Chapter eleven
The vein was popping.
It didn't happen often, even though most people in town thought that Cora Mills was probably some kind of dragon lady, but it was surprisingly infrequent that she and her siblings were truly in trouble.
Regina was currently truly in trouble.
She could tell that she had fucked up.
"Where were you Regina?" Cora asked through gritted teeth, clearly trying not to allow real rage to show in Gold's office.
Regina swallowed thickly in her seat in front of the principal's desk and her eyes quickly flicked over to the office door. Somehow, the thought that Emma was sat outside with Killian made her feel better.
"I was...talking to Daniel," she replied, deciding that now would not be a good time to tell her mother that Daniel had grabbed her to kiss her because someone on the football team had implied that he did something 'really gay' or something like that. Regina wasn't really listening to his explanation after Killian had sent her a text to let her know that he was with Emma.
Cora opened her mouth, with a frustrated sound of disbelief escaping, but the principal cut her off with a raised hand.
"Miss Mills," he began calmly, giving Cora a warning look that said he didn't want a shouting match in his office, "you do understand that as Emma's buddy, you should have been there when she had a…"
"Had a panic attack," Cora supplied, trying to emphasise the gravity of what happened.
The younger brunette just nodded and looked intently down to her hands. Everything within her was saying that she should be fighting back and making the point that she never wanted to be Emma's buddy, but she couldn't. The fact was that she felt indescribably guilty for what happened, even if she didn't know if her being there would have made any difference, she still felt like a complete bitch for not being there for her vulnerable buddy.
"I'm sorry," Regina mumbled and her mother rolled her eyes.
Cora then pinched the bridge of her nose and Gold shifted uncomfortably in his seat, this was not something that he was expecting to do today.
"Well," he said, gaining both of their attention after a couple beats of painful silence, "I think that is clear that Miss Swan will need to be re-assigned a new buddy."
"No," Regina shot back, "that isn't fair."
"Regina," Cora said lowly and the warning was obviously registered as the younger brunette shrank back in her seat.
"Shouldn't it be Emma's choice?" Regina asked, managing to keep her tone more respectful this time.
The mayor frowned and tilted her head at the younger woman. She had been sure that she was only complaining because she didn't want to get in trouble with her, but it appeared as if she actually cared about Emma.
Gold looked over to Cora questioningly, clearly not wanting to overrule her decision in front of her daughter.
The mayor simply shrugged and replied, "that is a matter that we can address later, right now, I need to take Emma back home."
Regina sunk further into the chair and looked adamantly at her lap. She was desperate to talk to Emma herself and apologise for not being where she had promised to be, but it wasn't as if she could ditch the rest of her classes just to talk to the girl who lived in her house.
"We will be talking about this more at home, Regina," Cora said sternly, though she wavered slightly. It was occurring to her that she wasn't sure if she should punish Regina for this or not, its not like grounding the cheerleader would help her build up a true friendship with Emma and she did look awfully guilty in that moment, even if the mayor was mostly sure that it was an act to get out of being trouble.
The older brunette tore her eyes away from the cheerleader and looked over to the principal, "I assume that it would be okay for Emma to have some more time off?"
Gold nodded instantly, "she can take as much time as she needs."
"Thank you," Cora sighed, "I will speak to Archie about the manager and let you know what he recommends."
The principal just nodded again and Cora made her way to the door with no further ceremony, all she could think of was that she had no idea what could possibly say to Emma.
S
Emma's head leaned on her hand and she stared blankly at the door in front of her.
The blonde felt oddly numb after the events of earlier that day, if anything, she felt like a complete moron. There was no reason that she needed to get herself so worked up over there being so many people around her, even if it had been the most people she had seen so tightly packed in one place since she had last attended school over seven months ago.
There was absolutely no reason why her body should allow one single moment of panic to turn into heart palpitations, blurred vision and sweating, but it did it anyway and that was absolutely frustrating.
Now she would no longer just be the news case that everyone was interested in, she would be the weird foster kid who had a panic attack in the middle of the the hallway and there was nothing that she could to dispel that image now.
She sighed and pushed her head off her hand and pulled her phone out of her pocket. Even if it wasn't the flip phone that brought her so much comfort, it was still a way that she would be able to message Lily.
Lily Page would know exactly what to say to make her feel better, which would be something along the lines of 'why would a robot like you care about what everyone thinks?'. Emma smiled as her fingers hovered over the screen of a blank message, but she faltered when she realised that she didn't know what she should say. She typed out 'I need to talk to you' but quickly deleted it deciding that would only give Lily anxiety of her own and then tried: 'so…I had a panic attack on my first day of school' but she deleted that well.
