Setting Rain on Fire 5/?
i dedicate this chapter to the delightful, delicious, dazzling Naya Rivera, who makes me question my own sexuality. hahaha
Chapter Five: Dying to Escape
“Deep in the cell of my heart, I will be so glad to go.”
Asleep, Emily Browning
I stop yelling the second Brittany slumps unto the floor, unconscious. I rush to her, panic kicking in with an agonizing force. Quinn pushes me gently to the side and presses two fingers to the pulse point on my wife’s neck. After a few seconds, she pulls back her hand.
“It’s nothing serious. She just fainted.”
Against my better judgment, I release a shuddering breath of relief. Puck moves in and bends over to lift Brittany off the floor, but I make a warning sound at the back of my throat, and he backs off, face wary.
I bend over and gently take Brittany into my arms, tucking her head safely into the crook of my arm. Slowly, I carry her to our bedroom, where I lay her gently on her side of the bed. I step back and stare at her unconscious form for a minute, and I feel something lurch inside me. It’s the first time I’ve touched her in months. Neither of can seem to stand physical contact these days, even from - or rather, most especially from - each other.
My hand extends tentatively, and my trembling fingers thread through her hair. “Oh, Brittany.” I hear myself choke out. “What happened to us?”
A muffled sound interrupts my thoughts. Groaning wearily, I remember the three idiots still standing in the hallway. I look at Brittany one last time, before turning around and marching straight out to them.
Puck has his lip pressed to the collar of his shirt, and I see the blood staining the material. Quinn and Kurt are whispering furiously to each other, clearly in the middle of an argument. All of them are oblivious to my return, so I clear my throat noisily. When I’m certain I’ve got their attention, I point towards the stairs and say, “Down.”
Puck goes first. Kurt sighs and looks back at the Nicholas’s bedroom before following. Quinn throws me one last apologetic look, moves to the stairs as well. I’m left standing in an empty hallway, the door of my son’s room still wide open. I feel myself shaking. I almost call Quinn back to ask her to close the door. Almost.
I know it will take me only five steps to reach out and close the door. If my strides are longer, it will only take three. Then after that all I’ll need to do is extend my arm and grasp the doorknob, and pull it towards me. That’s all I need to do. That’s all I need to do. I tell myself over and over. That’s all I need to do.
I take one unsteady step forward. I close my eyes as dizziness hits me, and I take a deep breath through my mouth. I take another step forward. My throat feels dry and the contents of my breakfast are rolling around my stomach, threatening to burst out.
Another step. Blindly, I reach forward for the handle, until I feel my fingers brush against it. I wrap my hand around its cool surface and tug at it slowly, until I hear the door close with a resolute snap.
“Very good, S.” I hear Quinn whisper from beside me. For some reason, I’m not that surprised that she’s still here. With my eyes still closed, I release the breath I didn’t realize I was holding.
My mind is still reeling from what I’ve just done. I turn to the direction of Quinn’s voice and stumble into her arms. They wrap around me immediately, while Quinn murmurs, “I’ve got you,” over and over again.
She holds me for a few more seconds, before I pull away slowly. She hesitates, but eventually lets me go. Then she gently leads me down the stairs and back into the living room. This time, she pushes me to sit between Kurt and Puck, while she takes the arm chair. None of us say anything for a few minutes.
“Listen, Santana. You and Brittany need to work things out together.” Quinn eventually says. I swallow visibly and nod dazedly.
“I know.” I respond. We lapse back into silence.
“I’m really, really worried about Brittany.” Kurt admits. I inhale sharply, and I wrap my arms around myself.
“I know.” I repeat. “I’m really worried, too.”
“Santana,” Quinn begins slowly. I look up at her, urging her to continue. “When we were…upstairs, you mentioned something about how we didn’t really know what you two have been through.” I close my eyes and nod again. She pauses briefly. “Santana, is there something that neither of you have been telling us?”
I feel the tension rolling around the air like waves.
“Yes.” I finally whisper in a breaking voice. I clear my throat and add, “There are things she didn’t want other people to know.”
“Like?” Puck encourages gently. I look up at the three of them. They’re wearing nearly identical looks of concern it would have been comical in any other situation. But not this one. I look into Quinn’s eyes and see nothing there but acceptance. I could trust them.
“You guys know the circumstances of…his…passing, don’t you?” I stammer.
“Of course.” Quinn replies solemnly, before adding haltingly, “He was killed.”
I nod numbly. “Do you know how?”
