Influence - Chapter 21: "The Truth in Ten Lies" [Brittana] [part 2]
Title: Influence
Pairing: Brittany/Santana, mentions of Puck/Santana
Rating: T for language and themes. M in later chapters for physical intimacy.
Spoilers: General season 1
Description: Brittany has spent most of her life being what people believe she is, and nothing more. She starts to realize that this isn’t working, and decides to do something about it. Brittana.
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 (part 1) | Chapter 17 (part 2) | Chapter 18 | Chapter 19 (part 1) | Chapter 19 (part 2) | Chapter 20 (part 1) | Chapter 20 (part 2) | Chapter 21 (part 1) | Chapter 21 (part 2) |
Thursday
I waited for her on my stoop in the morning, reading the text messages from the day before.
where'd u go? schue is asking about u
Britt, seriously, where r u?
if I skip practice to come find u and u aren’t dying then im gonna be really pissed
im sorry I didn’t mean that. just txt me back. pls?
After I’d left the bathroom, I’d also left the school. It might have been a poor decision, walking out into the world when I had little control over my own actions, but with the pills in my blood it was quiet. And that’s what I wanted. Just quiet. So the phone had been turned off, thrown into my backpack, and forgotten.
Maybe my body was telling me something, but on the mile-long walk back to my house, everything began to shut down. A woman on the street asked me for directions, and my mouth failed to deliver the words. I tripped over my feet as I misjudged the distance between my foot and the ground. Even the graze on my knee from the fall failed to bleed properly, instead oozing and never really clotting as a scab ought to do. The last thing I recalled was perching on a curb a few blocks from home to catch my breath, before time disappeared again. When I awoke it was dark, and I was in my bed. Then I’d found the messages.
She arrived at my door the next morning, perfectly coiffed and boiling mad.
"You’re alive," she observed, getting out of her car to meet me on the porch. "Good, it'll make killing you so much more interesting."
I sighed. "Sorry," was the most I could muster.
"I texted you all day, Britt. Where the hell did you go?"
"...home, obviously."
"Don’t be a smartass, you know what I mean." She crossed her arms over her chest like an angry parent. "Why’d you cut? This week, of all weeks. Coach was livid. She made us run wind sprints all practice. The entire squad hates you right now."
I couldn't have cared less about the squad. I cared that she was angry with me, and that she didn’t understand why I didn’t feel like talking to her about this. "Didn’t feel good. I didn't want to be there, so I left."
"And you couldn’t have just told me?” she queried, cocking her head to the side incredulously. “What did you do, walk home?"
I shrugged, irritation crawling up my spine, wondering if I really needed her to escort me everywhere, or if it was just on her insistence. "It’s not that far."
"You still should have told me."
Are you my mother or my girlfriend?
"Are you my mother or my girlfriend?"
Oh, Jesus.
Santana’s eyes narrowed, and she took a staggering step back as though she’d been punched. "You know, I don't know if I can tell anymore."
Fuck you.
"Fuck you."
The voices crept up quietly, but their influence was no longer limited to telling me what to do. Now they were just doing it. Speaking for me. Saying what they wanted, through me.
She balked, backing up another step. "What is your problem? I didn’t come here to be attacked."
Why then?
"Why then?"
"I was worried! Jesus, Brittany, what the hell is wrong with you?" She stood her ground then, leaning forward and inspecting me top to bottom. Her eyes bore holes in mine, digging until I was sure she could see the voices, when I could only hear them. But still she waited, quietly, for an explanation.
I’m sick of being treated like a child…
"I'm sick of being treated like a child. I can make a decision without consulting you."
I was answering of my own accord again, picking up where the prompt left off. I was angry, and itching for a fight. I didn’t know why, but Santana was my intended target.
"Can you? Because skipping yesterday was a really fucking stupid decision."
"Go to school, Santana,” I grunted, turning toward my front door. I needed a pill. I needed the voice to stop needling me, pushing me, making me snap at the only person who really cared. I needed Santana to go away for that to happen. “You came, you did your duty, now leave me alone."
"No,” she snapped, straightening and taking a few careful steps behind me. “You can’t skip again, B. Coach will kick you off the team. I need you there with me. Please, just tell me what’s wrong.”
She knows.
No, she doesn't.
If she didn’t before, she will soon.
Fuck you, too. Leave me alone.
Touchy today, are we?
“Call it PMS,” I retorted over my shoulder, and she scoffed at me.
“You don’t get PMS. You get chocolate cravings and you get cuddly and maybe you’ll cry during The Lion King, but you sure as hell don’t yell at me like this, unprovoked. Unless…” She trailed off and her eyes widened. “Jesus Christ, this is about Finn.”
Ding ding ding. Give the girl a prize.
Seriously, fuck off.
“This isn’t about Finn.”
4.
I whirled on her, and the guilt on her face silenced the bitter retort the voices tried to force past my lips. She was thoroughly beaten, and I limped achingly down the steps to meet her in the path to my door. “This isn’t about anything. I’m sorry. I’m just having a bad couple of days. I get to have bad days sometimes.”
“Of course you do,” she reassured, still standing stiffly, but allowing a softness to dull her sharp edges. “You get all the bad days you want. I just want you to be able to tell me about them, so I can make them better. I don’t want to fight.”
“Me either.” I pulled her into a hug as a chorus of complaints sounded in my head.
Oh, come on! This was getting interesting.
You’ll be gone soon. Get it out while you can.
“Go to school, San,” I told her once more, gentler and with as much of a smile as I could muster. “I’ll be there for practice after school. I just need some sleep. Okay?”
She nodded, breathing in deeply of flesh at my throat. “Okay, Britt… He turned me down, you know. In case it was bugging you.”
I tensed, shoulders drawing up around my neck. “It wasn’t.”
Santana pressed her lips discreetly to my neck, and I fought the urge to throw her off at the burn of them. “Well,” she said with a quick squeeze. “Just in case it was. I’ll see you after school for practice, okay?”
Absolutely.
“Absolutely.”
Friday
We sat in the parking lot at school long after the bell had rung. I’d tried to get out, to leave the car and go inside, but she’d held fast to my hand, so I stayed. She wasn’t looking at me, but out the windshield and at the building, studying it. Searching for weak points, ways to burn it down.
“San?”
