Chapter Five: Drowning on Dry Land
Regina was completely perplexed about how she had ended up on the street outside of North Shore High. Hadn't she just been at lacrosse practice seconds ago? Marianella, who had for some reason accompanied her to North Shore, materialized out of thin air and charged forward, her lacrosse stick slicing through the air. Regina knew very well what was about to happen and tried to dodge out of the way. Somehow, though, 250-pound Marianella was twice as fast as she was. As Marianella swung, the lacrosse stick transformed into the bus – normal-colored this time, but much taller than in real life – and slammed into her, causing her ribcage to burst open like a seed pod.
Normally, this would have been the part where Regina woke up, but it seemed the combination of two Oxycodone and Ambien were doing a bang-up job of keeping her under. She found herself lying on the concrete and was surprised at how little pain she felt as she slowly stood up. But then suddenly, something was very, very wrong. She couldn't breathe no matter how hard she tried, nor could she feel her pulse. As soon as she looked down, she realized what the problem was: a huge gaping hole in her chest – not bloody, just hollow, like a dank cavern. Her tattered lungs, it appeared, had been torn out by the lacrosse stick/school bus hybrid and were lying haphazardly on the ground. Regina knelt down next to them, but wasn't sure what to do from there. She certainly couldn't put them back in herself; were there doctors that specialized in reattaching lungs? And where was her heart? She glanced frantically around the asphalt, but couldn't find it.
Regina's cell phone buzzed loudly and she sat up in the dark room, shaking. Even though her lungs and heart were back where they were supposed to be, she still couldn't catch her breath. She had clearly been lying on her bad side because her ribs throbbed as if they were being continually pounded with a hammer. She quickly grabbed her phone off the nightstand. No one had called, but the phone was low on battery. It was almost 3:00 in the morning, but Regina suspected she would not be getting back to sleep. She also knew she couldn't just lie awake staring at the ceiling until 7:00, so she tiptoed to her desk so she wouldn't wake Gretchen up and turned on her laptop. She didn't know why exactly, but she had to write this dream down. The computer was slower than usual and Regina was growing impatient. She grabbed her Writing 101 notebook as it was closest and one of Gretchen's sparkly pink pens and hurried into the study lounge – a place she usually avoided because it was almost guaranteed that she would have to make awkward small talk. It was dark and empty now, though, a little eerie with the autumn breeze ruffling the curtains. She hurried through the description of her dream, not caring at all about her handwriting. And once she was finished with the dream, she continued writing until her hand was sore and the sun had risen.
By the time she got to Writing 101, Regina was feeling the effects of her mostly sleepless night. Her head pounded sharply in rhythm with her bruised ribs (which, she kept telling herself, she was going to have checked out by a doctor at some point) and her limbs were heavy as sandbags. She had taken nearly every over-the-counter pill she had that morning, but it seemed obvious that the combination of Aspirin, Tylenol and Ibuprofen wasn't nearly strong enough. She laid her head on the desk, hoping that Drew wouldn't notice.
"Okay," Drew said, ten minutes before the end of class. "Let's all get our journals out and swap with someone you haven't worked with yet."
Regina was suddenly wide awake and her blood turned ice cold. Were they supposed to have written something for today? Obviously she had the recap of her dream (plus everything else she had rambled on about), but there was no way in hell she wanted to show it to anyone – especially the wannabe social activists in her class who pretty much only wrote about their overly intense hatred for Walmart, Starbucks and TLC. She timidly raised her hand and motioned for Drew to come over.
Drew looked at her and his normally calm, cheerful face turned cold. "Let me guess," he said so sharply it sent tingles down her spine. "You couldn't find a partner again."
"No, it's not that," Regina said, even though, indeed, she was partnerless as usual. "I just…what I wrote for today is really private."
Drew rolled his eyes and stared down at her with such contempt she wanted to crawl under the table, curl into a fetal position and die. What was going on with him today? Sure, she was probably an extremely frustrating writing student, but today, he almost seemed to be taking it personally. "Regina," he said, throwing back his head in exasperation (in an act that was perhaps the most emotive she had ever seen him), "this attitude of yours is getting really, really old. I'm sick of telling you this every single time: the whole point of this class is to get personal," he sounded out each syllable of personal before continuing. "And if you wrote it in that notebook, then it isn't private either. It's been over three months and we still know zilch about you." He looked at the class for support, but everyone seemed content staring down at their desks or scribbling quietly.
Before Regina could react, Drew snatched her notebook off the table and began flipping through it.
"NO!" Regina shouted, reaching for the notebook. Drew glared and continued flipping through pages. He cleared his throat and to her horror, began to read aloud.
"Everyone at school knew who I was," he read quickly, "but none of them – not a single one – wanted to actually know me. And why should they? All my time was spent making their lives miserable – and for what? Acceptance? Power? Simple entertainment? Even now I have no idea why I acted the way I did in high school, but it probably has to do with some deep-seated, unchangeable flaw. I can't relate to people the way Gretchen can. I can't make them like me. Only fear me."
