Until I'm worthy

Chapter 5

Regina avoids her friends. She gets to school just as the bell rings, goes to her locker only when absolutely necessary, doesn't go to the cafeteria for lunch. Anything she can think of to separate herself from them.

It's hard at first (at first – as though it's stopped being difficult since she started). Her friends (the two she has left) try not to let her get away with it. Gretchen and Karen wait at her locker sometimes – she catches glimpses of them as she ducks around corners to get to class. On those days, she heads to class without her books instead of facing them. They text, they call. She ignores everything.

She doesn't deserve them.

She doesn't want to split the group. Cady's crusade to integrate the groups had worked too well. They're too entwined now, and Regina refuses to make anyone choose sides in this, especially when she was the one who was wrong. If she lets them, Gretchen and Karen would be by her side in an instant. But she's seen how much they like being part of a larger group, how much they've opened up. They seem lighter, happier. Regina won't let them lose that.

So she exists alone.

It gives her time to reflect. (Plenty of time for the self-loathing to grow deeper, reach farther.)

~~~~~

Karen texts her every day. Either an 'I luv u' or an 'I mis u' often accompanied by a variety of emojis that Regina thinks are summaries of how her day has gone. More often than not, Regina doesn't reply. It doesn't seem to matter to Karen because she doesn't stop sending them.

On days when everything feels too much, when she sees Janis and can't stop herself from wishing things were different, she reads through the messages, reminding herself there's someone on her side. Even when they shouldn't be.

Regina will have to tell Karen how much she appreciates it, when she can finally make herself face her.

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She gets lazy. Or else she doesn't pay enough attention. Either way, she leaves herself open somehow and ends up pulled into an empty classroom on her way to her free period.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?"

Regina turns around and stares, not expecting the anger or the yelling or the cursing (honestly the most surprising bit) to come from Cady.

It makes her defensive, makes her want to return the energy and show Cady exactly what's wrong until she retreats from Regina for good. Something in her says that's not helpful, and as much as Regina wants to say fuck it, she's also not very interested in making Cady angrier.

"I'm not the one who abducted someone and shoved them into a classroom!" she accuses.

Baby steps and all that.

"This is the only way I could think of to see you," Cady says, annoyance all over her face. "Between you avoiding us all day and making your mom turn us away when we try to come to your house, I couldn't think of anything else!"

Regina does her best not to yell. "Well, I had a good reason to avoid you guys."

The annoyance settles into something darker. It's not a look Regina is used to seeing on Cady. She's usually so bubbly and positive that Regina forgets there's another side to her. The predator that Regina had molded.

"That brings me back to my question. What is wrong with you?"

So much. Too much for Regina to bring up here, and definitely not anything Regina is interested in sharing.