Chapter 2

After her time spent texting with Emma, Regina had thought that her day would improve as much as her mood had, however she couldn't have been more wrong. Shortly after she had finished getting ready for work, her mother had called and almost demanded that she meet her for coffee the next day to discuss college and how she was doing with living alone, as she had only been moved out of her parent's house for a month. After spending nearly an hour on the phone with her mother trying, and failing, to convince her to move their meeting to another day, Regina had been late for work and had therefore been asked to stay for an extra 2 hours that evening. When she eventually got home from work, she was exhausted and all she wanted to do was collapse on her bed and sleep, however she had assignments to complete and had not eaten anything all day, so she needed to make herself dinner. She hung up her bag and coat and made her way over to the kitchen, her former bad mood from that morning completely returned. If she was being honest with herself, the only thing that had kept her from going completely insane that day was thoughts of her new friend from her English class. She wanted to text the blonde and speak to her to see if that would cheer her up, however she was worried that texting her again would make her look clingy and weak. She spent at least 15 minutes battling with herself on whether or not it was a good idea, but eventually she decided to send the blonde a message. She figured that if she mocked her for it she could just inform the blonde that she hadn't meant the text for her, and end the friendship, after making her feel stupid for thinking she had meant to message her of course. Yes, that's the perfect plan. She thought to herself as she typed out her message.

Hi.

She sent the message, deciding it would be best not to say too much as she wasn't sure that Emma would even want to talk to her again that night. She put her phone down on the table and got started on making her dinner. After about 5 minutes of cooking, she was distracted by the sound of a message coming through on her phone. She walked over to her phone slowly, reminding herself that she didn't want to make herself look too desperate in case she was rejected. She was nervous for reasons that she didn't even know as she turned her phone over and looked at the message.

Hey Gina! How are you? :) x

A large grin spread across her face at the unexpectedly enthusiastic message.

I'm fine, dear. Yourself? And I'll ask you again since you evidently weren't paying attention the first time, could you please stop calling me that?

She sent the message and set the phone down and continued to make her dinner, this time the reply took longer to come in but eventually after about a 15 minute wait her phone signalled that she had a new message.

You don't seem fine, dear ;) wanna talk about it? :)

Regina's first reaction was to be mad at the blonde for questioning her and completely ignoring the fact that she had already informed her that she was fine, however after giving it some thought, she realised that she actually found it rather sweet that somebody cared enough want to know what was wrong, as besides Kathryn, she never really had anybody to talk to. She decided that she would reply to the blonde, but she wouldn't give too much away as she didn't want Emma to think she couldn't deal with things herself.

Thank you for the offer, but I really am fine. It's just not been a very good day, and it has only gotten worse since we spoke this afternoon.

She sent the message and decided to just check her emails while she waited for a reply, as Emma seemed to be rather fast at replying and there was no point trying to cook while she was distracted. She was proven right when a reply came in almost instantly.

What are you doing right now?

She was surprised at the abrupt topic change but replied to the blonde anyway.

I'm making dinner, why?

What are you making?

Salad. Why?

Put it in the fridge and meet me at the diner in town. Salad isn't dinner, Regina. You can get something to eat there and we can talk about whatever has made your day crappy. See you there in like 30 minutes, yeah? :)

The complete lack of control Regina suddenly had over the situation made her uncomfortable but for some reason she really wanted to go and talk to Emma, which made her slightly worried considering she was already starting to form an attachment, but she decided to not read too much into it as she typed out her reply.

See you there.