Being late for home room was one thing, but I would lose participation points for being late to English as well. And they were about the only points I could count on. But she wasn’t moving, and I couldn’t leave her there.
“He changed his mind.”
“Who?”
She closed her eyes. I could see them roll behind her lids, but I said nothing as she sighed. “Finn. He changed his mind. I just thought you ought to know.”
My chest contracted. She unbuckled her seatbelt and got out of the car, leaving me there and heading toward the school. I waited until my lungs restarted and I could once again feel the rush of blood to my brain before jumping from my seat and tailing after her, calling out across the parking lot.
“Why?”
She stopped, her shoulders slumping. “Don’t make me explain it again,” she said without turning.
I caught up to her, circling around so I stood between her and the school, her escape. She stared at the ground, one hand balled into a fist while the other clung to the strap of her bag over her shoulder. “You never explained it the first time,” I replied, bending to try and catch her eye, but she turned away.
“Yes, I have. A hundred times.” She lifted her head and looked up at me, that defiant expression of determination she carried around crossing her features. “Finn changed his mind, so I’m going through with it. You told me to, remember? Don’t make me out to be a cocktease now.”
She was putting it on me to be the bad guy. It made sense, I suppose, given that I really had told her what to do. But somehow it still hurt. “I know, but…”
“But what, Brittany?”
Her eyes darted back and forth, staring deeply into each of mine individually, with the vain hope that maybe one would tell her what she ought to do. She was torn, that much I could tell. She was a scared little girl in a situation that was too grown up for her to respond to properly, and she was looking to me, of all people, to tell her how to react. To give her direction. I had none to give.
“Nothing.”
3.
I said this heavily, the weight of one word dragging my body down. “Come on, we’re late.”
I turned then, and left her standing in the parking lot, darting through the halls to my class while a soft cackle echoed in my ears.
It’s up to her now, you know that, right? She has motive, means, and opportunity. But will she follow through?
I don’t care.
You can’t lie to us. We’re you.
I can try. Go away.
You know how to make us go away.
I can’t. I have to stop.
You’ll never stop. You can’t. You’re weak.
I have to be strong. Stronger. For Santana.
She’s just as weak as you are. Worse, even.
She’s the bravest person I know.
Now you’re really trying to kid yourself.
“Brittany, you’re late,” the teacher scolded from the front of the room as I pushed the classroom door open. “Take a seat, get out your book.”
Take out your book, Brittany. Be a good girl. Don’t make a fuss. Oh, look who it is.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him. Six feet, several inches of ogre in a flannel shirt and lumberjack vest. He looked like he belonged on the cover of Field & Stream. He threw a ball of paper at Puck across the room, and laughed silently as the teacher failed to notice. He was carefree, even cavalier. Not that he knew what his happiness was doing to me, but it felt like a personal assault. He was happy to spite me. It was irrational, but it seethed beneath the surface, and I turned to the spiral notebook open on my desk.
The page open in front of me was covered in pen. Dark, angry marks drawing thick lines across the lined sheet, forming the same word over and over.
“Stop.”
“Did you say something, Brittany?”
I’d said it out loud without meaning to. I shut the notebook quickly, not wanting the rest of the class to see the ferocious word scrawled one on top of another. “No, sorry.”
2.
Finn turned in his chair, smiling at me. He motioned toward the teacher, rolling his eyes, trying to establish some sort of camaraderie between us. But the only thing I could see was Santana, and I scowled. He furrowed his brow and slowly righted himself, facing forward once more.
It’s going to be a very long day.
I know.
I know a way to make it go faster.
No.
You’ll come around. After school, when she drives away with him and you’re left behind, you’ll come around.
It doesn’t matter. Sex isn’t dating. Dating is dating. We’re together. I promised her a clean slate.
Keep telling yourself that. You make a lot of promises you really can’t keep.
The bell rang and I jumped in my chair. People moved around me, crowding me, and I closed my eyes and held my breath until they were gone.
When I lifted my lids, I was in math. Parabolas were drawn haphazardly along with scrawled words, notes for myself more than the class. “Stop” was repeated again and again in the margins of the page.
I blinked and I was at my locker, a history book in one hand and my unfinished homework in the other.
Once more, and I awoke in the locker room, a chorus of high-pitched squeals from my squadmates ringing in my ears.
“B, come on,” Santana’s voice floated down the row, hollow and echoing off the walls. “You can’t be late today. Let’s go.”
My feet moved, but my mind was three steps behind. I watched myself fall in line, take position, and go through the motions of the routine. The stilt-walkers threw me in the air, and I was still flying long after I’d hit the ground. I watched Santana, her face deep in concentration as she remembered the steps and executed, in perfect form, each one in turn. These things that came so easily to me were trials for her. Movement was a short like focus was for me. Even then, when I was not myself, I could accurately perform these routines because they were all I knew. Dancing came as naturally as breathing. If I kept breathing, I kept moving.
For Santana, who fought so hard to move, breathing must have seemed like the greatest kind of task.
Another blink, and I was in the shower, hot water pouring down as the girls giggled and splashed each other around me. Santana was in the next stall, eyeing me over the tiled divider.
“Where are you?” she asked quietly, rinsing the shampoo from her hair.
“I’m right here.” My brain caught up with my body, and they crashed together. No longer outside myself, I saw her - nude, water cascading over her perfect breasts - and I imagined Finn seeing them. Touching them. I looked away, nauseated. Maybe it was the sobriety. But the thought of a hand over than my own being given access to her sent a shock to my system.
Wake up, she’s leaving.
“Santana,” I called on instinct without even looking up to see if the voice was right. I knew it was. It saw what I saw, only faster. It was the part of my brain that was rational. It was me, after all. The part of me I’d beaten down with years of mind-altering medication.
The voice was not the monster I feared so much. What I’d become, that was the monster. The uncontrolled girl. The addict.
You’re learning. We’re proud of us.
She was on her way out of the locker room. I stood, still wet and wrapped in a towel that had appeared around my torso. She, however, was dressed in street clothes and carrying her duffel over her shoulder. She wasn’t even going to say goodbye.
“San, wait.”
She stopped and looked around. There was no one left in the locker room. Turning, she rushed back to me and cupped my face in her hands before pressing her mouth to mine in desperation. She kissed me furiously, not letting go of my cheeks, as though she might never see me again. She broke, gasped for air, and pressed her forehead to mine.
