Brittany and I connected so instantly at McKinley High that many people have the impression that we've known each other since we were kids. That wasn't the case. I met Brittany at McKinley High when I was 15, during the auditions to join the cheerleading squad. I wasn't the best dancer. Well, I was never a great dancer to tell you the truth, I wasn't even one of those gymnasts. I was pretty, I had attitude and a history of two years of ballet lessons, and many hours dancing alone in my room. I don't know why Sue Sylvester selected me into the squad, but I was in after the third elimination round, which brought in 10 new cheerios from the rookie's year. In the list from one to ten, counting best to worst, Brittany was first on the list, Quinn Fabray was fourth and I was tenth.
Quinn soon won the coach's favour, but I had to prove myself, because there was a waiting list of ten other girls who wanted to be promoted. I remember that I needed help and I asked help to the girl at the top of the list. Luckily for me, Brittany was simply Brittany. We connected in an instant. We started getting sexually involved only a year later, and I thought it was a natural consequence of our relationship. Everything was easy with Brittany. I lost my virginity to Puck, but I only discovered how good intimacy could be with her. Even though I was aware that I was gay since I was 13, Brittany was the person who showed me the way.
Honestly, I don't know why it took me so long to come to terms with the relationship I had with Brittany. Obviously, it had to do with immaturity and the fear of coming out of the closet in a school that only claimed to have zero intolerance for bullying and aggression on paper, because in practice the principal was a joke. Not to mention the teachers... because 50% of them were phenomenal, but the other 50% were a bad joke, like Mr. Schue as a Spanish teacher e director of the choir. What I do know is that when I was able to take on my relationship with Brittany, when we became exclusive, I've never been happier. If it hadn't been for Brittany, if it hadn't been for the love we felt for each other, I wouldn't have survived McKinley High!
…
That morning, Quinn knocked twice on that bedrooms' door, and Brittany took a moment to answer with a tap. As I had promised, I would follow along, but keeping my distance. I wanted to be with my Brittany, talk to her, sleep with her, kiss her. I wanted all of that, but I couldn't because I was more than aware of the gravity of the situation. Reapers were sick people, but they were sick people turned into cannibalistic monsters. I felt like crap about it. But as much as I loved Brittany, I didn't want to meet the same fate. I didn't have Romeo and Juliet-style romantic visions. At most, we'd be like Rose and Jack, fighting for each other as far as possible. Yeah, Rose and Jack were more our thing.
I followed Quinn as she finally unlocked the door with breakfast for Brittany. No one else had food in their stomachs. Only Brittany would have that right, and Tina because she was pregnant. I stood at the door watching everything. Brittany looked like she got a terrible flu. Her nose was very red, her face was very haggard, her hair was messed up in the wrong way.
"Good morning my love." I smiled at my girlfriend. "Are you feeling better?"
"I think I have a hellish flu again." Brittany smiled a little wanly. "The storm got me hard..." She took one of the cookies, but couldn't manage to eat it. "This light is too strong, my eyes hurt."
I didn't want to cry in front of Brittany. I really didn't want to, but I couldn't contain myself because everything screamed those were our final moments.
"What is it, San?" She said sweetly. "Why are you crying?"
"Nothing, my love. It's just that I love you too much and I'm worried."
I felt someone coming up from behind. I turned my face and my peripheral vision accused Sam and Mike. They weren't there to see Brittany. They were there to watch over me.
"Shall we check the bandage?" Quinn said gently. She had on surgical gloves and a cloth over her face. I could see that Quinn tried to be cautious and, at the same time, sensitive. Brittany sat on the bed and Quinn approached to examine her. She took the bandage off the wounds. I saw the exact moment when Quinn made a disappointed expression. She put Brittany's bandage back on without changing it. "It's all right, you must got flu anyway. You need to rest, Britt."
"Are you sure?" My love asked with hope in her voice.
"Yeah, I'm quite sure."
Quinn left the room as quickly as she could, while I felt Mike holding me away from that door. Quinn discarded her gloves and put them straight in the trash and locked the door. Then she cleaned herself with alcohol.
"What happened? Why didn't you change the bandage?" I demanded an explanation while trying to free myself from Mike's arms.