The blonde blew out a breath and leaned against the back of the chair. This was not something that she could text about, she decided, and she didn't exactly have time to call the other girl whilst she waited for Cora to come out from talking to Archie.
It was for this reason that she instead shot off a text to one of the newer numbers in her contact list: 'Hey, thanks for today'.
After a solid thirty seconds of hesitation, she finally pressed send when it occurred to her that she desperately wanted to talk to someone who was not an adult.
About ten seconds passed and she began to wonder if the number had been given to her out of pity rather than genuine concern, but that worry fell away when her phone dinged and she got a reply from Killian.
'No problem, Swan :), I would say anytime but we don't want that happening again :')'.
Emma smiled at her phone and she was about to type out a reply but the door opened in front of her to reveal the mayor of Storybrooke.
Cora smiled at her reassuringly, but the blonde couldn't help but feel a certain amount of guilt for dragging her out of work just because she couldn't walk down a hallway without melting down.
"Archie wants to talk to you and then I'll take you home, okay?"
Emma nodded and dutifully stood to walk into the therapist's office. The door shut behind her after Cora gave her another comforting smile before she sat on the couch she had been on many times now she could swear it got less comfortable each time.
Archie watched the blonde walk in and tilted his head at her with the same kind of smile she had gotten from many adults today. They sat in silence for a few moments before he asked. "do you want to talk about what happened or wait until our session?"
"Wait," Emma replied instantly.
Archie nodded, of course she wanted to put off talking about feelings normally he would insist, but she needed some time to process.
"Okay," he replied, "Cora wanted me to ask if you would like a new buddy at school."
The blonde frowned, "it wasn't Regina's fault," she replied.
"Regina was supposed to meet you and she wasn't there," Archie said, "you are within your right to ask for a more…attentive buddy."
"No, I would prefer to stay with Regina," Emma said, hoping that she wasn't blushing. Honestly, why would she want to give up the chance to spend time with her? "Unless she doesn't want to anymore?"
Archie furrowed his brow, she was indeed blushing. He supposed that it made sense that she would fall for Regina, but he decided that it was nothing to worry about for now, if it became an issue he could just mention it to Cora and she could decide what she wanted to do .
"I'll let Cora know that you want to stay with Regina for now, would you like anymore time off school?"
Emma opened her mouth to say 'yes' but the word didn't come out. It occurred to her that if she took more time of school now she would just go back to being the girl that everyone talked about, they would think that she couldn't handle herself. Plus she still needed to do that paired project with Alice.
"No I'll be fine," she replied.
Archie inspected her for a moment, trying to figure out whether he should just say that she could come back to school next week, but everything that he knew about her told him that she would have taken the offer, so maybe her first day wasn't all bad?
"Okay…there is one more thing before you go home," the therapist said and reached over to grab a small leather bound book before he handed it to the blonde, "I want you to start journalling your feelings."
"I don't have feelings," she deadpanned.
"You know that isn't true, Emma," Archie replied just about resisting the urge to sigh, "there is a difference between having feelings and not understanding them. I thought that if you wrote them down then we could study them together."
Emma stared at the book, she wanted to argue that she couldn't understand her emotions so there was no way that she would describe them in writing. But all she wanted to do was go home and talk to Lily and she knew that Archie would just tell her that she needed to do it anyway, so she could just prove how pointless the exercise was by doing it for a while.
"Okay," she shrugged. "can I go home now?"
Archie just sighed and nodded.
Today I felt…
Emma frowned and put a cross through the writing, she knew this was pointless.
At school today I had a panic attack…
The blonde sighed and crossed that out as well, honestly why was this so difficult?
She stared at the blank page for a moment, before an idea sparked and she began writing furiously:
Whilst walking down the hallway at school today, I suffered from the Spotlight Effect as I overestimated how many people were looking at me. This caused my heart rate to increase as a result of the fight or flight response, my breathing quickened to accommodate the increased need for oxygen. These physiological responses to the psychological stimulus caused further panic, resulting in hyperventilation which was only worsened as people were now actually looking at me while I was visibly having a panic attack.
She finished writing and re-read it to check for mistakes. She knew that this was not what Archie wanted from her journal, but if he really wanted to know how she experienced emotion then he would get it. Maybe then he would stop trying to ask her to express her feelings?