“I have to go,” she whispered, but the tone said something else entirely.
Don’t let me go.
“I love you,” I managed, and her shoulders pitched violently.
“I have to go,” she repeated, softer, and to herself rather than to me. “I’ll come over tonight. I’ll see you… later.”
After. She was going to say after.
“I love you.”
And then she was gone. I watched as she disappeared around the corner. I couldn’t chase her. I couldn’t stop her from going, even though we both knew she didn’t want to. The sense of obligation was thick. She had to go. I had to let her. We were both being tested. Whether either of us was passing was undetermined. There were no right answers. There was only outcome. Reaction. Response.
What now?
Wait. Just wait.
It was dark when I left the gym. Dark, and bitter cold; March’s last attempt at clinging to winter. The wind bit at my ears with icy teeth as I walked - trudged - the mile home. I didn’t stop, kept my head down with my arms wrapped like a straight jacket around my chest. Holding myself in, preventing my own hysterics.
I didn’t bother with lights; the house was empty. Mom had a shift at the diner, so I was left alone. I took each stair up to my room as though it would be the last stair I’d ever climb. Savoring each worked muscle, feeling it all. I was weak, and by the time I reached the second floor I was winded. From withdrawal, from Cheerios practice, from missing Santana. It didn’t matter. I stepped into my room, dropping my bag in the corner and sitting on the edge of my bed. The bright blue LED lights within the bedside clock ticked off the time.
6:37 PM
6:38 PM
I watched the numbers change, counting the seconds as the simplest form of distraction. Not that it worked. Each counted second was a second she was with Finn. She didn’t tell me where they were going, just that she was meeting him, and she didn’t plan on being gone long. I, in the meantime, had nothing to do but watch the clock tick off numbers and listen to the voices in my head.
We’re in agony.
Thanks for pointing that out.
We don’t have to be.
Yes, we do.
Why? Why suffer like this? Not feeling at all was so much nicer.
Not feeling is what got us into this mess. We can’t do it anymore. It’s all or nothing.
Nothing. We choose nothing.
“Nothing” isn’t what we think it is.
If “nothing” makes the pain stop then “nothing” can be whatever it wants to be.
No. Stop it.
We’ve thought about it before. We’ve got everything we need.
Stop.
No one would miss us.
Santana would. Santana would be crushed.
She’ll have Finn’s awkward shoulder to cry on.
“Stop it! Just stop!”
I threw myself back on the quilt and pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes, as though it would stop anything. I clawed at the pillows at the head of the bed, pulling the first one I grabbed into my chest and curling into a tight ball around it. Muscle fatigue had faded into muscle contraction. Everything felt tight, like a rubber band pulled to its maximum length, teetering precariously on that edge where just a little bit more pull and it will snap. I felt that, the desire - the need - to snap. The pain coursed through me like fire in my veins, to every extremity, burning me from the inside out. As much as I didn’t want to listen, the voice had a point. We had thought about it before. We - I - had considered it carefully, actually. Made a plan, even formulated a proper time so I wouldn’t be interrupted.
But as much as I thought about it, I didn’t know with enough conviction that I couldn’t survive this night. It hurt. Everything did. But I could cry and moan about the pain, the agony of being left here alone, and I could take a pill. One or two to dull the ache, and I would be okay. I could manage.
The question was more along the lines of, “Can I manage tomorrow without Santana?”
I wanted to pace; to get up and move around and work off my nerves on something productive. But the rubber bands that were my tendons held me stiffly in place and I dug my fingers into the bed spread, counting the stitching in each square. My eyes flicked to the clock when I was sure I’d counted every stitch and every square.
9:13 PM
9:14 PM
Beside the clock, my phone vibrated angrily. The agony that ripped through my limbs as I reached for it, desperate for word from Santana, shattered any sense of calm that I’d found and I groaned. The phone was heavy in my hand, like a brick. I slid it open, and the screen illuminated the room, blinding me for a moment. Recovering with a few quick blinks, I read the screen. It was a text message, and not from the person I was expecting.
Santana just left the diner with 1 of the football playrs. Seemed upset. Where r u? love u -mom
I retched. My stomach churned on itself, and I vomited, my head falling over the side of the bed so it landed on the floor. Not only had she gone through with it, she’d gone out to dinner with him after. A proper date for a proper head cheerleader.
Is it time to revisit our earlier conversation?
“No,” I gasped through my burning throat. “God… no…”
I pulled myself from the bed and crawled on my hands and knees to the bathroom across the hall. I couldn’t stand. My hands hit cool tile and I grappled for traction, something to keep me moving forward. I slipped on the slick surface and cracked my head hard against the floor. I saw stars, little spots of light that flashed across my vision as I rolled over on my back and tried to pull myself up on the sink. My legs dragged uselessly behind me as I fought to make it to the toilet before retching once more, my empty stomach knotting itself and my esophagus burning with bile. I pulled my head from the bowl, spitting the bitter remnants from my tongue and heaving. The breath had been stolen from my lungs. My eyes faded in and out of focus.
I heard a noise downstairs and I froze. Santana opened and closed the door using the spare key, and I heard her call for me from the bottom of the stairs. Her weight made each step creak as she climbed, drawing nearer. I panicked. I couldn’t see her, not like this, not after…
“Brittany?” her voice carried through the hallway. The door to the bathroom was open. My room stank of vomit and I was lying in a limp pile of limbs on the floor. I was helpless. There was no escaping it, escaping her.
I wiped my mouth on the back of my hand and yanked as hard as I could on the sink, pulling myself upright, teetering precariously on the dry twigs I called legs. I wiped the sweat from my brow with a towel and stepped out into the hallway, walking the dreaded tightrope that was keeping me standing.
She stopped as soon as she saw me, and I knew there was no hiding how awful I looked. She, for her part, wasn’t much better. She appeared shrunken, a skeleton, when just a few hours earlier she had been vibrant. I reached out to her, needing something - anything - to hold on to in order keep balance. She shrank away, and I staggered, leaning against the wall.
“I need a shower,” she stated, her hand clenching and unclenching at her side as she fought the urge to hold me. “Don’t touch me.”
She feels dirty.
She should.
Because she cheated on us.
And I told her to.
She could have said no.
Sue told her to.
Santana allowed someone other than us to fuck her tonight. You’re not angry about that?
“Of course I’m fucking angry.”
“Who are you talking to?”