"The scratch is infected, Santana. There's secretion. Even though I give Brittany all the antibiotics we have left, even though we've treated her wound with every antiseptic we have available, the wound is heavily infected and won't heal. In addition, she already has other symptoms. She's feeling sensitive to light. That's a very bad sign. I'm sorry, San." Then Quinn looked at Mike. "We need to make some decisions now."
"Don't talk like Brittany is already dead!" I wanted to hit Quinn, but Mike thankfully held me back. "You're a bitch, a horrible bitch. You're a frustrated bitch who could never bear to see other people's happiness because you're a miserable jealous bitch. Fuck you! Brittany is not dead yet. Fuck you!"
"She's not dead, Santana. She is transforming!" Quinn yelled back. "The infection won't kill her. But Brittany will kill us all as soon as the infection takes over her brain."
I wanted to fight Quinn so bad. I wanted to rip her head off her neck not because Quinn was wrong, but because she was absolutely right. Then, there was a knock on the door to the room Brittany was locked in. We stopped the fight. I noticed that the others in the house were approaching, but afraid. Then Quinn knocked twice on the door, and Brittany answered with a really loud one. Quinn cautiously unlocked the door and we found Brittany walking to the middle of the room.
"My headache is really bad and you guys are screaming like crazy." Brittany said with a tearful face, and my first instinct was to want to hug her, but Mike was still holding me back. "I take it this isn't just the flu, is it?"
"No, Brittany, it's not the flu." Quinn said in a mild voice, which was surprising since the second before, she had been screaming in my face.
"I can't think very well, but I think Santana needs to get out of here. I love you more than my own life, that's why you need to leave now. I don't want you to see this."
"But Brittany!"
"I love you, Santana. You are the love of my life and I am the love of yours. We were going to get married, but now it's not going to happen anymore. I'm very sorry." Brittany paused and grimaced, as if the headache was really bothering her. "At least we found each other and we lived together until death do us part. Not many people can say the same."
"Brittany, please… don't give up!"
"It's too late, Sanny. I'm feeling so bad, this thing really hurts. It's hard to keep thinking and talking… I'm so sorry that I need to die and you need to live. They need you more than you realize."
"I'm sorry, Britt. I'm so sorry." I was in tears. "I love you so much… I'm sorry!"
"I don't want to turn that thing, so Mike needs to fix it, because I can't do it myself."
"Why me, Britt?" Mike said still holding me.
"Because it's all your fault." Brittany said it straight and dry to the point where it hurt more than a slap in his face. "Go away now, Santana. I want you to keep the promise you made to your mother. Now this is a promise you have to make to me too. I want you to survive, no matter how. I need it."
"Britt, please! I love you." I was crying so much that I wasn't sure if she could still understand me.
"I love you too, babe. Now leave!" When no one moved, Brittany let out a scream. "NOW!"
Sam and Quinn pushed me away, and I saw the others start to break camp. I've never been one for scandals, but I was putting on a show at that moment, because I wanted to say goodbye to Brittany, because I wanted to be with her, but Sam and Quinn threw me into a corner of a room and watched me while the others continued to pack up to get out of the house. I cried loudly, ugly, but I didn't allow either of them to try to comfort me. Obviously, I cursed them with all the repertoire I knew. Barbie and Ken were the lightest names on my list. If Brittany started to lose her rationality from then on, well, I'd lost my sanity in two seconds.
It was a very strange situation, because everybody else was working as fast as they could and nobody looked directly at me at the same time. Mike took the road map and showed it to Quinn. He gave her some instructions, which honestly, I didn't care to pay attention to. I kept looking at the door of that room, tempted to go up to the second floor and say things to Brittany. I never shied away from saying I loved my Britt Britt, and at that moment, my regret was that I hadn't said it more often.
Brittany wasn't dead yet, but at the same time she was, and I couldn't reason about it. About a half an hour later, I was literally being pushed into the truck along with Quinn, Rachel, Blaine and Tina. I looked at that house before we left. That was literally the grave of the love of my life, and I never got to say goodbye to her... not quite. But is it possible to say goodbye appropriately or emotionally like in the movies?
