Since Rachel grew up with few to no female friends, especially during her formative puberty years, when she started getting closer to Santana in junior year, she assumed what she was feeling towards her was natural friendship development. Though she knew sexuality was fluid, and she was open to all possibilities in her future, she’d had no reasonable expectation for deeper feelings to ever grow between her and Santana, or what they would feel like, her prior experience only being Finn and Jesse and Puck. Besides, friendships with females were supposed to be different, weren’t they? Closer? More tactile? That’s what television and movies had taught her, anyway. So she hugged Santana and hung out with Santana and wanted Santana’s attention, feeling good when she smiled at her and complimented her, or interacted with her over anyone else. It was only natural, right? Especially when her stomach would roil and her heart would burn whenever Santana would spend time with Brittany or smile at Brittany or cancel plans with Rachel because of Brittany. That was just because she missed her friend and didn’t want Santana to get so wrapped up in the blonde and forget about her. Selfish, maybe, but friendships couldn’t always be selfless, especially when she wanted to hold onto hers with two hands. And once she’d gotten past the ex-cheerleader’s prickly walls, she was an amazing person. Still prickly, but amazing. She didn’t want to give her up for anything.
So everything continued on, and Rachel and Santana’s friendship continued deepening, and it was more than Rachel could have expected, having a female friend (and then even more when Brittany and Tina and Mercedes and Quinn, sometimes, came along) - - until the day Santana kissed her, told her she was in love with Santana, asserted they should do something about that, and turned everything Rachel thought she knew on its head.
