Trigger warning for mentions of suicide. Nothing graphic. Thank you everybody for reading!

Chapter 54 – Epilogue
Santana P.O.V.

"Santana, your girlfriend is here!"

I hear my sister yell up the stairs. I roll out of bed with a groan even though I'm supposed to be packing to leave for college tomorrow, not spending the entire morning staring absently at my ceiling.

I move as quickly as I can down the stairs. It has been almost four months since Andrew nearly killed me, and while I have been off of crutches for some time now and in physical therapy all summer, I'm not quite at one-hundred percent just yet. Let's just say I'm certainly not running any marathons anytime soon.

When I round down the stairs, I find Brittany already sitting on the couch chatting with Rachel.

The two of them have become inseparable lately. A hostage situation and a bad car accident would do that to a relationship. When I first heard the story, I didn't believe it. It sounded like a bad movie. I'm still not sure I'm used to the idea of what Brittany and Rachel had gone through together.

"What are you guys talking about?" I ask, rounding into the living room.

"We're planning Rachel's first trip to come visit us in New York," Brittany beams at me. "I remember the first time I visited my brother at school when he was at OSU. It was wild, Rachel. It's like a right of passage for younger siblings. You're gonna have a blast."

Rachel turns towards me hopefully. I would be attending NYU this fall while Brittany had committed to Columbia. We wouldn't be going to the same school, but we would at least be in the same city. Besides, Brittany and I reasoned that not being together all of the time while at college was probably the best thing that we could do for our GPAs.

I will miss Rachel terribly while I'm away, and she will certainly miss me, but the drive isn't too bad, and I would be home for the holidays and during the summer. Besides, Rachel is ecstatic that I had chosen to settle down in her favorite city and we both know that it'll only be a few more years until she joins me.

After I had gotten out of the hospital, our mother had briefly entertained the idea of moving her and Rachel out to New York with me. She wasn't sure that she wanted to keep living in the house that Rachel and I almost died in, and even with Andrew in prison, she has learned not to underestimate him; she wanted to get far away.

She went so far as to start searching for jobs and houses scattered throughout the suburbs of the city, but in the end, Rachel and I decided that we didn't want to let go of Lima just yet. Besides, Rachel wanted to make it to New York in her own time, on her own terms. She wasn't going to let Andrew take a single additional thing from her. So, for now, Lima is still our home.

"Fat chance getting our mom to agree to that one," I remind Brittany and Rachel, watching as both of their faces sink.

On that fateful night in April, after my mother had some time to process everything that happened and realized that Rachel and I weren't going to die, she had doubled down and grounded the two of us for, and I quote, "the rest of our lives."

Needless to say, Rachel and I have had a very dull summer.

"You're still grounded?" Brittany gapes.

"Yup," I tell her, popping the P dramatically.

"Maybe next year, Little S," Brittany shrugs.

"Maybe next century," Rachel counters with an eye roll.

I smirk at her. I love the attitude that has been slowly creeping back into Rachel's personality in recent months. She has become tough, no-nonsense. She has started to sing at random again when she thought that nobody was listening. She sneaks downstairs in the middle of the night to watch old musicals and takes notes and then practices them in the mirror, just like she used to before everything happened. The notion of her future is on the forefront of her mind again now that she doesn't spend all of her time wondering whether or not she will even get to have one.

Most importantly, she has started opening up to people again like a flower opening up to the sun after so many months of rain. It made everything seem so normal. It made us seem so normal.

"Santana, are you almost finished packing?"

My mother's ears must be ringing, because she walks into the living room with the question on her tongue a second after we finish talking about her. She has been on me for weeks about packing for school, and I still haven't even started.

"Um… I'm almost finished thinking about starting packing," I tell her. I try to put an innocent look on my face, but I know it doesn't work because my mother glares at me hard.

She looks disappointed, but I know the reason why she hasn't been pushing me as hard as she normally would.

As excited as I am to leave for college, the biggest event of the summer hasn't been me planning to move to New York and start school, but Andrew's trial.

Andrew had luckily been held on no bond for the duration of the trial. Having him locked away has eased our fears a little, but we are nearing the end, and the possibility of having Andrew back out on the streets has been settling like a knot higher and higher inside of our throats with each day that passes.

