Chapter One: Nightmares

Regina George was incredibly lucky. This is what everyone kept telling her anyway: her mother, her orthopedic surgeon, her physical therapist, hell, even the admissions department at Oberlin. Of course, she would have known it anyway even if none of them had said anything. She had read enough gruesome stories online to realize that most people who get hit by busses moving at 30 MPH are screwed for life. She could have easily gotten paralyzed from the neck down. She could have been so permanently brain-damaged that she was worse off than the Special Ed kids in high school that everyone pretended not to be creeped out by. Or she could have been brain dead and in a coma with her family fighting over whether or not to take her off life support like that Terri Shiavo woman from the news a couple years ago (although honestly, Regina had no idea what her parents would have done in this situation – they were both such deadbeat losers that they would probably just pay their lawyer to figure it out and then maybe buy Kylie a pony to make her feel better about having a dead sister.)

People (better people, Regina couldn't help but thinking) died from getting hit by vehicles every day. The statistics were astounding. For the first couple of months after she returned from the hospital, she had been practically addicted to browsing through awful pictures on the internet – twisted spines and skulls cracked open, fleshy pink brains exposed – until her dad threatened to take her computer away and send her to therapy. She read a blog about a woman involved in a hit-in-run, (a very nice woman, too, Regina noted – one who took in stray dogs and donated most of her time and money to a local rest home), who had to relearn how to brush her teeth and use a spoon and memorize the alphabet. Yet, somehow Regina had gotten away with a minor concussion, several broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder, a punctured lung and a fractured spine. Certainly, this hadn't been easy. Her neck still ached from time to time, but mostly, no one would have been able to guess that she had been hit by a bus less than two years ago. Even her physical therapist was impressed by her rapid recovery.

Regina was also well aware that she could have been much worse off psychologically. Hell, she could have a full-blown panic attack every time she saw a school bus instead of feeling mildly unsettled by them. So, yes, she was lucky. If someone had told her in advance that her only side effect to being hit by a two-ton vehicle would be frequent nightmares, she would have easily shrugged it off. Just throw a couple of Ambien at them and that's that. In the grand scheme of things, a couple of nightmares were a tiny, tiny price to pay for a fully functional brain and body. And, not to mention, for her life. She had thought the nightmares were a thing of the past, anyway.

And yet, here she was again: standing in the middle of the empty street in front of the high school. It had started out as a nice, normal dream, in which she was teaching swim lessons to a group of baby bunnies and ducklings. Then, without any warning, the scene had changed and she was back to that horrible place. Unlike that fateful day junior year, however, Regina was well-aware of what was about to happen. As soon as she saw the school in front of her and felt the overly bright sun scorch her skin, an icy cold sense of dread clenched her heart and lungs so that she couldn't breathe. She tried to move, but her legs felt numb and as heavy as concrete. "Move!" she thought desperately, but her legs wouldn't cooperate and the ground suddenly seemed uneven, like quicksand mixed with wet cement and marshmallow fluff. Suddenly the bus, this time a nauseatingly neon shade of yellow, came barreling toward her. She tried to shut her eyes, but her eyelids seemed just as paralyzed as the rest of her body.

Even though it was just a dream, pain erupted through her. She heard the sickening snap and crackle of bone and felt her vital organs tear apart. Regina woke with a start, her arm bent painfully underneath her and her face drenched with icy sweat and hot tears – not a pleasant combination. Trying desperately to catch her breath, she glanced at the digital clock next to her. 7:00. It was still dark out but Writing 101 started in two hours. Regina's roommate, Gretchen, was still fast asleep, breathing quietly through her nose and lying on her back, her hands folded in front of her like a Disney Princess. When they first started rooming together, Regina had been surprised and a bit jealous about Gretchen's sleeping habits. She knew she looked nowhere near as pretty asleep, especially since she often awoke in such uncomfortable positions. In a way it made sense, though. It seemed Gretchen was "on" 24/7, so why shouldn't this extend to her REM cycles?

At first, Regina had been slightly disappointed about living with someone she had known since elementary school, even if she and Gretchen had rarely spoken since the Plastics broke up after junior year. But now, she found it kind of a relief. She wasn't sure she would even have been able to deal with living with a complete stranger on top of everything else. College was supposed to be Regina's time to start over. No one here (other than Gretchen, of course) knew that she used to be the Queen Bitch Plastic, the girl responsible for "personally victimizing" (as Mrs. Norbury so eloquently put it) every other girl at school. But trying to make a fresh start had been weirdly exhausting and she often felt sapped of energy by the end of her 4:00 class. Because if she wasn't the Queen Bee, then who WAS she?

Gretchen was mostly having the time of her life at Oberlin. She had roughly fifty new best friends (many of whom were often squeezed into their already tiny dorm room) and was part of everything from Ultimate Frisbee to Anime Club to College Democrats to Belly Dancing. In a way, Regina had to admit, this kind of made sense. After all, Gretchen was sort of like a slab of tofu – she could easily adjust her personality and interests to any situation and fit into any group, so long as she kowtowed to whoever was in charge like a lost puppy.

Sadly, Regina was nowhere near as lucky. It was nearing November and she was beginning to realize with a mounting sense of panic that she hadn't really made a single friend at Oberlin. During the beginning of the semester, she had tried to make conversation with people in her classes and at Lacrosse practice, but she had always come across so stilted and awkward that she worried she sounded borderline autistic. Now, she mostly kept her mouth shut in class and tried to be as innocuous and blandly nice as she could at Lacrosse. Her grades were good, even though none of her teachers fawned over her the way they had in high school – and in fact, most of them probably didn't even know her name. Still, she felt like the biggest failure in the history of Oberlin College. No, the biggest failure in the history of the world. Regina was almost positive that if that woman who had to relearn her ABCs had somehow gotten the chance to study at Oberlin, she as sure as hell would make the most of it.