Brittany also has such a pure hart, it's a privilege to get to hear some things that come out of her brain.
Quinn and I did talk about the fact that although she seems so open, she's really closed off. She only show us what she wants us to see from herself. We're a bit the same, we make a tough exterior, but we translate it into bitchyniss, so it's really different, because we do know of each other what's behind those walls (not at all insecurity), but we don't know what's behind Brittany's walls. And don't blame me being a bitch at school, Quinn is just as bad, and I'd like to think I'm a lot nicer outside of school.
Quinn's the same, maybe a little less bitchy then I am, but she can seem like a desperate and mean person who only cares about her reputation. I mean she's dating the quarterback for Christ's sake. So yeah, we bonded over our niceness, and the bond between our three is starting to really get somewhere. We (read: Quinn and I, Brittany is standing on the side-line) still have our fights quite often, maybe because we act a little the same in school, and we both have a large amount of pride and like to be on top of everything. Which I am better in, hence why I'm the one really in charge.
So back to our conversation, what did she want again? Oh right, glee club. I'm starting to feel a bit annoyed and say a little aggressive: "You do realise I'll only join the Gleeks because I decide to do that. Sure if we do that, I'll do you a favour, we're friends after all. But I decide, not you, got that?" She sighs. "Whatever you say Satan." She's looking around the parking lot, searching for Brittany probably. "Where's your twin San?".
"I'm going to assume you're talking about Brit, which I don't know… You know we rarely carpool together."
We don't, we almost never carpool. And that's her doing. I tried to convince her, since it's much more ecologic (and it's Brittany, she loves nature), but she's very strict if it comes to me coming to her house. She's very private on that part. And the argument that we live across town from each other is understandable, so it wouldn't make that much sense to carpool, but still. I'd do it, if she wanted too. But she likes to take her time in the morning, so I'll let her, I don't want to suffocate her with my presence. We're still roughly at the beginning of an unbreakable friendship, I mean we were friends last year, but we never really hung out after school that much, more like sometimes in the locker rooms after practice or in the town center.
It's only recent that we started to visit each other at home and know each other's every move and steps during the day.
Still searching for her, Quinn's answering me: "Yes, I know that, but you know they invented something like a phone a few decades ago, so you can communicate from a distance away. So has she let anything know? It's eight fifteen in a minute, and I don't feel like having strange looks our way when we walk in school." I start to look around too, because it is strange she hasn't let anything know this morning, she usually always sent me a good morning text which always cheer me up, because I'm not really a morning person, and she knows that. "you know, not everybody looks at the clock when they're walking in the school halls, one minute late won't destroy our status." I state. After speaking we both start to look around the parking lot, still no sign of Brittany. I'm starting to get a bit worried.
But my worries go away the minute I see her car arriving in the parking lot. "There she is Q, no need to worry, we'll just have to get the looks of admiration and jealousy our way this morning instead of slushies in our faces." She puffs out some air. "Don't pretend like you hate those looks Santana."
We're watching Brittany stepping out of her car, and she hasn't noticed us yet, she probably thinks we've already gone inside, because it is officially eight sixteen now.
She climbs out of her car and I need to see twice because… "what's wrong with her, she can barely step out of her car, it's like she has really bad stomach cramps or something?" I ask to Quinn. Quinn frowns her eyebrows together. "Yeah you're right, she's in pain. Quite badly too. What happened to her?" I need to withhold myself of running to Brit and wait until she's seen us. She looks like a deer that got caught in headlights. In a split second she starts walking normal again. "What the hell?" Quinn says.
Brittany is walking right to us and says cheerful "Morning guys, sorry I'm a bit late, I needed to bring my little sister to school, and then she didn't want to go to her class so I walked with her."
"Is that why you were getting out of your car like you can't stand up straight from pain in your stomach, do you have your period or something?" I ask, with a hint of worry in my voice. She frowns and tries to brush it away. "no, I mean, yes, yes it's that, just period cramps, you're both women, you know how bad they can sometimes be… So, Glee club right?" she bumbs my shoulder when she says that.
"Yeah yeah, smooth change of subject Britz… Does it hurt?". " no, not at all, it just hurt a little because I sat in the car and then standing up to fast and all that, no need to worry." Quinn looks at me with a skeptical look, and I agree, her face didn't tell the same story when she was walking from her car before she realised we saw her. It looked like she was in a lot of pain. I don't know what to do, she obviously doesn't want to talk about it. Should I let it go?