She was behind me, headed toward the bathroom. I turned, swaying at the sudden rush of blood to my brain. “No one. Forget it.”
1.
Santana caught the bitterness and she stood, staring. She took careful stock of me and shook her head. “No. Not this time. You’re going to tell me what’s going on. You’re everywhere but here. You’re sick. You’ve been sick for weeks. Brittany, there’s something wrong. I know you’re not telling me because you think you need to be strong, but you’re holding this in and you can’t anymore. I’m not forgetting it, and I’m not letting it go.”
I scoffed.
She thinks we have cancer or something.
“I know.”
“Then you know you can talk to me,” she said, thinking my reply had been for her. “B, please. Stop lying to me. I know something is wrong.”
I sniffed and blinked my bleary eyes. “I’m not lying.”
0.
“Go take your shower. Get nice and clean.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and narrowed her eyes. “Is that what this is about? We talked about this. We agreed. Clean slate, remember?”
The rubber band in my limbs snapped. I shot forward and shoved her hard in the shoulders, anger taking over before reason could object. She stumbled backward, her eyes wide, bracing herself against the wall.
“Did you moan his name when he fucked you, San?” I shouted, head spinning and arms flailing weakly against her. I fell into her chest, beating my fists at her shoulders with no strength behind them. She grabbed my arms and held me away from her, those wide eyes filled with tears.
“Don’t do this,” she begged. “Please, Brittany, I didn’t want to.”
“No, you wanted to be head cheerleader,” I hissed, fighting futilely against her hold. “You said you needed me. But you didn’t. You needed Finn. To get what you want, got what you needed. I guess you can have it all, Santana.”
This hurts too much.
“I know, stop telling me about it.”
“Telling you what?” she demanded, pressing me backward against the wall and pinning me there. “Brittany, what’re you talking about? I love you, please, stop fighting me. I don’t need Finn, I never needed Finn. I need you, just you. Let me help you, I’m sorry, please.”
She can’t help you. Only one thing can help you.
“Where are they?” I asked, needing to remember. The voice knew. The voice always knew.
In the cabinet.
“Where are who, Brittany?” Santana let go of one of my arms to pull my chin toward her but my eyes stayed trained on the bathroom door immediately to my left. If I could just break her hold… “Look at me. Who, Brittany? Where are who?”
In the medicine cabinet. Empty the bottle and it stops hurting.
“It’ll stop hurting,” I repeated, and I lunged away, the last ounce of strength I had used to slap her hand away and dart for the bathroom, for freedom, for my escape. She trailed immediately behind me and for the first time saw the mess that I had made.
“Oh god,” she covered her mouth with her hand, forgetting for a minute that I had sprinted away from her for a reason. “Brittany what the hell did y-“
She turned to me just as my hand found the bottle. It was unlabeled, stripped of any identifying markers, and I fumbled with the lid just long enough for her to reach my side and pull it from my fingers. I launched myself at her, clawing at the hand that held the bottle. She pushed me back against the sink and held me there, pinning me with her back and hips so she faced away and could keep it from my grasping hands. The bottle opened with ease for her, and a cache of pills fell guiltily into her palm. None were the same. It hadn’t mattered in quite a while what went into my mouth as long as it left me numb. More than anything I wanted that, at that moment. Seeing the look of horror on Santana’s face as she put two and two together, I realized that my secret was out.
She knew. Santana knew I drowned myself in pills. There was no coming back from that.
Her body eased off mine and she went to the toilet before even looking at me. I understood immediately what she was going to do.
“No, don’t!” I whimpered, limping forward with one arm out, begging her not to flush them. “I need them, please.”
“Do you, B?” she asked, and I looked at her face when the words came out muffled. I realized then that she was crying. “Do you need them more than you need me? You have to choose. I won’t let you die like this. I’ll die right along with you. So choose. Me or the pills.”
Take the pills.
“No.” I spoke aloud, talking to the voice while Santana watched in horror.
Take them, stop the pain.
“I need Santana.”
Take them.
“I can't. I won't.”
You can. You will. We need them.
Her hand found the curve of my jaw and cradled it, and I crumbled, falling into her as she embraced me and pulled me into her lap, weeping. The bottle fell discarded at her side and I stared at it longingly. But her hand on my face felt like a cool compress, soothing me and reassuring me that the bottle wasn’t everything I had to live for.
“Come back to me, baby,” she whispered, bending her head to press her lips to my temple. “Please, I love you. Come back to me.”
Choose.
“I can’t.”
A sob broke from her throat. “I can’t do this without you, B. Don’t leave me.”
Choose.
I looked up at her, her trembling hands cradling my face and desperately pulling me close to her, as though she could bring me into herself and give me the strength I didn’t have on my own. I saw her eyes, dark and cloudy and so very sad. She was broken. Just as broken as I was. I couldn’t leave her like that. I couldn’t. And I thought back to the realization I’d had before. If I had to choose, I’d known all along what the answer would be.
Choose.
“Her. Every time.”
I reached up and put a weak hand on her cheek and she held me tighter against her stomach, rocking us both back and forth while she wept into my hair. I listened hard, but the only thing I could hear was her rasping breath and the thumping of my own erratic heart. The voice, beaten, was gone.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured, my eyes closing as I realized how tired I was.
“Don’t,” she commanded, feebly scolding me as her lips found mine. “I’m the one… I did this. I did this to you. It’s my fault, I should have seen you. I didn’t see you.”
Santana slipped her arms beneath my legs and, with more strength than I thought she possessed, lifted me up. She carried me from the bathroom, down the stairs and into my mother’s room. There, she laid me out on the bed, and slowly pulled the soiled clothes from my body while she cried silently at my side.
I felt my breathing even out as she pressed a wet cloth to my mouth and neck, cleaning the sick from my skin. I leaned into her hand, my eyes still closed, just feeling her and knowing that things would stop hurting if she just kept contact with me.
So when she pulled away, I whimpered and reached clumsily for her in the darkness behind my lids.
“Shh,” she whispered. “I’ll be right back. I’m not going anywhere.”
I heard her footsteps disappear out into the hall, and I held my breath. I didn’t want to breathe if she wasn’t there to breathe with me. From outside the door, I listened as she pressed careful fingers to the number pad on her phone. In the stillness, I heard it ring, and a familiar voice on the other end.