The lawyers had offered Andrew a plea deal that would have helped him avoid life behind bars in the beginning, but the man was narcissistic enough that he still believed that he had done nothing wrong. He refused to take it. And while that meant that Andrew now faced life in prison for his most serious charges, which included attempted murder, kidnapping, false imprisonment, sexual battery, aggravated assault, and felony child endangerment just to name a few, it also meant that we've spent our summer enduring a very long, very hard trial.

Me, Rachel, my mother, Quinn, Brittany, and Coach Sylvester had all been sequestered as witnesses. Because of this, none of us have been allowed to sit inside of the courtroom unless we were called, but that didn't bother any of us too much.

Andrew's family had reached out to us at one point via our lawyer. They wanted to talk to Rachel, to apologize to her on their son's behalf. It was a kind gesture, but we had refused it. It was just too much.

Instead, Sheriff Jon Walker, who had cemented his place in our family's lives on the day that he saved Rachel checked in on us periodically to offer updates. The trial had gone into jury deliberation three days ago. That meant that we would soon know whether or not Andrew would be going to prison, or if he would be a free man out on the streets again.

The fact that the jury was taking so long made the prospect of leaving for New York tomorrow slightly unnerving.

"We'll stop her from procrastinating, Mrs. C," Brittany promises my mother, jumping up from the couch and dragging Rachel up with her.

"I want that car packed by dinner time, Santana!" she calls after me as the three of us race up the stairs.

"Why do I have to help?" Rachel groans.

"Because Santana doesn't know how to decorate a room," Brittany laughs, pushing Rachel and I into my bedroom. "At least now if she tries to pack that disgusting tapestry, I'll have somebody to back me up when I tell her how ugly it is. If I'm gonna be spending all of my time in Santana's dorm room, then I want it to at least look nice."

"Ugh, please," Rachel groans, sticking out her tongue with a dramatic gag. "I'll help only if you promise to spare me the details."

"Sorry Little S," Brittany giggles, but she doesn't sound very sorry, especially when she looks up and shoots me a wink.

"Your roommate is gonna hate you, San," Rachel taunts.

"I'll give her the keys to my dorm," Brittany swoons, wrapping her arms around my waist and giving me a sly sort of smile that makes Rachel groan again. "We can swap."

Before Rachel can retaliate, the doorbell rings from downstairs. Moments later, I hear my mother open the door and then, I hear the familiar wail of a newborn. Quinn must be here.

Despite thinking that she could never raise a baby without being doomed a Lima Loser, Quinn had gotten one good look at her daughter and knew that she would never be able to let the girl go. She turned the adoption agency away, and while it certainly wasn't easy, Quinn made motherhood look better and better every day.

She had named her little girl Lucy, not after herself, but as a testament to the girl that her autocratic upbringing never allowed her to be. Quinn said that it served as a reminder to her to never resign her own daughter to the same fate.

Noah had gotten his football scholarship. He had settled on Rutgers because they had offered him a free ride, and because the coach was sympathetic to his situation and hooked him up with a job in the athletic department on the side. He had left for New Jersey to begin training camp earlier this month, and was sending home a good amount of money to help take care of Lucy.

Quinn was also working as an assistant to my mother. It was a stipulation that my mother had managed to work into her Vocal Adrenaline contract after winning the team nationals. Quinn would work during the day, and Judy mostly at night at a restaurant in town. Every once in a while, their schedules crossed paths long enough that Rachel and I got to babysit; a job that Rachel has taken too more kindly than me.

"It looks like you're off the hook Aunt Rachel," I smirk at her. "It sounds like Quinn can use some help down there."

Rachel doesn't need to be told twice. "I'd rather change a dirty diaper than help you and Brittany decorate your sex cave anyway!" she calls over her shoulder, even as she is practically running out of my bedroom.

Brittany and I turn to each other, unable to contain our laughter.

"She's certainly getting a personality on her," Brittany smiles at me as we hear Rachel round the bottom of the stairs and greet all three generations of Fabray women at the door.

"I'd like to say I'm not responsible, but I think I'd only be lying to myself."

"You're a bad influence, Santana Corcoran," Brittany grins, tugging at my waist to reel me into her. "Rachel has a point though. We're better off on our own for this one. How are we supposed to decorate our sex cave if we don't test out every possible option first?"

I hear the suggestion in the way her voice slants as she pulls her mouth into mine. I lean into her, using my foot to kick the door closed before dragging Brittany over towards my bed.

I throw her down against the mattress before falling down on top of her. My hands immediately begin to wander, slipping underneath her shirt to begin their sneaky assault upwards. I just find the clasp of her bra when I hear little Lucy release a wail that sounds like a knife between my ears.