Quinn decides for me. "So you guys will join Glee with me. That's awesome. I owe you two. Thanks." My head snaps back to her: "Hold up, I never said that, I said it would be my decision and I told B I'd think about it." Brittany seems happy with the change of subject and jumps on it. "You're very welcome Quinn, I'm already starting to think of a choreography to sing to your choice of song. It's going to be awesome." She smiles like an eight year old who just got the news of getting an ice cream. Great, version 'very nice but closed of' Brittany is here. "Oh I see, two against one means the last one gets ignored. Whatever happened with the saying if two dogs fight for one leg a third one runs away with it, doesn't that mean I get to win?!" I know I don't make that much sense but they're pushing my buttons a bit. Quinn raises her eyebrows "You know Santana, whether you like it or not, we'll join that glee club, Brittany already put so much work in it, you won't let that be for nothing right?" I hate Quinn right now, using Brittany as my weak spot, how do I save myself out of this situation?
"Shut up Q, I decide, and if you would've let me finish my sentence a minute ago, I would've told you that even though I think it's a bad idea, I'll do it. So come on guys, I don't want to hurry to my locker, and we haven't slushied people yet this year, I think we need to change that, we don't want the reputation of the Cheerios ruined right?" I ask annoyed. Quinn's once again looking again strange at me. "Yes, you're right." She sighs. "I guess it's time to go back to school mode again." And then the first warning bell starts to ring.
God, time is going sooo slow right now. "come te llamas" Mr. Scheuster's asking to the class. Is he freaking kidding me right now. I'm in high school and that is what he's teaching our class?! I did not sign up for kinder garden Spanish lessons. And you know what sucks the most? I can't sit beside Brittany. No, mr. 'too much gel in my hair' wanted to choose the seats himself, because he wanted to give us a chance to get to know other people in your classes. And now I'm stuck with Rachel freaking Berry next to me. I should've just skipped this class. I think I can learn more from the freaks who practically live under the bleachers then sit here in a Spanish class with a teacher who doesn't even know the language. At least I can focus on Brittany for a bit.
You can't see it, but she's almost fluent in Spanish. She said she wanted to learn the language I grew up with (which is like so cute!) and she has spent this summer vacation learning it. And I didn't know it was possible, but I fell in love with her more for that. Who takes the time to learn a whole language, just because their best friend can speak it? Right, nobody, except my Britt Britt. She must be bored to be in this class too. Oh the lost opportunities to spend our time together if we could just sit next to eachother. I guess I'll just creepily look at her.
She's seated at the corner of the class, next to Asian number one, Dina or something like that. She's in glee club too. I try to make eye contact with Brittany, but she looks distracted. She's taking a sip from her water, but it looks like she's taking a pill too. Wonder what that is for? When she puts her bottle back down, she senses someone looking at her. Of course she knows it's me who's looking, so now we're staring at each other intensely. And she has that deer caught in the headlights look again, what's up with that? She hasn't randomly starting to take drugs right? No, she's too smart to take one in class, where everybody could see. Hmm, strange.
"And that's it for today guys, great job everybody. Buenos dias classe."
Finally, classes are over, couldn't come any earlier. Quinn had a free period, so she's already waiting at our classroom. When she sees me she comes over and says: "Hey, ready to practice for our audition for Glee club? You can both come over at my house." I answer with an attitude like I don't care at all. "Yeah sure, whatever. I'll talk to Britt and we'll be there in half an hour.". "Okay great, I'll make sure I'll have some snacks ready and all that, I need something to keep you occupied."
She winks at me and walks away. Okay, I don't eat that much, it's not because I like to eat cookies a lot that you can persuade me to do things… I mean, not all things, maybe some. "Hey, San, what are you thinking about?" Britt asks me, she's put all her stuff away and is now standing next to me. "Quinn just asked me to go rehearse at her place for Gleek club. You can come right?" I ask her, because I know she can't always come, her parents can be very strict sometimes. But she nods, "Yes I can, my sisters staying over at some friends place anyway, so I can come."
"Okay, good, because I wouldn't survive such a thing without you by my side." She playfully nudges my elbow "We both know you secretly like this, you can't fool me San". She's right, but I'm too stubborn to admit it. I look for something to tease her back with, but then I remember the strange medication she took, and when she starts walking down the hallway, I stop her with my hand touching her elbow. She flinches for like a microsecond, but I'll ignore it for this second, because I still remember the way she reacted yesterday when I tried to touched her arm. So I let it go "Hey Britt, what was with that pill you took earlier in class. Are you still hurt or something?" She tries to laugh it off, but it sounds a bit awkward. "you saw that huh? It's just a small painkiller, nothing much… So are you ready to go? We can start with singing some Disney songs, that's always fun to do. " She gives her signature smile and starts to walk again.