“Please, don’t hang up…” she begged into the receiver. “We need you.”
Pairing: Brittany/Santana, mentions of Puck/Santana
Rating: T for language and themes. M in later chapters for physical intimacy.
Spoilers: General season 1
Description: Brittany has spent most of her life being what people believe she is, and nothing more. She starts to realize that this isn’t working, and decides to do something about it. Brittana.
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 (part 1) | Chapter 17 (part 2) | Chapter 18 | Chapter 19 (part 1) | Chapter 19 (part 2) | Chapter 20 (part 1) | Chapter 20 (part 2) | Chapter 21 (part 1) | Chapter 21 (part 2) |
Thursday
I waited for her on my stoop in the morning, reading the text messages from the day before.
where'd u go? schue is asking about u
Britt, seriously, where r u?
if I skip practice to come find u and u aren’t dying then im gonna be really pissed
im sorry I didn’t mean that. just txt me back. pls?
After I’d left the bathroom, I’d also left the school. It might have been a poor decision, walking out into the world when I had little control over my own actions, but with the pills in my blood it was quiet. And that’s what I wanted. Just quiet. So the phone had been turned off, thrown into my backpack, and forgotten.
Maybe my body was telling me something, but on the mile-long walk back to my house, everything began to shut down. A woman on the street asked me for directions, and my mouth failed to deliver the words. I tripped over my feet as I misjudged the distance between my foot and the ground. Even the graze on my knee from the fall failed to bleed properly, instead oozing and never really clotting as a scab ought to do. The last thing I recalled was perching on a curb a few blocks from home to catch my breath, before time disappeared again. When I awoke it was dark, and I was in my bed. Then I’d found the messages.
She arrived at my door the next morning, perfectly coiffed and boiling mad.
"You’re alive," she observed, getting out of her car to meet me on the porch. "Good, it'll make killing you so much more interesting."
I sighed. "Sorry," was the most I could muster.
"I texted you all day, Britt. Where the hell did you go?"
"...home, obviously."
"Don’t be a smartass, you know what I mean." She crossed her arms over her chest like an angry parent. "Why’d you cut? This week, of all weeks. Coach was livid. She made us run wind sprints all practice. The entire squad hates you right now."
I couldn't have cared less about the squad. I cared that she was angry with me, and that she didn’t understand why I didn’t feel like talking to her about this. "Didn’t feel good. I didn't want to be there, so I left."
"And you couldn’t have just told me?” she queried, cocking her head to the side incredulously. “What did you do, walk home?"
I shrugged, irritation crawling up my spine, wondering if I really needed her to escort me everywhere, or if it was just on her insistence. "It’s not that far."
"You still should have told me."
Are you my mother or my girlfriend?
"Are you my mother or my girlfriend?"
Oh, Jesus.
Santana’s eyes narrowed, and she took a staggering step back as though she’d been punched. "You know, I don't know if I can tell anymore."
Fuck you.
"Fuck you."
The voices crept up quietly, but their influence was no longer limited to telling me what to do. Now they were just doing it. Speaking for me. Saying what they wanted, through me.
She balked, backing up another step. "What is your problem? I didn’t come here to be attacked."
Why then?
"Why then?"
"I was worried! Jesus, Brittany, what the hell is wrong with you?" She stood her ground then, leaning forward and inspecting me top to bottom. Her eyes bore holes in mine, digging until I was sure she could see the voices, when I could only hear them. But still she waited, quietly, for an explanation.
I’m sick of being treated like a child…
"I'm sick of being treated like a child. I can make a decision without consulting you."
I was answering of my own accord again, picking up where the prompt left off. I was angry, and itching for a fight. I didn’t know why, but Santana was my intended target.
"Can you? Because skipping yesterday was a really fucking stupid decision."
"Go to school, Santana,” I grunted, turning toward my front door. I needed a pill. I needed the voice to stop needling me, pushing me, making me snap at the only person who really cared. I needed Santana to go away for that to happen. “You came, you did your duty, now leave me alone."
"No,” she snapped, straightening and taking a few careful steps behind me. “You can’t skip again, B. Coach will kick you off the team. I need you there with me. Please, just tell me what’s wrong.”
She knows.
No, she doesn't.
If she didn’t before, she will soon.
Fuck you, too. Leave me alone.
Touchy today, are we?
“Call it PMS,” I retorted over my shoulder, and she scoffed at me.
“You don’t get PMS. You get chocolate cravings and you get cuddly and maybe you’ll cry during The Lion King, but you sure as hell don’t yell at me like this, unprovoked. Unless…” She trailed off and her eyes widened. “Jesus Christ, this is about Finn.”
Ding ding ding. Give the girl a prize.
Seriously, fuck off.
“This isn’t about Finn.”
4.
I whirled on her, and the guilt on her face silenced the bitter retort the voices tried to force past my lips. She was thoroughly beaten, and I limped achingly down the steps to meet her in the path to my door. “This isn’t about anything. I’m sorry. I’m just having a bad couple of days. I get to have bad days sometimes.”
“Of course you do,” she reassured, still standing stiffly, but allowing a softness to dull her sharp edges. “You get all the bad days you want. I just want you to be able to tell me about them, so I can make them better. I don’t want to fight.”
“Me either.” I pulled her into a hug as a chorus of complaints sounded in my head.
Oh, come on! This was getting interesting.
You’ll be gone soon. Get it out while you can.
“Go to school, San,” I told her once more, gentler and with as much of a smile as I could muster. “I’ll be there for practice after school. I just need some sleep. Okay?”
She nodded, breathing in deeply of flesh at my throat. “Okay, Britt… He turned me down, you know. In case it was bugging you.”
I tensed, shoulders drawing up around my neck. “It wasn’t.”
Santana pressed her lips discreetly to my neck, and I fought the urge to throw her off at the burn of them. “Well,” she said with a quick squeeze. “Just in case it was. I’ll see you after school for practice, okay?”
Absolutely.
“Absolutely.”
Friday
We sat in the parking lot at school long after the bell had rung. I’d tried to get out, to leave the car and go inside, but she’d held fast to my hand, so I stayed. She wasn’t looking at me, but out the windshield and at the building, studying it. Searching for weak points, ways to burn it down.
“San?”
Being late for home room was one thing, but I would lose participation points for being late to English as well. And they were about the only points I could count on. But she wasn’t moving, and I couldn’t leave her there.