“He was stabbed, wasn’t he?” Kurt says in a quiet voice. He reaches out and grasps my shoulder tightly.
“Do you know why?” I press on in a dead voice, internally screaming for my resolve not to disappear.
“What do you mean, do we know why?” Puck replies, looking perplexed. “Are you saying that the murder had intent?”
Somewhere in the corner of my mind, my training kicks in and I almost tell him that it is ‘intent’ or ‘motive’ that distinguishes murder from manslaughter. But I hold my tongue, and instead stand up, taking a deep breath. I walk over to a corner of the room and lean against the wall, hands clasped behind my back. I look up at the ceiling and pray for the courage to continue. It was now or never. I open my mouth and the words burst out like a tidal wave.
“It was Wednesday. It was my day to pick him up, and I would have, if it weren’t for that God damn meeting. There was some sort of glitch with the paperwork of one of the firm’s biggest cases, and there was hell to pay for, so the board had to meet up for damage control. I was invited to join in on the meeting, and during that time all I could hear was the subtle indications of a promotion. I was only informed of the meeting around half an hour before the actual thing, but I thought it was an opportunity too big to pass up, so I texted Brittany to tell her that I wouldn’t be able to get him.
“I’d forgotten that she was giving a special workshop across town and she was going to be ending much later than usual, too. By the time she was done, the roads were blocked over and traffic was a huge bitch. She only managed to get to the six at half past six.
“At this point forward, I’m just going to be repeating the things she had told me and the police.” I pause. “The school seemed deserted when she arrived. Normally, he’d be waiting outside by the school entrance, but he wasn’t there so she figured that he went back into his classroom or something. She told me that she entered the hallways and called out his name. Then she heard it.
“There was some sort of commotion at the end of the hallway. There was a tall figure bending over a smaller one, and the smaller one seemed to be thrashing. Then the taller figure had snapped, ‘Shut up, homo spawn. Keep still!’”
At this point, my voice had dropped an octave lower, and the trio in front of me had looks of sickened horror on their faces.
“She was running towards the end of the hallway when she saw the taller figure stick something into the smaller guy. She told me that the killer had said something like, ‘That’s because of your pathetic homo parents, you freak.’ Then the taller one looked up - Brittany said she didn’t realize she was screaming - and saw her coming towards him. He ran into a classroom and got out through a window.”
I halt for a moment because I suddenly realize I’m crying. I hear sniffing in the room and realize I wasn’t the only one.
“When she got to the…” I swallow painfully past the lump in my throat. “When she got to the body there was blood everywhere. She kind of blacked out at that point, she can’t remember anything after that. The guard, who had heard her screaming, found her clutching the body in her arms, rocking back and forth, blood all over her hands and clothes and face…”
“Oh God,” Quinn sobs brokenly. Puck takes her into his arms, tears streaming noiselessly down his cheeks. Kurt is sniffing into one hand, the other clutching Quinn’s tightly.
We all cry openly before I whisper in a tortured voice, “And it’s all my fault.”
Quinn looks up at me then, and there’s fire raging in her eyes. “Don’t you dare say that. Santana Pierce-Lopez, don’t you fucking dare say that.”
“It’s true.” I whisper brokenly, sliding down the length of the wall and landing with a thud on the ground. “I was so selfish. All I could think about was my job.” I hear myself whispering, “It was the worst decision I had ever made in my life.” I feel something die inside me and I add in a hollow voice, “Brittany can’t even touch me.”
Quinn bursts into another round of tears, this time burying her head in the material of Kurt’s designer jacket.
“You see why this seems impossible to fix?” I say bitterly. “Either way, everything seems to indicate we can’t stay together. That we shouldn’t stay together. Our son fucking died because of us. Because of what we are. How can I still love my marriage if it’s the reason I lost the best thing that’s ever happened to me?”
* * *
My sobbing is muffled by the pillow I’ve pressed to my face.
I’m sitting on the staircase, listening to Santana tell our closest friends the truth of our son’s death. As the words gush out of her mouth I’m brought back to the hallway, and I can see the memory playing very distinctly in my head. For a few agonizing minutes I’m trapped in my own personal hell.
Then I hear Quinn cry out, “Don’t you dare say that. Santana Pierce-Lopez, don’t you fucking dare say that.”
Santana says something my ears can’t pick up, and I hear Quinn start to sob again. I almost stand up and enter the living room to cry with them, but I’m interrupted by the sound of my wife’s harsh voice, her words cutting deep wounds on my already beaten heart.
