Setting Rain on Fire 7.2/?
Santana’s crying.
I watch her, at a complete loss. My mind goes on overdrive as I try to figure out why she’s sobbing so intensely. I replay the conversation in my mind, but nothing I’ve said seems particularly hurtful or overly sentimental. The only conclusion I can reach is that she’s crying because I’m offering her my pinky.
Hurt floods through me until I’m drowning in it. Maybe she really doesn’t want to touch me. Maybe everything that had happened last night was just a dream. Maybe I didn’t really fall asleep in her arms after all. I begin to pull my hand back, working hard to keep the hurt out of my face, but just as abruptly as she started crying, she stops, and gasps, “No!” and lunges forward to grasp my pinky in hers.
The two digits wound around each other so naturally it feels like a crime to have kept them apart for so long.
The force of her lunge is so quick and strong that I stumble backwards, and before I know we’re a mess of tangles limbs and swing ropes. Her grip on my pinky is so tight I’m sure I won’t be able to move the finger for a few hours. I try to wriggle the finger slightly to relieve the pressure, but her grasp only tightens and she growls in a voice that almost sounds possessive, “No.” She stands and yanks me to my feet. Her movements are so frantic that it’s almost frightening, and all the while I’m getting more and more certain that I’m going to lose my pinky with the force she’s gripping it with.
“San,” I begin cautiously. She ignores me and begins to walk towards the exit of the school, pulling me along with her. “San.” I repeat, raising my voice.
“I can’t, I just can’t.” She blurts out furiously just as we reach the exit. She looks at me for a moment, and I see that there are more unshed tears lingering in the corners of her eyes. Then she continues to walk onwards, reaching the middle of the road.
“Santana.” I say firmly, stepping in front of her. “What’s wrong?”
She sucks in a deep breath and holds it for several seconds. I can tell that she’s trying to calm herself down. Her head bows down and I watch as the asphalt beneath our feet gets wet with her tears. There must be something I can do to tell me what’s wrong.
“San.” I repeat in a much gentler voice, trying to coax her into looking at me. When she shakes her head slowly back and forth, I whisper, “Babe, what’s wrong?”
The endearment makes her lift her gaze from the ground to my face, her eyes wide. I kick myself mentally when I realize that I haven’t called her that for the longest time. Sadly, I become conscious of the fact that somewhere along the way we seemed to forget how to treat each other.
She swallows visibly and she takes a deep breath.
“You were on the phone this morning.”
I feel immobilized for a minute. I know what she’s talking about, and just as I mentioned, I’m not sure yet if I am ready to hold this conversation. But more importantly, I don’t know if she’s ready to handle all the details.
But at the same time, I know she deserves to know the truth.
“Yes.” I reply evenly, reaching out and taking her other hand. She doesn’t back away when I grasp both her hands in mine, but she doesn’t exert any effort to hold them back, either. Briefly, I wonder what assumptions she must have jumped to: did she think I was seeking comfort elsewhere? Did she think I was going behind her back? Did she think I was hiding something from her? Did she think I was cheating?
I gaze as earnestly as I can into her face. In the few seconds it’s taken for me to weigh my options, I’ve decided not going to give her any information she isn’t going to ask for. I know that she’s having a hard time putting on a brave face when she’s crumbling with fear inside, but this is also difficult for me. It isn’t easy telling people you love things that will break their heart.
“Who was it?”
I pause. I certainly hadn’t expected her to jump straight into this question. I look at her seriously for a moment. “Quinn.”
Her face is completely blank for a moment, then confusion sets in. “Wh-what?”
I open my mouth to respond when a voice interrupts with a deep, “Excuse me.”
Startled, Santana and I look to the source of the voice, a policeman standing nearby. We had both forgotten we were in the middle of the road. A few families were watching nearby, their looks wary. From the corner of my eye I see a few of them pointing to the intertwined hands between our bodies.
“Yeah?” Santana asks coolly, every inch of her face a hard mask. My heart drops significantly; she’s back behind her defenses.
“Don’t mean any disrespect… ehm, Ma’am,” he coughs slightly at this, “but we’re afraid some of the parents were worried about…” he shuffles slightly, looks at our intertwined hands and coughs again, “public indecency.”
I don’t have the slightest idea what he’s talking about and neither do I care, but Santana’s face grows fiery red and she releases one of my hands - the left one - to point at the policeman and retort in a voice shaking in anger, “Public indecency? Are you fucking kidding me? Do you even know what that means?”