By now, everyone was staring intently at Regina. Her face burned and tears welled up in her eyes.
"I shouldn't even be alive; that bus should have killed me," Drew continued, but his voice faltered as he finally realized he had overstepped his bounds.
Regina stood up quickly and bolted from the room.
"Regina! Wait!" she heard Drew call after her. "Come back!"
He caught up to her outside the building, but she kept her head down and arms crossed and continued speed-walking to her dorm.
"Look, I'm really sorry," Drew said. "That was a bone-headed move. I didn't know, okay? It was stupid of me."
Regina spun around and glared at him, wanting desperately to scrape his bright blue eyes out of their sockets. "Stupid? No. Try 'mean'! How could you do that? What did I ever do to you?" Tears streamed down her cheeks, but she didn't even bother brushing them away.
"We should talk about this. Maybe in my office?" said Drew.
Regina shook her head and strode away.
Regina was well-aware that she should have been either attending to her lacrosse injuries or getting a few extra hours of sleep, but instead she lay flat on her back, staring angrily at the ceiling for who knows how long.
Eventually, she heard the key turn and sat up, startled.
"Oh," said Gretchen, sounding incredibly disappointed. "Sorry…I thought you would be in class? I could like totally leave if you want me to."
At this point, Regina was too tired to argue. "No, that's okay. It is technically your room too. I'd have to be a real bitch to kick you out. Not that I'm NOT a real bitch or anything."
Gretchen nodded shyly and entered. "I won't be here long," she said. "I was going to the library anyway."
"Jesus, Gretchen, what did I just say?" Regina snapped. "It's your room too, so I'm not going to kick you out. If anything, I should probably leave."
They both sat in awkward silence for what seemed like an eternity, but was probably not even a whole minute.
"I'm sorry," Regina said. "That came out kind of mean." She paused and played with the edge of her quilt and looked at the floor. "I'm sorry about yesterday, too," she added.
Gretchen gave a very dramatic sigh of relief and smiled. "Yeah, me too. Well, um, so we're okay now?" she asked.
Regina shrugged. "I am if you are," she said. But she knew very well that she was not okay. She and Gretchen may have been okay, but Regina felt like she was coming apart at the seams like a cheaply-made stuffed animal. She wanted to scream or to rip up all her text books or to bash her head repeatedly against the wall, but she couldn't decide which to do and she didn't really want to do any of it in front of Gretchen. A strangled sob escaped her lips and tears ran down her face.
"Oh-my-God-what's-wrong?" Gretchen asked, somehow managing to make the sentence sound like one long word. "Are your ribs still hurting?"
"N-no, it's not that," Regina said (although, she had to admit, they were still quite sore).
"What is it then?" Gretchen asked delicately.
"Just that asshole Drew. I hate him!"
"Drew?" Gretchen repeated. "Who's Drew?"
Regina explained everything that had happened during Writing 101.
"Oh my God!" Gretchen said once Regina had finished the story, "that's horrible! What a grade-A douchenozzle! You should totally report him to the dean. Or at least to the actual professor of that class!"
Regina shook her head and hugged onto her pink pillow. When she didn't say anything, Gretchen continued.
"You know, this school is kind of like…I don't know…a little bit…retarded sometimes?"
Regina looked up in surprise. "Wait, what? I thought you loved it here."
"Yeah, well, I mean…mostly it's okay, but some of the teachers here are so weird."
"Tell me about it," Regina said, laughing dryly. "Maybe there's something in the water."
"My Modernist Poetry professor actually wanted to talk about how worried he was that all three of the poems I wrote about were about suicide." Gretchen said, sounding strangely cheerful given the topic of conversation.
"Seriously?" Regina asked, wrinkling her nose. "What the actual hell?"
"Totally serious," Gretchen said.
Regina smirked. "Professor Davis for Geography? You don't know her, do you?"
"Course not," said Gretchen. "I'm not taking Geography. That's so meh!"
"Yeah, well, don't take it with her. She never washes her hair and she always belches between sentences – I am so not even kidding."
Both of them laughed way too hard at poor Professor Davis' expense. "O-M-G," Gretchen said once she had regained her composure. "Professor Epstein? You know, the guy who teaches Buffy? Pretty much the only character he likes is Spike and if you say anything even slightly negative about him, Epstein gets all sad-face, like he's personally offended."
"Chh," said Regina. "Dumbass. The show is called Buffy the Vampire Slayer, not Spike the Vampire."
"Right?" Gretchen looked down at her cell phone and sighed. "I have to get to Rainforest Bio," she said, rolling her eyes and sticking out her tongue dramatically. "Wish me luck."
"Ugh, Barf" said Regina. "Um, have fun with that?"
"Hmm, yeah. I can't promise I'll try, but I'll try to try," Gretchen replied, grabbing her sparkly Rio notebook – a fitting choice for Rainforest Biology, Regina had to admit. "Hey, y'know something?" she said suddenly, pausing clumsily in the doorway. "This is…like…the longest conversation we've had since we got here."
"Huh," said Regina, smiling slightly. "I guess it is."