“You see why this seems impossible to fix? Either way, everything seems to indicate we can’t stay together. That we shouldn’t stay together. Our son fucking died because of us. Because of what we are. How can I still love my marriage if it’s the reason I lost the best thing that’s ever happened to me?”
My entire world seems to slow down and freeze. For a minute I feel hypersensitive to everything around me: the dust floating in the air, the light shining on the surfaces of the wall, the depressions on the wooden floor beneath my feet, the gasps originating from the living room. Everything seems so painfully and precisely crystal clear, and I suddenly realize what I have to do.
I stand up softly, leaving the pillow on the stairs. I make my way gently to the kitchen, and noiselessly pull open a drawer. The air all around me begins to whisper Santana’s words around me: ‘How can I still love my marriage if it’s the reason I lost the best thing that’s ever happened to me? How can I love my marriage? How can I love? How can I…how can I...’
I find the object I’m looking for and stare at it for a long moment. I caress the sharp edge, and watch as the skin at the tip of my fingers split and blood begins to seep out. I want to feel doubtful. I want to feel hesitant. But all I feel is an odd peace, a resignation. After all, I’d thought about this a lot in the past few months. Dimly, I think about how ironic it is to have it end like this. I’d be going the same way he did. Silently, I make my way back upstairs, trailing blood all over the floor.
“Brittany?” I hear Quinn gasp behind me. Her voice is still laced with tears, and I say nothing as I continue up the stairs. “Oh my God, Brittany, are you bleeding?” There’s a horrified pause. “Is that a knife?”
There’s a commotion in the living room as I hear the four of them race to reach me. I run into our bedroom, before slamming the door shut and locking it.
“Brittany!” I hear Kurt screaming, pounding on the door. “Oh God. Brittany, listen to me. Please open the door.”
I turn away from his tortured cries and lay the knife down as strip. Then I pick it up as I walk into the bathroom and lock that door, too. I step into the shower and turn on the water, relishing the feeling of it beating against the crown of my head.
I hear the loud snap or the doorway breaking as someone crashes into the room. “Brittany!” Puck is yelling outside the bathroom door. “Whatever you’re thinking about doing, don’t do it.”
Quinn’s voice is also mixed into the hysteria. She’s screaming something like, “Britt, baby, this is not the answer. Please, let us help you. We can help you.” Kurt’s saying something too, but they’re all yelling at the same time and it’s difficult to understand with all the words flying around together. So I shut it out.
I take the knife in my hand and slash my left palm swiftly.
I can’t even feel the pain. I wonder briefly if Nicholas felt any pain, during those last few moments. Was I the last thing he saw, the last thing he heard? Did he recognize my arms around him, my tears washing his face? Did he forgive me for failing him? For not being there sooner? For not taking the blow of the knife? I don’t know. I’ll never know.
The door barges open, and through the steam I see the four of them standing at the doorway. For a minute I feel embarrassed to be seen like this - bleeding, naked, vulnerable - but the odd calm feeling returns and the thoughts wash out of my mind. I grasp the handle of the knife and prepare to drive it into my stomach.
Then I hear her voice.
“Brittany, listen to me, please. Don’t do this.”
The knife stills before the delicate skin of my abdomen. A broken sob breaks from my mouth, but I don’t move from my position. To die to the sound of Santana’s voice. I don’t think there were would be any better way to go.
Her voice is shaking as she continues, “If you do this, there will be nothing left for me in this world. Do you hear me, Britt? Nothing. You won’t just be killing yourself. You’ll be killing me.”
I sob noiselessly.
“I’d rather die than have you leave me, Brittany. Don’t do this.” She pleads. I look at her as she takes a few steps closer, until she’s close enough for the water to wet her clothes. There are tears shining in her eyes, and her lips are trembling.
Still, I remain motionless.
“If you do this,” She whispers, standing so close now that I could reach out and kiss her, “If you’re sure about doing this, then let me go first.”
She holds her hand out to take the knife from me. “Come on.” She whispered. “Let me go first then you can follow. Because there’s no way on this earth that I’m letting you leave me. You should know by now that whatever happens, if you’re leaving, I’m leaving with you.”
The thought of Santana dying is pure agony. I can’t even begin to fathom the idea. I don’t want to. It didn’t matter if she no longer loved me, or if she no longer loved what we used to have. I still love her, and I can’t stand the thought of having her die.