"Ugh," I groan, slipping my hands out from underneath Brittany's shirt. "I love that kid, but I swear, having her around is the best birth control of all time."

"That doesn't mean that we have to stop," Brittany reminds me, turning onto her side where she digs her hips a little further into mine, teasing me. "Or do I have to give you a little biology lesson?"

The grin that stretches across my face gives her my answer.

"Only if you do it in real time," I tell her.

Brittany responds by latching her mouth against my neck, her lips descending slowly downwards…

"Santana! Brittany! Come down here! Judy brought a pizza!"

Brittany lets out an audible groan when somebody shouts to us from downstairs.

"I guess our test drive to independence will have to wait until tomorrow," she tells me, rolling off of my bed.

"Ugh," I cry. "When do we leave again?"

Brittany looks down at her watch. "In roughly eighteen hours."

I watch her stand up and walk towards my mirror, straightening out her hair and her clothes.

"That sex cave is starting to sound better and better," she tells me, offering me her hand so that she can pull me up to my feet.

"Rachel was right," I laugh, guiding Brittany out of my bedroom. "My roommate really is going to hate me."

We finally start packing the car after lunch.

We pile moving boxes high into the back of Brittany's brand-new SUV, which her parents had bought her as a graduation present after she had totaled her Explorer.

The two of us were driving it to New York together. After Rachel turned fifteen and a half in June and was able to get her driver's license, my mother had forced me to go as well, meaning that the two of us would be able to trade off driving responsibilities. We were to move in, and then Brittany's parents would fly out to meet us and take the car home.

I am excited for the trip. Brittany and I have never done anything like this before, and I was glad for the opportunity to have a few hours alone with my girlfriend before I would have to share her with the other eight million people in New York City.

We are still carrying boxes up and down the stairs when a familiar car parks outside of the house.

I watch through the window as Sheriff Walker gets out, tipping his hat onto his head before making his way up towards our front door. There are only two possible reasons as to why he is here today. Either he is coming to check on us, or the verdict for Andrew's trial is in. I am hoping for the latter.

"Sheriff Walker is here," I mumble to Brittany, dropping the box that I am holding to my feet. I don't wait for Brittany to respond before peeling towards the front door. I arrive just in time to watch my mother open it, inviting the man inside.

"Jon, hi…" she greets him. Her voice is tight. I can tell that she is wondering about the verdict as much as I am.

"Shelby," he nods, stepping into the foyer where he immediately spots Brittany and I. He nods at the two of us politely. "Santana, Brittany. How are you girls?"

I swallow, but cannot seem to produce any words. That is how dry my throat has gone.

"We're fine, thanks," Brittany manages for the both of us.

From the back of the house, Rachel emerges to see what all of the commotion is about. Quinn is following, holding Lucy on her hip. The tiny girl is wide awake and alert. At only four months, even she seems to know that something is going on here.

"You have a full house today, Shelby," the man comments, removing his hat and holding it close to his chest.

"Brittany and Santana are packing," my mother explains. "They leave for New York tomorrow."

"That's a big day," the sheriff nods, but there is something strange in his tone that makes me nervous as he turns to look up at Rachel. "Rachel," he offers my sister a nod. "Jonathan says hello."

I watch color creep into my sister's cheeks. For a moment, I forget even about why I am so nervous about Sheriff Walker being here in the first place and scowl. First Finn and now Jonathan Walker? I am really going to have to talk to Rachel about her taste in boys.

Or lack thereof.

"Tell him that I say hi too, Mr. Walker," Rachel tells the sheriff with a mousy sort of voice that has to make me actively resist rolling my eyes.

"How many times do I have to tell you, Rachel, it's Jon."

"Is the verdict in?" I ask suddenly, breaking through the small talk because I can't stand it anymore. "Is that why you're here?"

The man looks at me sadly before shaking his head. I feel the disappointment rise high inside of my throat.

"No, Santana, there's no verdict," he tells me. "Actually, Shelby, I was wondering if I could speak to you for a moment."

The look on his face is alarming. There might not be a verdict, but something else is wrong. I know that and my mom must know it too because her brows crease curiously in the middle.

"Sure," she nods. "Excuse us girls."

My mother follows the sheriff out onto the front stoop, closing the front door behind them. All four of us know that we should give them their privacy, but none of us has to say anything before we're all scrambling to the window to watch them talk.