“He changed his mind.”
“Who?”
She closed her eyes. I could see them roll behind her lids, but I said nothing as she sighed. “Finn. He changed his mind. I just thought you ought to know.”
My chest contracted. She unbuckled her seatbelt and got out of the car, leaving me there and heading toward the school. I waited until my lungs restarted and I could once again feel the rush of blood to my brain before jumping from my seat and tailing after her, calling out across the parking lot.
“Why?”
She stopped, her shoulders slumping. “Don’t make me explain it again,” she said without turning.
I caught up to her, circling around so I stood between her and the school, her escape. She stared at the ground, one hand balled into a fist while the other clung to the strap of her bag over her shoulder. “You never explained it the first time,” I replied, bending to try and catch her eye, but she turned away.
“Yes, I have. A hundred times.” She lifted her head and looked up at me, that defiant expression of determination she carried around crossing her features. “Finn changed his mind, so I’m going through with it. You told me to, remember? Don’t make me out to be a cocktease now.”
She was putting it on me to be the bad guy. It made sense, I suppose, given that I really had told her what to do. But somehow it still hurt. “I know, but…”
“But what, Brittany?”
Her eyes darted back and forth, staring deeply into each of mine individually, with the vain hope that maybe one would tell her what she ought to do. She was torn, that much I could tell. She was a scared little girl in a situation that was too grown up for her to respond to properly, and she was looking to me, of all people, to tell her how to react. To give her direction. I had none to give.
“Nothing.”
3.
I said this heavily, the weight of one word dragging my body down. “Come on, we’re late.”
I turned then, and left her standing in the parking lot, darting through the halls to my class while a soft cackle echoed in my ears.
It’s up to her now, you know that, right? She has motive, means, and opportunity. But will she follow through?
I don’t care.
You can’t lie to us. We’re you.
I can try. Go away.
You know how to make us go away.
I can’t. I have to stop.
You’ll never stop. You can’t. You’re weak.
I have to be strong. Stronger. For Santana.
She’s just as weak as you are. Worse, even.
She’s the bravest person I know.
Now you’re really trying to kid yourself.
“Brittany, you’re late,” the teacher scolded from the front of the room as I pushed the classroom door open. “Take a seat, get out your book.”
Take out your book, Brittany. Be a good girl. Don’t make a fuss. Oh, look who it is.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him. Six feet, several inches of ogre in a flannel shirt and lumberjack vest. He looked like he belonged on the cover of Field & Stream. He threw a ball of paper at Puck across the room, and laughed silently as the teacher failed to notice. He was carefree, even cavalier. Not that he knew what his happiness was doing to me, but it felt like a personal assault. He was happy to spite me. It was irrational, but it seethed beneath the surface, and I turned to the spiral notebook open on my desk.
The page open in front of me was covered in pen. Dark, angry marks drawing thick lines across the lined sheet, forming the same word over and over.
“Stop.”
“Did you say something, Brittany?”
I’d said it out loud without meaning to. I shut the notebook quickly, not wanting the rest of the class to see the ferocious word scrawled one on top of another. “No, sorry.”
2.
Finn turned in his chair, smiling at me. He motioned toward the teacher, rolling his eyes, trying to establish some sort of camaraderie between us. But the only thing I could see was Santana, and I scowled. He furrowed his brow and slowly righted himself, facing forward once more.
It’s going to be a very long day.
I know.
I know a way to make it go faster.
No.
You’ll come around. After school, when she drives away with him and you’re left behind, you’ll come around.
It doesn’t matter. Sex isn’t dating. Dating is dating. We’re together. I promised her a clean slate.
Keep telling yourself that. You make a lot of promises you really can’t keep.
The bell rang and I jumped in my chair. People moved around me, crowding me, and I closed my eyes and held my breath until they were gone.
When I lifted my lids, I was in math. Parabolas were drawn haphazardly along with scrawled words, notes for myself more than the class. “Stop” was repeated again and again in the margins of the page.
I blinked and I was at my locker, a history book in one hand and my unfinished homework in the other.
Once more, and I awoke in the locker room, a chorus of high-pitched squeals from my squadmates ringing in my ears.
“B, come on,” Santana’s voice floated down the row, hollow and echoing off the walls. “You can’t be late today. Let’s go.”
My feet moved, but my mind was three steps behind. I watched myself fall in line, take position, and go through the motions of the routine. The stilt-walkers threw me in the air, and I was still flying long after I’d hit the ground. I watched Santana, her face deep in concentration as she remembered the steps and executed, in perfect form, each one in turn. These things that came so easily to me were trials for her. Movement was a short like focus was for me. Even then, when I was not myself, I could accurately perform these routines because they were all I knew. Dancing came as naturally as breathing. If I kept breathing, I kept moving.
For Santana, who fought so hard to move, breathing must have seemed like the greatest kind of task.
Another blink, and I was in the shower, hot water pouring down as the girls giggled and splashed each other around me. Santana was in the next stall, eyeing me over the tiled divider.
“Where are you?” she asked quietly, rinsing the shampoo from her hair.
“I’m right here.” My brain caught up with my body, and they crashed together. No longer outside myself, I saw her - nude, water cascading over her perfect breasts - and I imagined Finn seeing them. Touching them. I looked away, nauseated. Maybe it was the sobriety. But the thought of a hand over than my own being given access to her sent a shock to my system.
Wake up, she’s leaving.
“Santana,” I called on instinct without even looking up to see if the voice was right. I knew it was. It saw what I saw, only faster. It was the part of my brain that was rational. It was me, after all. The part of me I’d beaten down with years of mind-altering medication.
The voice was not the monster I feared so much. What I’d become, that was the monster. The uncontrolled girl. The addict.
You’re learning. We’re proud of us.
She was on her way out of the locker room. I stood, still wet and wrapped in a towel that had appeared around my torso. She, however, was dressed in street clothes and carrying her duffel over her shoulder. She wasn’t even going to say goodbye.
“San, wait.”
She stopped and looked around. There was no one left in the locker room. Turning, she rushed back to me and cupped my face in her hands before pressing her mouth to mine in desperation. She kissed me furiously, not letting go of my cheeks, as though she might never see me again. She broke, gasped for air, and pressed her forehead to mine.
“I have to go,” she whispered, but the tone said something else entirely.
Don’t let me go.