Swallowing thickly, I let my fingers go slack and feel the knife slide from my fingertips.
Chapter Five: Dying to Escape
“Deep in the cell of my heart, I will be so glad to go.”
Asleep, Emily Browning
I stop yelling the second Brittany slumps unto the floor, unconscious. I rush to her, panic kicking in with an agonizing force. Quinn pushes me gently to the side and presses two fingers to the pulse point on my wife’s neck. After a few seconds, she pulls back her hand.
“It’s nothing serious. She just fainted.”
Against my better judgment, I release a shuddering breath of relief. Puck moves in and bends over to lift Brittany off the floor, but I make a warning sound at the back of my throat, and he backs off, face wary.
I bend over and gently take Brittany into my arms, tucking her head safely into the crook of my arm. Slowly, I carry her to our bedroom, where I lay her gently on her side of the bed. I step back and stare at her unconscious form for a minute, and I feel something lurch inside me. It’s the first time I’ve touched her in months. Neither of can seem to stand physical contact these days, even from - or rather, most especially from - each other.
My hand extends tentatively, and my trembling fingers thread through her hair. “Oh, Brittany.” I hear myself choke out. “What happened to us?”
A muffled sound interrupts my thoughts. Groaning wearily, I remember the three idiots still standing in the hallway. I look at Brittany one last time, before turning around and marching straight out to them.
Puck has his lip pressed to the collar of his shirt, and I see the blood staining the material. Quinn and Kurt are whispering furiously to each other, clearly in the middle of an argument. All of them are oblivious to my return, so I clear my throat noisily. When I’m certain I’ve got their attention, I point towards the stairs and say, “Down.”
Puck goes first. Kurt sighs and looks back at the Nicholas’s bedroom before following. Quinn throws me one last apologetic look, moves to the stairs as well. I’m left standing in an empty hallway, the door of my son’s room still wide open. I feel myself shaking. I almost call Quinn back to ask her to close the door. Almost.
I know it will take me only five steps to reach out and close the door. If my strides are longer, it will only take three. Then after that all I’ll need to do is extend my arm and grasp the doorknob, and pull it towards me. That’s all I need to do. That’s all I need to do. I tell myself over and over. That’s all I need to do.
I take one unsteady step forward. I close my eyes as dizziness hits me, and I take a deep breath through my mouth. I take another step forward. My throat feels dry and the contents of my breakfast are rolling around my stomach, threatening to burst out.
Another step. Blindly, I reach forward for the handle, until I feel my fingers brush against it. I wrap my hand around its cool surface and tug at it slowly, until I hear the door close with a resolute snap.
“Very good, S.” I hear Quinn whisper from beside me. For some reason, I’m not that surprised that she’s still here. With my eyes still closed, I release the breath I didn’t realize I was holding.
My mind is still reeling from what I’ve just done. I turn to the direction of Quinn’s voice and stumble into her arms. They wrap around me immediately, while Quinn murmurs, “I’ve got you,” over and over again.
She holds me for a few more seconds, before I pull away slowly. She hesitates, but eventually lets me go. Then she gently leads me down the stairs and back into the living room. This time, she pushes me to sit between Kurt and Puck, while she takes the arm chair. None of us say anything for a few minutes.
“Listen, Santana. You and Brittany need to work things out together.” Quinn eventually says. I swallow visibly and nod dazedly.
“I know.” I respond. We lapse back into silence.
“I’m really, really worried about Brittany.” Kurt admits. I inhale sharply, and I wrap my arms around myself.
“I know.” I repeat. “I’m really worried, too.”
“Santana,” Quinn begins slowly. I look up at her, urging her to continue. “When we were…upstairs, you mentioned something about how we didn’t really know what you two have been through.” I close my eyes and nod again. She pauses briefly. “Santana, is there something that neither of you have been telling us?”
I feel the tension rolling around the air like waves.
“Yes.” I finally whisper in a breaking voice. I clear my throat and add, “There are things she didn’t want other people to know.”
“Like?” Puck encourages gently. I look up at the three of them. They’re wearing nearly identical looks of concern it would have been comical in any other situation. But not this one. I look into Quinn’s eyes and see nothing there but acceptance. I could trust them.
“You guys know the circumstances of…his…passing, don’t you?” I stammer.
“Of course.” Quinn replies solemnly, before adding haltingly, “He was killed.”
I nod numbly. “Do you know how?”