A light knock on her door caused her to tear her attention away from the book and she frowned when it occurred to her that there was a tear on her cheek from when she was writing.
She shook her head and quickly wiped it away before she snapped the book shut and called "come in."
The door opened and Emma tensed when she saw it was the youngest female Mills rather than the oldest.
"Hey Regina," she said, hoping that she didn't look too flustered.
Regina smiled at the blonde who she had been thinking about all day. Somehow she felt better seeing that she was in one piece, at least physically. She closed the door behind her and walked further into the room.
"I just wanted to apologise…" she said, standing in the middle of the room while trying to resist the urge to ring her hands together out of anxiety.
Emma frowned at the usually confident teen and she shifted so that she was looking at her more fully, "for what?" she asked.
"For…for not being there…" the brunette replied, looking firmly down at the ground as she spoke.
"I'm fine…" Emma said quickly, though she wasn't quite sure how she was supposed to respond to this. She couldn't say that she probably would have felt better if she was walking down the hallway with Regina because that would probably freak the girl out and she was probably only apologising because her mother told her to. "It wasn't your fault…"
"I wanted to ask you if you thought…maybe if you think it would be better if someone like Alice was your buddy?" Regina replied, still refusing to look up.
Emma furrowed her brow, did Regina look upset and jealous?
"I would prefer you to be my buddy," Emma said simply and looked down at her lap as she felt blush burn across her cheeks. Honestly, why did she have to be so awkward?
Regina finally looked up at the blonde and frowned, before she replied, "if you're sure…I promise I'll be where I say I'll be tomorrow."
Emma nodded, she couldn't look up encase the cheerleader saw her blushing. She wasn't entirely sure if Regina knew why she had ended up in her position, but she knew that she didn't want her to think that she liked her and freak out. She particularly didn't want Cora to know that she had a crush on her daughter. She might have taken her in, but she couldn't easily throw her out if she found out that she wanted Regina.
Emma nodded again and Regina was about to turn to leave. Emma's eyes fell onto the journal and she remembered what Archie said to her a while ago. She could tell that Regina was frustrated and she figured that it made sense for her to understand what she was supposed to be helping with.
She swallowed hard and called, "Regina?"
The brunette instantly turned around, looking almost relieved, and looked at the other teen expectantly.
Emma took a deep breath and shifted uncomfortably, she hadn't told anyone this since Lily.
"Do you know what Emotional Quotient is?" she asked, only just loud enough to be heard.
The cheerleader just shook her head.
"It's like…emotional intelligence, like understanding feelings and stuff like that…" Emma said, not looking up, she was increasingly sure that this was a bad idea, "there is a link between high IQ and low EQ…I don't really understand emotions the way that I'm supposed to…"
"Oh," Regina replied simply, she wasn't too surprised to learn that the blonde had high IQ, but she had never really considered before that emotional intelligence was a thing, like didn't people just know what feelings were naturally?
"Dr. Hopper has been trying to help me with it but…" Emma trailed off and just shrugged, now certain that there was absolutely no reason for telling the brunette this other than apparently making her uncomfortable. "I just thought that if you're going to be my buddy then you should know…"
For a few moments, Regina did nothing. Her brain was running a mile a minute as it took in all of the implications. She knew that some people were more closed off than others, but she always assumed that they still understood how they were feeling and just didn't want to talk about it.
She couldn't imagine what it must have been like to go through the trauma that the blonde had been through and not be able to understand how she felt about it.
"Thank you for telling me," Regina said, and almost cursed herself for not thinking of a way to show that she genuinely cared.
Emma just nodded once again and she was about to move back onto her bed fully, she figured that now was probably a good time to try and call Lily. However, the brunette didn't make any move to leave the room.
"Would you mind if…if I asked you some questions about it?" Regina asked reluctantly, she was sure there was a better way to phrase that question, "so you know…I can be a better buddy…"
The other teen's first instinct was to say 'no', she barely even let Archie ask her questions, but it made logical sense that she would need to understand more about her if she was going to help her.
"Sure," she replied.
Regina hesitated for a moment as she looked between the bed and the desk that she had sat at the last time they had spent an extended amount of time together. A few seconds passed before she realised that it would make sense for her to sit closer if they were going to have a serious conversation.
Emma felt the blush intensify as the cheerleader came over and sat on her bed, even if she was as far as way as she possibly could be.
A beat passed before Emma asked, "okay…what did you want to ask?"