“I love you,” I managed, and her shoulders pitched violently.
“I have to go,” she repeated, softer, and to herself rather than to me. “I’ll come over tonight. I’ll see you… later.”
After. She was going to say after.
“I love you.”
And then she was gone. I watched as she disappeared around the corner. I couldn’t chase her. I couldn’t stop her from going, even though we both knew she didn’t want to. The sense of obligation was thick. She had to go. I had to let her. We were both being tested. Whether either of us was passing was undetermined. There were no right answers. There was only outcome. Reaction. Response.
What now?
Wait. Just wait.
It was dark when I left the gym. Dark, and bitter cold; March’s last attempt at clinging to winter. The wind bit at my ears with icy teeth as I walked - trudged - the mile home. I didn’t stop, kept my head down with my arms wrapped like a straight jacket around my chest. Holding myself in, preventing my own hysterics.
I didn’t bother with lights; the house was empty. Mom had a shift at the diner, so I was left alone. I took each stair up to my room as though it would be the last stair I’d ever climb. Savoring each worked muscle, feeling it all. I was weak, and by the time I reached the second floor I was winded. From withdrawal, from Cheerios practice, from missing Santana. It didn’t matter. I stepped into my room, dropping my bag in the corner and sitting on the edge of my bed. The bright blue LED lights within the bedside clock ticked off the time.
6:37 PM
6:38 PM
I watched the numbers change, counting the seconds as the simplest form of distraction. Not that it worked. Each counted second was a second she was with Finn. She didn’t tell me where they were going, just that she was meeting him, and she didn’t plan on being gone long. I, in the meantime, had nothing to do but watch the clock tick off numbers and listen to the voices in my head.
We’re in agony.
Thanks for pointing that out.
We don’t have to be.
Yes, we do.
Why? Why suffer like this? Not feeling at all was so much nicer.
Not feeling is what got us into this mess. We can’t do it anymore. It’s all or nothing.
Nothing. We choose nothing.
“Nothing” isn’t what we think it is.
If “nothing” makes the pain stop then “nothing” can be whatever it wants to be.
No. Stop it.
We’ve thought about it before. We’ve got everything we need.
Stop.
No one would miss us.
Santana would. Santana would be crushed.
She’ll have Finn’s awkward shoulder to cry on.
“Stop it! Just stop!”
I threw myself back on the quilt and pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes, as though it would stop anything. I clawed at the pillows at the head of the bed, pulling the first one I grabbed into my chest and curling into a tight ball around it. Muscle fatigue had faded into muscle contraction. Everything felt tight, like a rubber band pulled to its maximum length, teetering precariously on that edge where just a little bit more pull and it will snap. I felt that, the desire - the need - to snap. The pain coursed through me like fire in my veins, to every extremity, burning me from the inside out. As much as I didn’t want to listen, the voice had a point. We had thought about it before. We - I - had considered it carefully, actually. Made a plan, even formulated a proper time so I wouldn’t be interrupted.
But as much as I thought about it, I didn’t know with enough conviction that I couldn’t survive this night. It hurt. Everything did. But I could cry and moan about the pain, the agony of being left here alone, and I could take a pill. One or two to dull the ache, and I would be okay. I could manage.
The question was more along the lines of, “Can I manage tomorrow without Santana?”
I wanted to pace; to get up and move around and work off my nerves on something productive. But the rubber bands that were my tendons held me stiffly in place and I dug my fingers into the bed spread, counting the stitching in each square. My eyes flicked to the clock when I was sure I’d counted every stitch and every square.
9:13 PM
9:14 PM
Beside the clock, my phone vibrated angrily. The agony that ripped through my limbs as I reached for it, desperate for word from Santana, shattered any sense of calm that I’d found and I groaned. The phone was heavy in my hand, like a brick. I slid it open, and the screen illuminated the room, blinding me for a moment. Recovering with a few quick blinks, I read the screen. It was a text message, and not from the person I was expecting.
Santana just left the diner with 1 of the football playrs. Seemed upset. Where r u? love u -mom
I retched. My stomach churned on itself, and I vomited, my head falling over the side of the bed so it landed on the floor. Not only had she gone through with it, she’d gone out to dinner with him after. A proper date for a proper head cheerleader.
Is it time to revisit our earlier conversation?
“No,” I gasped through my burning throat. “God… no…”
I pulled myself from the bed and crawled on my hands and knees to the bathroom across the hall. I couldn’t stand. My hands hit cool tile and I grappled for traction, something to keep me moving forward. I slipped on the slick surface and cracked my head hard against the floor. I saw stars, little spots of light that flashed across my vision as I rolled over on my back and tried to pull myself up on the sink. My legs dragged uselessly behind me as I fought to make it to the toilet before retching once more, my empty stomach knotting itself and my esophagus burning with bile. I pulled my head from the bowl, spitting the bitter remnants from my tongue and heaving. The breath had been stolen from my lungs. My eyes faded in and out of focus.
I heard a noise downstairs and I froze. Santana opened and closed the door using the spare key, and I heard her call for me from the bottom of the stairs. Her weight made each step creak as she climbed, drawing nearer. I panicked. I couldn’t see her, not like this, not after…
“Brittany?” her voice carried through the hallway. The door to the bathroom was open. My room stank of vomit and I was lying in a limp pile of limbs on the floor. I was helpless. There was no escaping it, escaping her.
I wiped my mouth on the back of my hand and yanked as hard as I could on the sink, pulling myself upright, teetering precariously on the dry twigs I called legs. I wiped the sweat from my brow with a towel and stepped out into the hallway, walking the dreaded tightrope that was keeping me standing.
She stopped as soon as she saw me, and I knew there was no hiding how awful I looked. She, for her part, wasn’t much better. She appeared shrunken, a skeleton, when just a few hours earlier she had been vibrant. I reached out to her, needing something - anything - to hold on to in order keep balance. She shrank away, and I staggered, leaning against the wall.
“I need a shower,” she stated, her hand clenching and unclenching at her side as she fought the urge to hold me. “Don’t touch me.”
She feels dirty.
She should.
Because she cheated on us.
And I told her to.
She could have said no.
Sue told her to.
Santana allowed someone other than us to fuck her tonight. You’re not angry about that?
“Of course I’m fucking angry.”
“Who are you talking to?”