“He was stabbed, wasn’t he?” Kurt says in a quiet voice. He reaches out and grasps my shoulder tightly.
“Do you know why?” I press on in a dead voice, internally screaming for my resolve not to disappear.
“What do you mean, do we know why?” Puck replies, looking perplexed. “Are you saying that the murder had intent?”
Somewhere in the corner of my mind, my training kicks in and I almost tell him that it is ‘intent’ or ‘motive’ that distinguishes murder from manslaughter. But I hold my tongue, and instead stand up, taking a deep breath. I walk over to a corner of the room and lean against the wall, hands clasped behind my back. I look up at the ceiling and pray for the courage to continue. It was now or never. I open my mouth and the words burst out like a tidal wave.
“It was Wednesday. It was my day to pick him up, and I would have, if it weren’t for that God damn meeting. There was some sort of glitch with the paperwork of one of the firm’s biggest cases, and there was hell to pay for, so the board had to meet up for damage control. I was invited to join in on the meeting, and during that time all I could hear was the subtle indications of a promotion. I was only informed of the meeting around half an hour before the actual thing, but I thought it was an opportunity too big to pass up, so I texted Brittany to tell her that I wouldn’t be able to get him.
“I’d forgotten that she was giving a special workshop across town and she was going to be ending much later than usual, too. By the time she was done, the roads were blocked over and traffic was a huge bitch. She only managed to get to the six at half past six.
“At this point forward, I’m just going to be repeating the things she had told me and the police.” I pause. “The school seemed deserted when she arrived. Normally, he’d be waiting outside by the school entrance, but he wasn’t there so she figured that he went back into his classroom or something. She told me that she entered the hallways and called out his name. Then she heard it.
“There was some sort of commotion at the end of the hallway. There was a tall figure bending over a smaller one, and the smaller one seemed to be thrashing. Then the taller figure had snapped, ‘Shut up, homo spawn. Keep still!’”
At this point, my voice had dropped an octave lower, and the trio in front of me had looks of sickened horror on their faces.
“She was running towards the end of the hallway when she saw the taller figure stick something into the smaller guy. She told me that the killer had said something like, ‘That’s because of your pathetic homo parents, you freak.’ Then the taller one looked up - Brittany said she didn’t realize she was screaming - and saw her coming towards him. He ran into a classroom and got out through a window.”
I halt for a moment because I suddenly realize I’m crying. I hear sniffing in the room and realize I wasn’t the only one.
“When she got to the…” I swallow painfully past the lump in my throat. “When she got to the body there was blood everywhere. She kind of blacked out at that point, she can’t remember anything after that. The guard, who had heard her screaming, found her clutching the body in her arms, rocking back and forth, blood all over her hands and clothes and face…”
“Oh God,” Quinn sobs brokenly. Puck takes her into his arms, tears streaming noiselessly down his cheeks. Kurt is sniffing into one hand, the other clutching Quinn’s tightly.
We all cry openly before I whisper in a tortured voice, “And it’s all my fault.”
Quinn looks up at me then, and there’s fire raging in her eyes. “Don’t you dare say that. Santana Pierce-Lopez, don’t you fucking dare say that.”
“It’s true.” I whisper brokenly, sliding down the length of the wall and landing with a thud on the ground. “I was so selfish. All I could think about was my job.” I hear myself whispering, “It was the worst decision I had ever made in my life.” I feel something die inside me and I add in a hollow voice, “Brittany can’t even touch me.”
Quinn bursts into another round of tears, this time burying her head in the material of Kurt’s designer jacket.
“You see why this seems impossible to fix?” I say bitterly. “Either way, everything seems to indicate we can’t stay together. That we shouldn’t stay together. Our son fucking died because of us. Because of what we are. How can I still love my marriage if it’s the reason I lost the best thing that’s ever happened to me?”
* * *
My sobbing is muffled by the pillow I’ve pressed to my face.
I’m sitting on the staircase, listening to Santana tell our closest friends the truth of our son’s death. As the words gush out of her mouth I’m brought back to the hallway, and I can see the memory playing very distinctly in my head. For a few agonizing minutes I’m trapped in my own personal hell.
Then I hear Quinn cry out, “Don’t you dare say that. Santana Pierce-Lopez, don’t you fucking dare say that.”
Santana says something my ears can’t pick up, and I hear Quinn start to sob again. I almost stand up and enter the living room to cry with them, but I’m interrupted by the sound of my wife’s harsh voice, her words cutting deep wounds on my already beaten heart.
