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She'd always loved being right, but even better than being right was proving someone else wrong.
It all started when Rachel told her that everyone knew she was only going to end up a stripper. That bitch had no idea what she was talking about; Santana's father was a surgeon, her mother was a very successful lawyer, and just because her brother was a lazy ass who preferred to waste their parents' money and smoke weed with his friends and Santana liked feeling in control of her sex life and not limiting herself to one boy (or even one girl), that didn't mean she was destined to fish dollar bills out of a g-string to pay her rent. She had a 3.9 GPA, took honors courses, and was the class treasurer--not because she'd fucked her way into the job, either; she was really good at math and money and even better at forcing the losers in their class to pay their dues every semester. She was a Cheerio and a member of Glee, she held down two jobs volunteering at the hospital her dad worked at and working at a daycare in the summer and on weekends (yeah, bitches, daycare, with little kids. She was fucking excellent at her job, too, those little ankle biters loved her), and seriously, who the fuck was Rachel to say that she'd be stuck here?
When she got early acceptance to both Notre Dame and NYU, she just smirked at Berry and laughed while the diva panicked about Julliard's wait list and Berklee's rejection and whether it was too late to apply to her safety schools.
***
Wait. That's not true.
It started when she made the choice to go under the knife the summer between sophomore and junior year. It was only a small adjustment, but Santana knew the boys at school were drooling and the girls were judging her. She told Sylvester that she wanted boys to notice her, and her coach told her in not so kind words that she was pathetic, that she was a disappointment.
Santana was nobody's disappointment. She'd gotten a boob job because she was sick of looking at herself in the mirror and seeing her chest flat like a prepubescent boy's. Between Sue's Master Cleanse regimen and the daily Cheerios practices, running suicides when they screwed up a stunt, running when she was angry or sad or just feeling too much of everything, being stressed out all of the time between school and work and the weight of her parents' and her own expectations, she couldn't keep weight on and her clothes were hanging off her even in size zero. She hadn't had a regular period since 8th grade when she first got noticed by Coach Sylvester, and she felt like her body didn't even belong to her.
So she took it back--36 B breasts (doctor's help or not), wearing her hair loose, even going so far as to finally quit Cheerios junior year. Sue told her she'd be nothing without the squad, without Sue to terrorize her into excellence. Santana just laughed and laughed--almost hysterical, but those emotions were hers, too, just like her body and her mind. Then she took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and told Coach the truth: she was great before the Cherrios, and they would be nothing without their most fearless flier. She smiled as she walked away, leaving Sylvester speechless.
It started before that, really. It started in fifth grade when Mrs. Jacobsen told her that Britt was never going to be able to understand fractions and percentages, and she should give up trying to tutor her. Santana had been shocked and hurt, but that afternoon she had begged her mother to stop and get a bag of M&Ms and Reese's Pieces from the 7-11 and drop her off at Brittany's house. It took six bags of candy and a four hour sugar high, but Brittany finally answered all of the questions on the math homework right. When they had their next test, Santana shot Brittany a wink and a smile, pressed a fun size bag of M&Ms into her palm, and took her seat across the room. When Mrs. Jacobsen passed around their quizzes, she gave Santana a pitying look and sighed while Santana refused to meet her eyes. But two days later, when she passed the graded quizzes back, Santana gave the teacher a smug smirk when Brittany beamed and showed Santana her 94%.
The truth was, Santana had always had fun proving bitches wrong.