The policeman retreats one step but replies, “I’m sorry Ma’am, but I’m just responding to the 911 call.”
Santana drops my other hand to turn her entire body in his direction. Her eyes have become dangerous slits, and her hands are clenched into tight fists. I’m about to call her name and pull her away before any real damage can ensue, when a lazy drawl joins in.
“Hey, hey.” My head whips to the opposite direction to see three teenage boys moving towards us. “Mind if we join in, officer? I thought it was public service to share.”
Somewhere in my mind I know that these boys are just kidding, but their presence makes me feel incredibly uncomfortable, and I feel adrenaline pumping fast and hard into my body. Coupled with the memory of the phone call I’d received early this morning and what I’d learned from it, the situation was appearing far more threatening than it probably was.
There were only two ways to react to all this. I could tell from the way Santana held her head high and set her jaw that she had already chosen how she was going to respond.
Fight or flight.
My feet are running before I can even think about it.
* * *
Everything had happened so fast. Initially it was just Brittany and I, on the verge of discussing something serious, then there was this law enforcement idiot, then these three punks. I was prepared to handle everything the way I always handled situations like this: kicking, punching and biting.
Then Brittany had taken off.
I didn’t exactly understand what was happening, but I was sure as hell not going to let her disappear into the unknown developed corners of Lima. So I had yelled her name and ran after her, but she had a staggering head start and was running faster than I expected her to.
It hadn’t taken that long for me to lose sight of her.
I was crouching a few blocks away from McKinley High, gasping for breath, when my phone began to ring in my pocket.
“What?” I snap as soon as I flip the cover open.
“Hello to you too.” I hear the voice on the other end reply unperturbedly. My spine straightens with a painful snap when I recognize the voice.
“Quinn?” I blurt out. Then I begin yelling. “What the fuck is going on? You called Brittany? Before fucking dawn? What the fuck, Q?”
“Santana.” Quinn says in a voice obviously meant to soothe.
“Don’t you fucking baby me, Quinn. I’m not one of your daughters.”
“Then stop acting like one.” She counters.
The wind slips from between my lips and I drop to the sidewalk.
“You wanna talk about it?” She asks me after a few quiet moments.
“Not really.”
“So will you let me tell you what exactly happened before you let your imagination run away with you?”
I heave a sigh. “Get on with it, bitch.”
“They caught Nicholas’s killer.”
My lungs lose the capacity to absorb oxygen and I feel dizzy after a few seconds.
“Santana? Are you there? Are you alright?”
I make a strangled sound, forcing myself to stay conscious.
“I guess Brittany wasn’t able to tell you yet.”
I find myself shaking my head to try to clear away the lightheadedness. Quinn takes advantage to tell me the details. Identity, check: Taylor Linwich. Age, check: seventeen. Evidence against him, check: apparently when he had jumped through the window to escape, he had torn open his sleeve and nicked his arm. The forensic team had almost missed the small pieces of evidence on the shattered glass, but refined scientific techniques were able to separate and successfully identify the DNA left. When they got him in the interrogation room, they managed to corner him and wrench a tortured confession out.
She finishes her explanation with enthusiasm, but I found myself unable to respond.
“Can you hear me, Santana? They caught him.”
I breathe in deeply through my mouth. “It won’t bring my son back.”
There’s a pause, then I hear the static-filled sound of Quinn sighing into the phone.
“I know.” She says softly.
“And he’s a minor.” I add angrily, punching the nearest flat surface and swearing internally when the skin over my knuckles scrapes. “So no actual jail time. This is pathetic.”
“I know this is hard for you, Santana.” Quinn says gently.
“No,” I snap. “You have no idea. You have absolutely no fucking idea. You don’t know what it feels like to lose someone you love.”
There’s another silence before she replies evenly, “Yes, I do.”
For the second time in the conversation I feel the wind knocked out of me as I remember Beth. I slap my palm against my head and whisper, “Oh, God, Quinn. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay. I know you have it harder than I do.” She pauses. “Where’s Brittany?”
I groan inwardly. “I’m just about to go and find out.”
“Did you lose her?”
“Something like that.” I admit.
I hear Quinn chuckle. “It’s alright. You know Brittany better than anyone else does. I’m sure that if you thought hard enough you’ll know exactly where to find her. And San? Keep it cool. Everything will be fine.”