“You see why this seems impossible to fix? Either way, everything seems to indicate we can’t stay together. That we shouldn’t stay together. Our son fucking died because of us. Because of what we are. How can I still love my marriage if it’s the reason I lost the best thing that’s ever happened to me?”
My entire world seems to slow down and freeze. For a minute I feel hypersensitive to everything around me: the dust floating in the air, the light shining on the surfaces of the wall, the depressions on the wooden floor beneath my feet, the gasps originating from the living room. Everything seems so painfully and precisely crystal clear, and I suddenly realize what I have to do.
I stand up softly, leaving the pillow on the stairs. I make my way gently to the kitchen, and noiselessly pull open a drawer. The air all around me begins to whisper Santana’s words around me: ‘How can I still love my marriage if it’s the reason I lost the best thing that’s ever happened to me? How can I love my marriage? How can I love? How can I…how can I...’
I find the object I’m looking for and stare at it for a long moment. I caress the sharp edge, and watch as the skin at the tip of my fingers split and blood begins to seep out. I want to feel doubtful. I want to feel hesitant. But all I feel is an odd peace, a resignation. After all, I’d thought about this a lot in the past few months. Dimly, I think about how ironic it is to have it end like this. I’d be going the same way he did. Silently, I make my way back upstairs, trailing blood all over the floor.
“Brittany?” I hear Quinn gasp behind me. Her voice is still laced with tears, and I say nothing as I continue up the stairs. “Oh my God, Brittany, are you bleeding?” There’s a horrified pause. “Is that a knife?”
There’s a commotion in the living room as I hear the four of them race to reach me. I run into our bedroom, before slamming the door shut and locking it.
“Brittany!” I hear Kurt screaming, pounding on the door. “Oh God. Brittany, listen to me. Please open the door.”
I turn away from his tortured cries and lay the knife down as strip. Then I pick it up as I walk into the bathroom and lock that door, too. I step into the shower and turn on the water, relishing the feeling of it beating against the crown of my head.
I hear the loud snap or the doorway breaking as someone crashes into the room. “Brittany!” Puck is yelling outside the bathroom door. “Whatever you’re thinking about doing, don’t do it.”
Quinn’s voice is also mixed into the hysteria. She’s screaming something like, “Britt, baby, this is not the answer. Please, let us help you. We can help you.” Kurt’s saying something too, but they’re all yelling at the same time and it’s difficult to understand with all the words flying around together. So I shut it out.
I take the knife in my hand and slash my left palm swiftly.
I can’t even feel the pain. I wonder briefly if Nicholas felt any pain, during those last few moments. Was I the last thing he saw, the last thing he heard? Did he recognize my arms around him, my tears washing his face? Did he forgive me for failing him? For not being there sooner? For not taking the blow of the knife? I don’t know. I’ll never know.
The door barges open, and through the steam I see the four of them standing at the doorway. For a minute I feel embarrassed to be seen like this - bleeding, naked, vulnerable - but the odd calm feeling returns and the thoughts wash out of my mind. I grasp the handle of the knife and prepare to drive it into my stomach.
Then I hear her voice.
“Brittany, listen to me, please. Don’t do this.”
The knife stills before the delicate skin of my abdomen. A broken sob breaks from my mouth, but I don’t move from my position. To die to the sound of Santana’s voice. I don’t think there were would be any better way to go.
Her voice is shaking as she continues, “If you do this, there will be nothing left for me in this world. Do you hear me, Britt? Nothing. You won’t just be killing yourself. You’ll be killing me.”
I sob noiselessly.
“I’d rather die than have you leave me, Brittany. Don’t do this.” She pleads. I look at her as she takes a few steps closer, until she’s close enough for the water to wet her clothes. There are tears shining in her eyes, and her lips are trembling.
Still, I remain motionless.
“If you do this,” She whispers, standing so close now that I could reach out and kiss her, “If you’re sure about doing this, then let me go first.”
She holds her hand out to take the knife from me. “Come on.” She whispered. “Let me go first then you can follow. Because there’s no way on this earth that I’m letting you leave me. You should know by now that whatever happens, if you’re leaving, I’m leaving with you.”
The thought of Santana dying is pure agony. I can’t even begin to fathom the idea. I don’t want to. It didn’t matter if she no longer loved me, or if she no longer loved what we used to have. I still love her, and I can’t stand the thought of having her die.
Swallowing thickly, I let my fingers go slack and feel the knife slide from my fingertips.