The people I loved slowly left me. I was never able to say goodbye to my father in Lima. I could never hug my mother at Indian Lake, I could never even kiss my Brittany. At least I was able to say goodbye to Abuela, even though her cremation was that despair due to the first attacks on the island. The bodies were lining up: mom, dad, abuela, Joe, Finn, Kurt, Father Hugo, Brittany. Not to mention those whose fate we didn't know: Carole, Burt, Daniel, Aisha, my uncle Carlos and his family. What about my other friends from Lima? Mercedes, Puck, Artie, the Irish boy, mr. Schue, Sue Sylvester, Sugar Motta…
We had no clue.
"Mike said to wait for him near a town called Norway. There is a lake before the city, and we must stop at some safe spot on that lake and wait." Quinn explained our route as we left that small town.
No one said anything else in 40 minutes of dead silence inside that truck. It felt like crying was only allowed for me. And all I could do was cry, just like Rachel and Carole had cried for Finn. Open loud ugly cry. Sometimes I felt Rachel's hand running down my back, because she was in the backseat with me, and because Blaine looked too afraid to touch me. But there was no consolation... only time could do that. Brittany was the love of my life and I lost her.
…
Quinn stopped in front of a lake. It was a cloudy day, very cold. There were no zombies around, which was a relief. As soon as Quinn parked our truck, I got out of the car and ran to the edge of the lake. I screamed and screamed. I kicked a few stones and finally I sat down. No one had the courage to approach me for many minutes. I didn't look back to see what they were doing either. What I do know is that Quinn sat down next to me after a long time and offered me some water.
"I loved her too." Quinn said. "Not like you loved her, of course, but Brittany was the best of the three of us."
"I know." My voice came out so hoarse, it sounded like I'd swallowed a frog.
"Unfortunately or fortunately, you'll have to move on, San. You promised her."
"I know."
"I'll help you with this task, even if it's not easy."
"You?" I said angrily, even though I knew I had no right to do so. "What do you know about it, Quinn Fabray? You've never lost anyone you loved more than yourself. Rachel lost Finn. Blaine lost Kurt... you haven't lost anyone. You don't know."
"I lost Joe."
"That's not true. You loved Joe as much as any of us loved him. Just because you had sex with him on the day of the accident doesn't make your feelings for him special."
"So, you don't want my company or my help?"
"No, I don't." I said. "Not right now."
"But will you later?"
"Maybe."
Quinn kissed my check and left me alone. I wasn't crying anymore, but my heart was burning like never before.
…
About four hours after Quinn parked the truck by the lake, we saw Sam and Mike's truck approaching. Mike got out of the car and began frantically kicking the truck's tire. Then he ran to the edge of the lake and screamed much like I did hours before. If my reaction to Brittany's grief was pure sadness, his was pure anger. I started crying again and approached my friend.
"It's done. We waited for her to lose consciousness. She didn't see anything." Mike said with tears streaming down his face. "I'm done with this shit."
"What she said… it wasn't your fault. It was mine. I didn't have enough balls to stay in the bunker and to make her stay with me. I should have let you and Tina go and make everybody else to stay, as was your plan all along. But now, all we have left is to move on and find that fucking island."
"What if we don't find the island? Or what if it doesn't turn out as we'd hoped?"
"Too late to have doubts."
The day was too late. Mike and Sam found an abandoned cottage by the lake, which had been cleaned up by someone before. We went about our routine and slept in total discomfort. Everyone kept vigil except me. I just lay on the cold floor and kept quiet mourning the love of my life.
…
After six hours of travel with nothing new to see, we crossed the border. In the old days, crossing the border meant stopping at a police and customs office, checking documentation and all that stuff in case someone wanted to enter any country legally. In the apocalypse, entering the first Canadian city was like entering any other else. There were no barriers, there was nothing. The first city in Canada, we found a small community in the town of Woodstook, which surrounded a peninsula made by the Saint John River. These people forced us to drive around 50km to catch a second bridge and continue on our way.
Mike stopped at a small village along the highway. There was nothing out of the ordinary there, and it looked a lot like the dozens of highway villas we had in America. We pulled up right behind and I swallowed my depression and grief for five minutes to do my job. The house was clean, and what followed was routine. Tina served our meal of the day. I didn't feel like eating, but I chewed that goo anyway, or I'd be too weak. I just sat on a dirty couch and was quiet, watching the world go by.