"What do you think all that's about?" Rachel asks.

"No idea," I shrug, watching my mother and Mr. Walker talking softly, yet animatedly on the front porch. "They're probably talking about how to stop you from having a crush on that stoner loser Jonathan."

I watch Rachel's face turn bright pink.

"I do not," she hisses back and gives me a little shove. I smirk at her, but then I watch my mother's face fall through the window and my gut sinks.

Her expression is one of pure distress. Her arms are crossed defensively over her chest and her eyes are emotional as she weaves her fingers through her hair. The only thing I can think this is about is the trial. Is it possible that the jury had come back, and that Andrew had found been found not guilty and the sheriff just hadn't wanted to say so with all of us present?

It doesn't seem likely, but what other options were there?

My mother is the first one to notice that all four of us are staring at them through the window. When she sees us, her body somehow sinks even more. I watch her nod and rest a gentle hand down against Sheriff Walker's shoulder.

"I need to talk to them alone." I watch her lips move and read the words perfectly. The sheriff says one final thing to her. His back is turned, so I can't tell what it is, but I watch my mother nod her head before waving him off. He makes his way back towards his car. When my mother presses back into the house, I rush her.

"What happened?" I demand, skidding to a halt right in front of her. "Was it the jury?"

My mother scans all four of our faces. The look in her eyes is alarming.

"No, Santana," she shakes her head. "It wasn't the jury."

"He didn't like… escape or anything, did he?" I ask, holding my breath at the mere possibility.

"No," my mother shakes her head again.

"Maybe Quinn and I should go…" Brittany suggests. She sounds uncomfortable. Sheriff Walker's presence had charged the air between us. She sounds like she is unsure whether or not she is interfering just by being present.

"No, Brittany," my mother insists. "You and Quinn are both involved in this too. You have every right to know what happened."

She pauses, taking a deep breath that allows my anxiety to stew.

"Girls, Andrew was found dead in his jail cell this morning," she finally says. It is the last thing I am expecting to hear. In fact, I am so surprised by it, that it goes right over my head entirely. I can't process the idea. I don't think anybody else can either, because a silence suddenly blankets over us like a fresh covering of snow.

How is this possible? After everything we had been through with him, am I truly supposed to believe that it's all over? Just like that?

"They think it was a suicide," my mother continues after giving us a moment to process the information. "They said that his wrists were cut."

"H-how could this happen?" I hear my sister punch out the question. When I turn to look at her, her face is sheet white. "He was in prison. Wasn't anybody watching him?"

"I'm not sure how it happened, Rachel," my mother sighs. "They'll do an investigation. Jon promised to keep me updated."

"But what about the trial?" I ask even though the answer seems obvious. Andrew is gone. That means that there is no point in even finishing the trial. Still, the idea that there would be no verdict, no justice after all of the pain of hearings and lawyers and media seems impossible. It's a cheap finish to a never-ending movie. It's just over.

"The charges will be thrown out," my mother confirms.

"Thrown out?" I repeat. I feel rage boiling inside of me. Andrew Richardson is dead and he is still ruining my life. How is this possible. "So, he won't even be punished?"

"He's gone, Santana," my mother insists. Her tone is pleading with me not to start; not in front of Rachel.

"He's a coward is what he is," I huff quietly, crossing my arms in front of my chest.

"Are you girls okay?" my mother ignores me and turns to scan the pale faces of Rachel, Brittany, and Quinn.

"What about his family?" I hear Rachel ask with a meek sort of voice. I turn to look at her. She seems genuinely upset in a way that would never suggest that there had been a time where she herself had tried and almost succeeded in taking Andrew's life herself. I wonder if she's thinking about that right now. I wonder what it must feel like to spare a man's life only to have that same man turn around and take it himself.

"I don't know, Rachel," my mother sighs.

"What will they do with him?" Rachel swallows. She looks genuinely frightened at the prospect, like despite the kind of person Andrew was, she still doesn't think it should come down to him being in some unmarked grave in the back of a federal prison in the middle of Ohio. Rachel's capacity for empathy is astounding. As far as I'm concerned, they could throw Andrew to the bottom of the ocean and it would be all the same to me. Good riddance.

"Honey, I don't know," my mother shakes her head. "That's not our responsibility."

"Well, I for one am glad he's dead," I interject.

My mother closes her eyes, trying desperately to ignore me.

