I Feel Pretty When You're Around

Chapter 41

"Where's Britt?" Santana asked Rachel as the brunette hopped out of her car with her fathers at McKinley High School. Tonight was New Directions' Regionals competition.

Rachel scrunched up her face confused, "Umm, I'm not sure Santana."

"I offered to pick Britt up and take her here but she said she was coming with you tonight," Santana also looked as confused as Rachel.

"Maybe she had some other prior engagement before tonight."

The Latina shook her head, "She would have told me... And why would she say she's coming with you if she had plans to do something else?"

"I'm not sure, Santana. Just ask her when she gets here."

"Britt has never lied to me before," Santana said upset. Rachel on the other hand went wide eyed... 'Ummm did not telling Santana about getting a tutor and applying for Julliard count as lying? Or was that just not disclosing the truth?' Rachel thought to herself.

"What's with the weird face?" the Latina asked, as she watched Rachel.

"Oh... I... Umm... I thought I forgot my make up," Rachel said trying to find a distraction. 'Now that surely classifies as a lie.'

Santana just shrugged a 'whatever' and then pulled out her phone to try calling Brittany. It went straight to voicemail.

As Santana was walking down the hallway of McKinley High, Mr. Schue walked out of the choir room. "Just the person I wanted to find," Will said enthusiastically.

Santana looked up from texting Brittany for the 5th time to see her Glee teacher looking at her with hopeful eyes. "I'm kind of busy tracking down where Britt is right now, Mr. Schue."

"This will only take a minute, I want to discuss your song choice, I have some minor changes to the song," Mr. Schue said walking up to his student.

"Ummm... We're hours away from performing, why would you want to change it now? That's kind of a disaster waiting to happen."

Mr. Schue placed his hand on the Latina's shoulder, "Just come with me to my office and I'll tell you. It's only minor. The choreography will still be the same."

The Latina just shrugged and followed her Glee teacher to his office. Once inside they both took a seat, Mr. Schue on the opposite side of his desk to Santana.

"Firstly I want to explain why I chose this song for you and the other girls to sing... As you know the last girl group performance at Sectionals received a well liking from the crowd so that's why I thought having another girls number would impress the crowd again and influence the judges..." Mr. Schue trailed off, Santana nodded because she already knew this. "...But the reason for the song is not just because it's a popular pick... Brittany came up to me and suggested we do the song." Mr. Schue waited for Santana to process this new information.

"What?"

Will nodded, "At first I didn't understand why she would want to sing the song... But then she pulled out a booklet stating reasons why the song should be used." Mr. Schue then went into his desk draw and pulled out a booklet with colorful pages on it which were entirely written in crayon and handed it over to the Latina.

Santana started to examine the booklet while Mr. Schue continued to fill her in. "Brittany made it very clear what her sole reason to wanting us to sing the song was. And that was because of you." The Latina looked up from the book and looked at Mr. Schue. The Glee teacher was giving his student a kind smile. "She believes in you Santana, and she knows how hard it has been for you to be thrown out of your house because of your sexual orientation..." The Latina looked down, she didn't want to have a heartfelt conversation like this, but Mr. Schue continued. "That song you sang at Sectionals marked a big step in you overcoming what your parents have done to you, you stating that you will survivor and are a survivor showed that, and also that you're not going to give up... You've made it Santana, I can see how happy you've become and this song that you're going to sing tonight represents your triumph in overcoming this hard time in your life, that you became stronger because of it... People out in the crowd won't get how moving the song really is to you... They will just most probably think it's a great song to sing... But you will... You go out there tonight and sing it with passion and realize that this song is a representation of your success over everything that happened between you and your parents... Believe in yourself, Santana, because Brittany does, she wouldn't have come to me with this song choice if she didn't think so."