She was behind me, headed toward the bathroom. I turned, swaying at the sudden rush of blood to my brain. “No one. Forget it.”
1.
Santana caught the bitterness and she stood, staring. She took careful stock of me and shook her head. “No. Not this time. You’re going to tell me what’s going on. You’re everywhere but here. You’re sick. You’ve been sick for weeks. Brittany, there’s something wrong. I know you’re not telling me because you think you need to be strong, but you’re holding this in and you can’t anymore. I’m not forgetting it, and I’m not letting it go.”
I scoffed.
She thinks we have cancer or something.
“I know.”
“Then you know you can talk to me,” she said, thinking my reply had been for her. “B, please. Stop lying to me. I know something is wrong.”
I sniffed and blinked my bleary eyes. “I’m not lying.”
0.
“Go take your shower. Get nice and clean.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and narrowed her eyes. “Is that what this is about? We talked about this. We agreed. Clean slate, remember?”
The rubber band in my limbs snapped. I shot forward and shoved her hard in the shoulders, anger taking over before reason could object. She stumbled backward, her eyes wide, bracing herself against the wall.
“Did you moan his name when he fucked you, San?” I shouted, head spinning and arms flailing weakly against her. I fell into her chest, beating my fists at her shoulders with no strength behind them. She grabbed my arms and held me away from her, those wide eyes filled with tears.
“Don’t do this,” she begged. “Please, Brittany, I didn’t want to.”
“No, you wanted to be head cheerleader,” I hissed, fighting futilely against her hold. “You said you needed me. But you didn’t. You needed Finn. To get what you want, got what you needed. I guess you can have it all, Santana.”
This hurts too much.
“I know, stop telling me about it.”
“Telling you what?” she demanded, pressing me backward against the wall and pinning me there. “Brittany, what’re you talking about? I love you, please, stop fighting me. I don’t need Finn, I never needed Finn. I need you, just you. Let me help you, I’m sorry, please.”
She can’t help you. Only one thing can help you.
“Where are they?” I asked, needing to remember. The voice knew. The voice always knew.
In the cabinet.
“Where are who, Brittany?” Santana let go of one of my arms to pull my chin toward her but my eyes stayed trained on the bathroom door immediately to my left. If I could just break her hold… “Look at me. Who, Brittany? Where are who?”
In the medicine cabinet. Empty the bottle and it stops hurting.
“It’ll stop hurting,” I repeated, and I lunged away, the last ounce of strength I had used to slap her hand away and dart for the bathroom, for freedom, for my escape. She trailed immediately behind me and for the first time saw the mess that I had made.
“Oh god,” she covered her mouth with her hand, forgetting for a minute that I had sprinted away from her for a reason. “Brittany what the hell did y-“
She turned to me just as my hand found the bottle. It was unlabeled, stripped of any identifying markers, and I fumbled with the lid just long enough for her to reach my side and pull it from my fingers. I launched myself at her, clawing at the hand that held the bottle. She pushed me back against the sink and held me there, pinning me with her back and hips so she faced away and could keep it from my grasping hands. The bottle opened with ease for her, and a cache of pills fell guiltily into her palm. None were the same. It hadn’t mattered in quite a while what went into my mouth as long as it left me numb. More than anything I wanted that, at that moment. Seeing the look of horror on Santana’s face as she put two and two together, I realized that my secret was out.
She knew. Santana knew I drowned myself in pills. There was no coming back from that.
Her body eased off mine and she went to the toilet before even looking at me. I understood immediately what she was going to do.
“No, don’t!” I whimpered, limping forward with one arm out, begging her not to flush them. “I need them, please.”
“Do you, B?” she asked, and I looked at her face when the words came out muffled. I realized then that she was crying. “Do you need them more than you need me? You have to choose. I won’t let you die like this. I’ll die right along with you. So choose. Me or the pills.”
Take the pills.
“No.” I spoke aloud, talking to the voice while Santana watched in horror.
Take them, stop the pain.
“I need Santana.”
Take them.
“I can't. I won't.”
You can. You will. We need them.
Her hand found the curve of my jaw and cradled it, and I crumbled, falling into her as she embraced me and pulled me into her lap, weeping. The bottle fell discarded at her side and I stared at it longingly. But her hand on my face felt like a cool compress, soothing me and reassuring me that the bottle wasn’t everything I had to live for.
“Come back to me, baby,” she whispered, bending her head to press her lips to my temple. “Please, I love you. Come back to me.”
Choose.
“I can’t.”
A sob broke from her throat. “I can’t do this without you, B. Don’t leave me.”
Choose.
I looked up at her, her trembling hands cradling my face and desperately pulling me close to her, as though she could bring me into herself and give me the strength I didn’t have on my own. I saw her eyes, dark and cloudy and so very sad. She was broken. Just as broken as I was. I couldn’t leave her like that. I couldn’t. And I thought back to the realization I’d had before. If I had to choose, I’d known all along what the answer would be.
Choose.
“Her. Every time.”
I reached up and put a weak hand on her cheek and she held me tighter against her stomach, rocking us both back and forth while she wept into my hair. I listened hard, but the only thing I could hear was her rasping breath and the thumping of my own erratic heart. The voice, beaten, was gone.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured, my eyes closing as I realized how tired I was.
“Don’t,” she commanded, feebly scolding me as her lips found mine. “I’m the one… I did this. I did this to you. It’s my fault, I should have seen you. I didn’t see you.”
Santana slipped her arms beneath my legs and, with more strength than I thought she possessed, lifted me up. She carried me from the bathroom, down the stairs and into my mother’s room. There, she laid me out on the bed, and slowly pulled the soiled clothes from my body while she cried silently at my side.
I felt my breathing even out as she pressed a wet cloth to my mouth and neck, cleaning the sick from my skin. I leaned into her hand, my eyes still closed, just feeling her and knowing that things would stop hurting if she just kept contact with me.
So when she pulled away, I whimpered and reached clumsily for her in the darkness behind my lids.
“Shh,” she whispered. “I’ll be right back. I’m not going anywhere.”
I heard her footsteps disappear out into the hall, and I held my breath. I didn’t want to breathe if she wasn’t there to breathe with me. From outside the door, I listened as she pressed careful fingers to the number pad on her phone. In the stillness, I heard it ring, and a familiar voice on the other end.
“Please, don’t hang up…” she begged into the receiver. “We need you.”