"Santana…" she warns. When I look at her, her eyes are begging me to keep my opinions to myself. "Please, you're not helping."

"So, we're just supposed to forget about everything he did to us just because he's dead?"

"I know what he did," my mother assures me pointedly. "And whether he's gone or not, I will never forget it, not for the rest of my life. Nobody expected this to end the way that it did, but despite everything that Andrew has done to us, it's okay to be upset about what happened. It's okay to feel however you feel about his death."

"I don't feel anything," I breathe.

"Brittany? Quinn?" my mother ignores me and turns to our friends gently. "How about you girls? Are you okay?"

"Yeah, Mrs. C," Brittany exhales, speaking for both her and Quinn, who nods alongside the older blonde.

"I'm gonna call your parents quick," my mother tells them. "Let them know what's going on. I'll be right back."

She pushes into the house in search for her cellphone, leaving the four of us behind. Even baby Lucy seems to recognize the tension in the room because she doesn't make a sound.

"Wow…" Britany is the one to break the silence. She is good in situations like this. She is not afraid of expressing her emotions, and is adept in coaxing other people to do the same. She has built her entire reputation around awkward small talk. "I can't believe that he's gone."

"Me neither," Quinn agrees. "But I'm with Santana on this one. He almost killed us. We were all hoping that he'd be sent to prison for the rest of his life, anyway. Is this really any different? I for one am not sad that he's gone. In fact, I'll probably sleep better at night knowing that he is."

"I'm not sad about it either," Brittany clarifies. "It just seems unreal."

"I'm sad about it," Rachel tells us.

The three of us turn to stare at my sister without saying a word. Inarguably, Rachel had suffered the worst under Andrew's hands yet still, she is somehow the one able to reach deep down inside of her and produce a little empathy.

"I'm sad that he's dead, and I'm sad that his entire life had to be the way that it was. What he did is his whole story now. That's it. There's no changing anything anymore."

I frown and look down at my feet, almost embarrassed. I had been quick to celebrate Andrew's death, but Rachel is right. Did I think that the man would change? No. But now, we would never know.

"I'm gonna go get something to drink," Rachel sighs when nobody says anything. She has made her position known and has nothing left to say. She pushes back towards the kitchen, leaving the rest of us stunned in her wake.

"Maybe we shouldn't leave tomorrow after all…" Brittany breathes after a moment.

"No, you definitely should," Quinn insists. "Rachel will be fine. This just has to sink in for her. It has to sink for all of us."

"She just looked so upset."

"Wouldn't you be?" Quinn insists. "That man tortured her for months. We just had one bad night with him. It must be confusing. I'm gonna go talk to her."

Quinn pushes past the two of us and hurries to follow Rachel. I know that I should probably go with her, but I don't. Rachel is upset, and I just don't feel the same level of sadness and disappointment for Andrew's death as she does. I'll say the wrong thing. Quinn is much better at things like that than me.

"I wish there was something we could do," Brittany breathes as she watches Quinn disappear around the corner.

"Invent a time machine, maybe," I suggest. The day had started off so jovial. The mood has been flipped on its head entirely.

"Are you sure you still want to go to New York tomorrow?" Brittany pushes.

"No," I admit. "But I think Quinn is right. Rachel will be fine. We'll all be fine. All of this just needs to settle. Staying here and missing the first day of classes isn't going to help. It won't change anything."

"I guess we should finish packing then," Brittany suggests. I nod. I want desperately to believe that I am right in thinking this way, but the truth is that I have no idea at all and that only time will tell.

I lay wide awake in bed staring at the ceiling.

The full moon is streaming through the window. I pretend that its incessant light is the reason I can't fall asleep, but in the back of my head, I know the truth. I am thinking about Andrew being dead and about Rachel and my mom and about the ten-hour car ride to New York City I'm supposed to be taking in just a few hours…

When I hear a knock at my door, I immediately realize that I'm not the only one in this house whose thoughts are keeping her up.

I sit up inside of my bed. I know that I will find Rachel standing there even before I see her pale circle of a face poking through my slightly-open door.

"Santana?" she whispers into the darkness. "Are you up?"

"Yeah," I whisper back, and it proves to be all the invitation that she needs.

Rachel bounces inside of my room. She launches herself into the air and flies like Superman right into my bed, where she wastes no time curling up next to me.