"We are not going to reach the coast with the fuel we have." Mike said clearly annoyed. "We have a maximum of 200km more to run with this tank."
"How far are we from the coast?" Quinn asked.
"About 280km."
"We'll have to walk the rest of the way. That simple. Unless we find a working gas station along the way." I said no emotions.
"It's not that simple, Santana. Blaine has an injured leg and can't walk that distance and Tina is pregnant." Mike objected.
"Pregnancy is not an illness, Mike." I wanted to add that the fact that Blaine was limping was his fault. But I held back. Brittany had already said that, and it was obvious that the last moments between them were very strong and throwing those facts in Mike's face wouldn't help at all. Sometimes I surprised myself with my own rationality. "You help Blaine with whatever it takes."
"What?"
"Yes, Mike. You help Blaine." I said more emphatically and I realized that the others were apprehensive.
"What if we got bicycles?" Blaine suggested, interrupting the beginning of a possible fight.
"It would be easy if we were in Netherlands." Rachel sighed. "During all that time, I saw very few bicycles in the houses."
"Blaine's idea isn't a bad one. We saw few bikes because we weren't looking for them." Mike was mildly excited. "We can scour this village for bikes tomorrow morning and put them in the trucks."
It was dark outside, but the weather was clear, hence the chill night. It was time for absolute silence. Rachel, Quinn, Sam and Blaine started to talk in sign language, but I made a point of not paying attention to what they were saying. Tina and Mike went into one of the bedrooms and closed the door. Rachel walked over and sat on the edge of the sofa where I was settling down to sleep.
"Do you need something?" She said in sign language. Do you know what was strange? It was the first time Rachel had spoken to me since the moment we prayed Hail Marys.
"No." I replied. "I just want to be alone."
"This is impossible."
"Just stop asking if I'm okay. I am not!"
I stared at Rachel at that moment because I remembered our conversation, when she said that she dreams of a thousand and one ways to save Finn. Will I also be dreaming of a thousand and one ways to save Brittany? Time would answer yes, that I would have the same kind of longing. But I would also have the same melancholy response every morning that this happened: that we live in the present to build the future, but we can never change the past. It would take some time for me to realize that living in the past was of no use.
…
I didn't engage in the bike searches that morning. I was waiting for my friends to get six of them and a scooter. Meanwhile, Tina stayed with me near the cars. She looked afraid to approach, but at the same time she wanted to tell me something.
"What the fuck do you want, Chang girl?"
"It's… It's…"
"What? Are you stuttering again after all these years?"
"I was never a stutterer, Santana." She took offense for a second. "I was just acting that time."
"You're crazy."
"Anyway, I'm not going to fight you because I know you're in mourning."
"Thank you. Now stop staring me."
"I can't."
"I won't runway, Tina, or do something stupid."
"That's not why I'm here."
"So, what?"
"It's about the notebook. Britt's notebook." To my surprise, Tina showed me her backpack. She took out Brittany's notebook and handed it to me. "You were pretty out of your mind when we left that house. Everyone was getting their own stuff, and I saw Brittany's backpack on the floor. It was mostly dirty laundry and her canteen inside. It also had some stuff you gave her and her notebook, you know? I left her backpack at that house, but I took her notebook with me."
I opened Britt's notebook and flipped through a few pages. Brittany had a colorful world in her head. She liked to draw. Tina was a hell of an artist, but Brittany, in a normal world, if she wasn't a dancer, she would have been a comic book writer. The notebook had many illustrations telling passages of our story. She drew the island, the moments of our escape, the bunker, and there was even a drawing of two little dolls having sex in a waterfall. I laughed out loud at the comment she placed on the page. "Sanny was hungry that day, and that made me happy".
"Thank you, Tina." I said with tears in my eyes. "That means a lot to me."
"I know. Brittany was my favorite person after Mike. She will be missed."
When the rest of the guys arrived with bikes and the scooter they found around, I put Brittany's notebook in my backpack and got into the truck. I was sad, hurt, in mourning, but there was still a road ahead.