Although I'll never tell another living soul, her childlike side is one of the many things I really love about her. Just letting go of adultness for a second and just feel like a little kid, singing to tarzan and moana gets me relaxed. But I still have a reputation to uphold. So I put up my bitchface and try to walk real fast through the hallways to my car. And it works, half the school is afraid of me. Or more like my alternate ego, who's going to all Lima Heights on someone ass if they piss me off. So when I don't look happy, you really shouldn't stand in my way.
I see that Brittany has already climbed in her car and smirks at me through her car window. She yells "Don't keep looking that way, one day you'll wake up and you'll look angry for the rest of your life. I once saw a movie about that" through the window and drives away. I'm a really stubborn child, so I open my car door way too aggressively and angry which makes me almost fall down. Luckily not.
Whilst I'm driving to Quinn I suddenly remember she never told me why she took the pain killer in the first place. Didn't she say that it was just period pain? She never takes pain killers for that. She says it's meant to hurt because her body is sad of loosing a small part of herself (which is a bit exaggerating in my opinion, it's useless, couldn't they make an on/off button for when you want to have a baby. What's the point of periods every month for something you only once, twice, … or never need?). But I remember her telling me that, same with muscle pain, she never takes painkillers for that too. That's because 'it feels too good to take that sort of pain away.' She says it makes her feel like she did a good job, because her muscles have worked enough to make her aware of it. And it's not like muscle pain from doing sports is unhealthy, it means you did something right.
In my mind pain is pain, so I would easily take a painkiller for muscle or period pain, but apparently not her. So what was the pain killer for then?
I see Brittany has already arrived at Quinn's place, but is just making herself ready to step out of her car, so I wasn't that far behind. She hasn't seen me yet I think, which is a bit strange, she has very sensitive hearing. But anyway, at the moment she's stepping out of her car, and although she does her best job to hide it, I see she's in pain again in the way she steps out of her four-wheeled vehicle. And yeah, unfortunately, I'm a bit used to Brittany being in pain, as hard as that sounds, I only started to realise that since we started to meet up a lot more during this vacation.
She's hurt a lot because her number one thing to do is dance. And although she's freakishly good at it, she's also a really big clums. So she hurts herself unintentionally a lot of the time, always small things though. But this time it looks really serious, and I'm not used to that.
I really don't like that she tries to hide it this time from me. It's like she's even trying to hid it from herself, since there's no one around for the moment to hide her pain from. I step out of my car and wave at her "hey Britt, looks like you beat me here". She smirks at me "when am I ever behind of you, I always beat you, the only times you win is because I let you win" and then she winks at me. I roll my eyes in response, "I'm not even going to respond to that" I mumble between my teeth.
"Hey San, are you coming or are you going to keep mumbling to yourself? I already rang the doorbell." She yells from the door. "Coming Britt." Then the door sweeps open and Quinn's mom is standing there. "Hello lovely girls, Quinn told me you were coming. How are you?" We've met Quinn's mom a few times before, she works a lot, but sometimes she takes the day off to be with her daughter. Apparently, today's one of these days. She's an awesome mom, she can be a bit timid sometimes and when her husband's around she doesn't really have much backbone, but she loves Quinn endlessly, and isn't that what we all wish from a parent? It's the most important one right, that she does everything in her power to be there for her daughter, even though she has a really intensive job, she still looks after her daughter.
I give her my signature parent-smile and tell her: "I'm doing fine, thank you, how are you?" She smiles back. "Really good, I planned a whole weekend with my Quinny, so I'm really looking forward to that. Quinn's upstairs in her room, you girls know the way by now right? I'll bring something to eat in an hour, but feel free to look in the kitchen if you're hungry or thirsty." "Thank you mrs. Fabray". Britt steps in and answers timidly. And then we walk towards the stairs.
Quinn's home is a really classic house, just what you'd expect from a Christian family. I'm surprised there isn't a giant statue of Jezus in their hallway. We're walking up the wooden stairs towards Q's bedroom at the end of the hallway. She has a pretty comfy bedroom. With pink lights and a queen sized bed in the middle. Because she'll only sleep with her boyfriend when she's married. Ha yeah right, if Quinn's still a virgin, then I'm not Hispanic.
Quinn's sitting at her desk with headphones on, while silently humming the lyrics to the song she choose to perform to. I decide to have a little fun and put my finger in front of my lips to make a hushing sound to Britt. She looks at me and nods, telling me she understands what I want to say. She makes giant gestures to me with her hand, like she's asking me if that's really necessary to do. She whisper yells to me: "She's going to scare herself to death… again" I only shrug in response and have a mischievous smirk on my face and tip toe my way to Quinn. "I know you're there S, you've pulled that trick one too many times" Quinn says to me while putting her headphones off her ears. I look surprised.