I wrap my arm around her and pull her in close. It's been a long time since we've done this. While I was still recovering from my surgery, my mom had put a futon downstairs so that I wouldn't have to crutch up and down the stairs all the time. Sometimes, Rachel would fall asleep in the Lazy Boy next to it while we watched movies, but that's the closest we've come to this probably since I was still in the hospital.

"You couldn't sleep either?" Rachel asks me. I can see her big, round eyes looking up at me in the pale light of the moon.

"No," I sigh. "I've got too much on my mind, I guess."

"Me too."

"What are you thinking about?" I prompt.

"About how I still can't believe you're leaving tomorrow," she admits. "About how much I'm gonna miss you. I still don't know how I'm gonna survive while you're gone."

"You'll be fine," I promise.

"Even in school?" she asks me. Rachel has high expectations for her sophomore year. She has been working hard making preparations for her next season of glee throughout the entire summer, and she has a fire in her eyes that tells me that my mother and Vocal Adrenaline better watch their back. Of course, that's not going to gain her any popularity points, and she has been lamenting all summer about how, without my protection next year, she was going to spend most of her days showering Slushee out of her hair.

"Especially at school," I tell her. "Everybody knows that Sue will crush anybody who tries something."

I watch her blush. Despite our best efforts to keep our secret under wraps, on the night that Andrew had come to our home, the Allen County SWAT team set a perimeter around our block just blocks away from the biggest house party William McKinley High School had seen all year. Naturally, the entire school had found out, and the media circus that followed had been vast. The entire school knew what happened to us that night. They also knew that we now had Sue Sylvester at our backs, meaning nobody messed with Rachel or even approached her for the rest of the school year. I doubt next year will be any different.

"And you have Quinn and mom…" I remind her when she doesn't say anything. "And I'm only a phone call away if you need me, too. You'll see me on Thanksgiving and Christmas and then, come summer, you'll be stuck with me for months and I'll probably annoy you so much you'll start counting down the days before I leave again."

"I'd never do that," she insists, inching closer to me like she is trying to hold onto every second of this time together, like she thinks she will never get it ever again.

I wonder if she is thinking about Andrew being gone, and if she is associating his death with me leaving tomorrow and is struggling to emotionally process the two separately.

"Maybe I should hold off leaving for a few more days," I suggest. "Just until things calm down around here."

"You can't do that," Rachel shakes her head. "Seriously, Santana. Andrew is out of our lives forever now. We're free from him. There's no reason to hold yourself back on account of him anymore. He's taken enough from us already, anyway."

"Are you sure?" I ask. I am thinking about earlier, how upset Rachel had been by Andrew's death and my heart breaks a little bit at the thought of Rachel going through all these things while I'm six-hundred miles away…

I watch her eyes drop a little bit.

"Earlier, I was thinking about all of the times that I used to stay up at night wishing that Andrew was dead," Rachel admits. "Now that he actually is, I'm staying up at night wondering why he had to die, why it had to be that way."

"He had a lot of problems, Rachel," I breathe deeply through my nose. "He's had a lot of problems, even before he met us. He carried them around with him for his entire life and never got the help that he needed and it finally caught up to him, that's it. I'm sorry that his problems had to become our problems, but I do know that it's not your fault and it never will be."

I want to drive this point home, but I know Rachel. My little sister has a tendency to harbor emotions bigger than her. From Broadway dreams to Andrew's suicide, Rachel has spent her entire life bearing the weight of the world on her back. In fact, Rachel feels so much that most of the time, it is difficult to believe that she's only fifteen-years-old. She shouldn't have to feel these feelings. I feel myself pull her in closer, if only to try to squeeze some of these things out of her and onto me. I would gladly bear them if it meant freeing Rachel for just one moment.

"I just wish that it could have been different," Rachel sighs. "I thought I would be happier about this. Does this make me a horrible person?"

I feel myself deflate. After everything that Andrew has put Rachel through, she still has the strength to ask herself these questions. Meanwhile, I didn't even pause to consider them. If anything, that makes me the horrible person, not Rachel.

"No," I tell her firmly. "It makes you human, Rachel. That's what has always put you apart from Andrew. It's what always will."

"I just wish that I could feel the same way that you do about all of this."

It's not an accusation, but it feels like one. Rachel has no idea what to feel. Andrew's trial had been hard enough; his suicide must be bringing up so many more terrible memories for her.

