All That Was Me (OUAT Fanfiction)

Regina and Daniel

Love doesn't come in a minute
Sometimes it doesn't come at all
I only know that when I'm in it
It isn't silly, no, it isn't silly, love isn't silly at all

(“Silly Love Songs,” Wings)

Chapter 2: Regina and Daniel

             Daniel and I slept like babies that night thanks to jetlag. When I awoke the next morning, I felt more rested than I had since Dad’s diagnosis. Daniel continued to snore beside me, his arms wrapped around my waist and chest pressed to my back. I turned as carefully as I could in his arms so I could look at him without waking him.

            Thick dark lashes fluttered as his eyes moved in REM sleep. I knew every inch of him by heart now after five years of marriage. Not that it felt that long. Most days, it still felt like our wedding was only the day before. We were blessed.

            When I moved to Boston for school, I never imagined I’d also meet my soul mate within months of doing so. I was focused on earning my chemistry degree and proving everyone who said women didn’t belong in science wrong. It was my own feminist battle. But even crusaders need a night off. My roommate, Lucy, convinced me to join her at a poetry slam in a small café. She promised I didn’t have to rhyme, that I could just listen. And that’s when I first saw him.

            He sat on the same stool everyone else did, but he treated it like a throne. Brownish blond hair flopped into his eyes and he pushed it back. His bright blue eyes swept the room the room before settling on me, drawing me in. As he delivered his poem, his focus never left me. It was if he was reading the poem to me and only me. I don’t think I breathed at all during it.

            Afterwards, Lucy and I sought him out. His smile as we approached sent butterflies fluttering through my stomach. I have forgotten what we talked about, though I’m sure I complimented his poem. Because two days later, he left one taped to my dorm room door. Lucy gave it to him after seeing how much we clicked.

            Daniel was my first and only serious boyfriend. My mother had a set plan for my love life. She wanted me to marry a politician or a business man, to be the socialite she never was. Mother married my dad because of his family, a business dynasty. But Dad was the youngest of the brothers and my uncles filled most of the leadership roles. Dad was happy in middle management, doing what he loved. Mother thought he needed to be more ambitious, to earn more money. We weren’t poor by any means but she acted like we were because she wasn’t rubbing elbows with the elite or having tea with the Queen of England.

            So she wanted to live her life through me. Chemistry didn’t feature into that plan. Nor did any of the boys I was interested in in high school. I tried to date, but my mother always scared the boys away. My prom date had been selected by her. He was nice kid from a good family and destined for great things, but we had nothing in common. Mother tried to ground me when I refused to go on a second date with him—ignoring the fact that he didn’t want a second date either—but it didn’t work as I was an adult. I packed up and moved in with Dad.

            I haven’t talked to her since.