"How did you know I was here?" She rolls her eyes. "Ever heard of doorbells? Their function is to make people aware there's someone coming into their house. And since you love to scare me, I'm already prepared and aware when you're entering my room. Which by the way, you guys didn't knock." Britt's walks into the room nonchalantly "Like you care if we knock or not." Quinn looks at Brittany and starts to laugh. "Yeah, you're absolutely right B, I don't care. But I do care if Santana here likes to give me a heart attack or not." I grunt defeatedly and jump on her bed to lay down. I hear Brittany laugh behind me. "It's not funny Britt." I say offended. "Yes it is, just a little bit." She says amused.
I roll my eyes and decide to change the subject. "So anyway, I'm changing the subject. Show us your moves Britt". Q steps in, "yeah B, show us what you got, I'm really curious at what you choreographed for us. And then I want to practice it a bit while we're singing. I'll never admit it outside this room, but I'm a little nervous about this performance. I mean I want to impress Finn, and make him look my way instead of that Berry girl."
"Alright, put the music on, then I'll show you guys. I hope you like it." Britt says with a little nervousness in her tone.
After two hours of intensive dancing we're all really exhausted. We lay down on Quinn's bed. I groan, because: one my muscles hurt from all that dancing. And two, Quinn's bedroom is too bright. I like it dark, as black as possible. Hers is the opposite, even her sheets are bright baby blue. "I think we're ging to nail that audition Q. and you better hope for yourself it'll be worth the trouble." I say. Quinns answer on that is: "yeah yeah, I know, thank you very much Santana for doing this for me. You too, B. We did amazing right Britt, we're good students to learn a dance to?" Britt has her eyes closed, but peeks a bit to watch us. "yeah sure, I mean my little sister learns quicker then you guys, but you're both awesome. And I didn't even need to threaten you with tickles if you would stop to pay attention." Brittany tries to hold in her laughter. Because she's lying (hopefully). Her sister is a horrible dancer, she told us that before.
Quinn looks at me and tries to have a silent conversation with me. She looks at Brittany and her stomach and then uses her hands to make a motion to tickle her. She counts down from five. Britt's unaware of this transaction, because she has her eyes closed. I'm trying to hold in my laughter whilst Quinn is counting down with her fingers. Three… Two.. one… "Go" she shouts. And she goes to Britts arms to hold her down, while I start to tickle her stomach, I know it's her weak spot when it comes to ticklish body parts. But instead of starting to hear her cute laughter, she yells out in pain. "OUCH!"
I'm startled to death and Quinn looks at me shocked. Before Brittany can react, I pull up her cheerios shirt and see a huge bruise across her stomach. I inhale sharply "What the hell Britt, what is that?" I yell out with a lot of worry in my voice. "It's nothing, just a little bruise." She answers, while quickly crawling farther away from us and putting her shirt back down. "Doesn't look like a little bruise to me B." Quinn says with also a lot of worry in her voice. I try to look at those piercing blue eyes, but she won't let me.
"Brittany, I'm giving you one minute to explain to me what happened." I say in a commanding voice, which I rarely use on her. Because I know she doesn't like it when I raise my voice. "I just… I ran into someone in the store because Lord T needed new cheese for in our fondue thingy, but another person took the last cheese before me. I asked if I could get it and I shouldn't have, because the lady was really persistent on keeping it and one thing led to the other and it became a bit aggressive." Quinn breaths in sharply. "That's assault B. Did the store do something about it? It weren't period cramps you had this morning was it? For goodness sake, I'm going to go all Lima heights on that persons ass. We should go to the police…" "NO, we shouldn't" Britt says in a panicked voice. "It won't happen again, and I was in the wrong too, so it wouldn't matter anyway".
"Yeah right, the nicest human in this stinking world, who doesn't want to hurt a fly, has challenged someone to hurt her like that. "That's a lie and you know it Britt." I say to her. She shakes her head, likes she's desperately trying to convince us, … and herself? of this. "No it's not. Leave it be, in a week this will be gone and we can all move on with our lives. Now excuse me, I need to be home before seven." She says and rushes to gather her stuff and almost runs downstairs. She's just slow enough to shout a quick goodbye to Quinn's mother and then she's gone.
I am speechless. What the hell just happened? And when I look at Quinn, she isn't doing much better. She's opening and closing her mouth like a fish, like she doesn't even know how to properly communicate this moment.