10 Reasons Why I Hate Santana Lopez

Reason 5

AN: When posting, I got my chapters mixed up. This chapter was previously posted as Reason 4.

As a child, Santana Lopez didn't take care of herself. Puberty hit her early, and during the third and fourth grades, she had trouble properly maintaining her rapidly growing body. So naturally, I was stuck looking out for her. We hardly spent time with anyone but each other, so the only person she could rely on was me.

It was only a little stressful having to constantly watch her back to make sure she didn't trip on her feet that were too large, or that her hair didn't get caught in any elevated objects because she wasn't aware of how tall she was. I was still small, and puberty was still a long ways off for me, but with Santana, it hit her as early as it could. So again, since Santana didn't know much about her transforming body couldn't be left alone to care for herself, and I was excruciatingly forced to experience female puberty closer than any man who isn't a father should.

Nearing the end of the fourth grade, after having gone through one broken arm, a haircut following a devastating attack from a wire fence, the awkwardness of training bras, and an attitude that was snippier than usual, 10-year-old Santana Lopez had gone through the brunt of her transformation. She had nothing left in store for me that would surprise me, or so I thought.

It was the last week of the school year, and as we were playing tetherball outside at recess, Santana had excused herself to use the restroom. I didn't think anything of it and continued to practice my swing with the tethered ball because Santana had quite a strong arm. But as I practiced and practiced, I realized that she had been gone for a long while so I went to look for her. However, she was already walking towards me with her head down and tears in her eyes.

I ran to her to see what was wrong, not worried of course but more afraid that she would take out whatever was troubling her on me. She refused to look at me at first, not that she would have been able to answer me through her sobbing and hiccups. By the time that she had managed to calm down enough to tell me what was wrong a yard monitor had already wandered over to us, and a few other kids on the playground had begun to watch because Santana Lopez isn't one to cry. Finally, since she wouldn't tell the yard monitor what was wrong, she whispered into my ear the problem. Unfortunately, my reaction was a little more than she had expected.

"You're bleeding from your peepee!" I yelled in disbelief.

She promptly punched me in the face.

The yard duty grabbed her hand and calmly lead her to the nurse's office, leaving me on the ground, holding my swelling right eye. But I guess I deserved it. While I had no idea what a period was, apparently a lot of the other children that had witnessed what had happened knew what it was. Santana left school early that day, and when she returned the next, the taunting began. She was laughed at, teased, and called "the rising sun" which I didn't understand until she told me to look up the Japanese flag in the class atlas. Kids are sympathetic to puberty as they grow older and they experience it at the same time as their peers, but for early bloomers like Santana, it was a traumatizing affair.

Of course, Santana acted like she didn't care and she had repeatedly said that it just meant that she was a woman amongst children, but when it was just her and me, I could tell that she was hurt. We would sit by ourselves in a secluded area, holding hands and saying nothing. She would curl her knees up to her chest and tuck her head there, and I would just quietly squeeze her hand. I don't know what had compelled me to do it the first time but seeing that it comforted her, I continued to do it until our last day of school.

During the last recess of the day before we would go back inside to clean out our desks before summer break, she pulled her head out of her lap and asked in the softest voice I had ever heard her use, "Will you be my friend forever?"

I laughed, a small cruel laugh to be coming from a nine-year-old's mouth, and replied: "I thought that was part of the deal."

Santana gave me a questioning look, and it was evident that she had forgotten how she had coerced me into friendship in the first place. But instead of reminding her of it, I just nodded my head and put my arm around her shoulders. A small smile graced her lips for the briefest of seconds before it disappeared into a frown at the approach of a few boys from our class. They were all laughing and pointing at us, and I instantly knew that something bad was about to happen.

"Hey look, Sebastian and the rising sun are cuddling," one said.

"Hey Sebastian, get your hands off of her, or you might get blood all over yourself" another teased.

"Santana, don't pee yourself or you'll get blood everywhere. Someone will think you died" another laughed.

She began to push herself up, but I had beaten her to it. Before I had known it, my fist had connected with the face of one of the bullies. Then my other fist had connected with a gut, and my foot hit a groin. I saw red and couldn't stop myself, even after the group of boys had realized what was happening and ganged up on me. Santana had tried to join in the fight, but I pushed her back and told her to stay out of it. Looking back on it now, the shocked look on her face was pretty funny.

I don't remember how many boys I fought; there could have been anywhere from three to six. All I remember was telling myself not to give up because they had no right to say what they did to Santana. I got my ass beat, but with Santana watching me, I felt like I couldn't give up. They got tired, and I kept swinging, and eventually, they either fell to the ground or ran away. By the time a yard monitor had come over to us, I had won the fight, albeit garnering a busted lip, another black eye to add to the one Santana had given me, a split cheek, and bloody knuckles. I was still shaking when Santana hugged me before I was led away for punishment.

Since it was the last day of the school year I was let go with just a warning, but I still blame Santana to this day for my downfall. If she had known how to take better care of herself and knew about her changing body the whole situation could have been avoided. When she started her period, she could have gone straight to the nurse, and no one would have been the wiser. But no, she came to me. I don't care if she trusted me enough to tell me something that must have been beyond frightening for a ten-year-old girl. I also don't care that she and I became closer because of the incident either. What matters is that after the fight, when school came back around the next year I was labeled a bad boy. And to that, with Santana by my side, I said fuck it.