"I don't know what I feel yet," I admit to her – and to myself – honestly for the first time since hearing the news about Andrew. "I know that I acted like I don't care, Rachel, and I'm gonna be honest with you, I'm not sad that he's gone and I'm not sad that I'm not going to have to sit awake at night wondering what happens if he decides to come back and I'm all the way in New York, but that doesn't mean that I'm not sad. I am. I'm sad that he didn't want more out of his life than this. I'm sad that his tragedy had to become ours, too. I'm sad that Andrew ever put us in a position for being sad that he's gone in the first place. Does that make sense?"

"I think so…" Rachel breathes. "I don't think that I really know exactly what I'm feeling yet, either. I just… I can't believe that it's finally over."

"It will never be over," I sigh. It's the unfortunate truth. What happened to us will be with us for the rest of our lives. It's embedded within us. For the first time however, I am starting to think that maybe, this isn't a bad thing.

Like Rachel said earlier, Andrew has taken enough from us already. Now that he's gone, the only thing left to do is to move forward, to move upward.

Tomorrow, I'm leaving for college. New York will be an entirely new world for me. In a few years, Rachel will be right there with me, and she will probably have that city in the palm of her hand within the year.

I know that she will not be held back by what Andrew did to her. She will not be held back by anything. She has used what she's been through to become stronger, and if Rachel can do it, I know that I can too.

"I keep thinking about that night on the golf course," Rachel breathes.

I turn to look at her, curious. Rachel has never talked to me about that night. Never. My mother had been the one to tell me the story. Brittany had filled in the details that she didn't have. Rachel just resolved to keep whatever was going on inside of her head that night to herself.

"They kept asking me about it at the trial," she continues after a moment. "The prosecutors were trying to use it as a way to prove how much Andrew screwed me up. The defense tried to spin it to prove that I lacked any sort of credibility. It hurt to hear both sides. I wanted to tell the prosecutor that Andrew didn't screw me up, but it's not what we discussed and I didn't want to mess up the trial, so I held my tongue. I just wish I could have told them that I'm still me and that nothing could change that. Later, they asked if I really wanted Andrew dead that night and I had to think about it for a long time. I realized that while I was standing there that night with that gun, I did. I really did want him dead."

"Rachel…" I breathe, but she stops me. She isn't finished yet.

"That night, while I was pointing the gun at Andrew, everybody kept trying to talk me down. Brittany, and Sue, and the sheriff, and even mom… They kept telling me that it wasn't worth it. They kept telling me that the police would take care of Andrew. I didn't believe them. I didn't even care if I would spend the rest of my life in jail if I shot him. I wanted him dead because I thought that he killed you. I was so convinced that you were dead that night, and I wanted revenge… Then mom told me that he didn't kill you, that you weren't dead and… well, that's when everything changed. It still scares me how close I came to shooting him, but you were what made the difference, San. You told me once that this wasn't about just the two of us anymore, that it had gotten bigger than that, and I know that you were right, but that night… that night it was just the two of us again. I guess that's what it always boils down to."

I smile at her through the darkness. I wonder if she knows that the fact that she just admitted all of that to me is enough proof that she will come out of this just fine.

She has changed so much over the last year. Sure, I wish that it didn't have to have happened the way that it did, but her strength is unparalleled. Watching her grow into this incredible adult, watching her mold relationships, not just with other people but with me and my mother as well has been nothing short of miraculous.

Because of Rachel, we have all become better people, and it wasn't because of our circumstances, it was in spite of them.

"You're incredible, do you know that?" I breathe after a long moment, and I can see the way that she blushes even in the dark.

"I learned from the best," she nudges me. She has never been able to just take a compliment from me, although she practically absorbs them from everybody else.

I pull her in closer into my shoulder. I don't say anything. I don't have to. Rachel is right; it may not be just me and her against the world anymore like it was a year ago, but in the end, it always comes back to the two of us.

We'd had our ups and downs over the last year, but I never questioned how much Rachel meant to me, especially after we'd almost lost each other forever. I am certainly going to miss her like hell while I am away at college, but I'm not worried about her. Somehow, I am starting to understand that I never had to be.

So much has changed in the last year, yet at the same time, so much has stayed exactly the same. The way the two of us just lay here in my bed like we used to do when we were much younger proves that.

I feel her fall asleep with her head against my shoulder after a while and make it a point to stay awake just a little while longer after she is out, committed to remembering this, committed to understanding that no matter what happens between us, I will forever be my little sister's watcher if only it means that she will be able to dance forever.