Chapter Nine: Regina's Thanksgiving Break

"Regina!" Mrs. George's voice was dripping with perk. "Look who's here!"

Regina glared down at her Appletini and sighed. Her mother's annual Pre-Christmas party, which seemed to happen earlier every year, had just started and she was already looking forward to burying her head in her pillow and sleeping until it was time to get back to school. Hadn't she used to love these god damned things – preening for her parents' friends and holding court over her peers? But now, trying to answer questions about school ("yeah, it's fine," "classes are great," "yeah, I'm making new friends") was beyond exhausting.

Mrs. George was putting up a damn good show of not being mad at Regina anymore – if mad was what you could call it – but she had been stone cold all through Thanksgiving. Regina didn't know why her mother even cared about her lack of friends.

"Are you making any new friends?" was, in fact, the first sentence out of her mother's mouth when she picked her up outside the dorm. And just like that, any hope of having an even slightly okay family holiday evaporated.

"Yeah, sure," she said noncommittally and mumbled something about her lacrosse team.

The question came up again at dinner, but this time her mother tag-teamed it with her father and Kylie. Never throughout Regina's entire school career had her parents been so overly-passionate about her life. She was beginning to realize that she hated it.

"Well, Gretchen and I are friends," Regina said, stirring her now cold lobster bisque.

"I mean NEW friends," her mother chided.

Regina explained (she thought pretty well) that Gretchen actually WAS a new friend.

"How could she be a new friend?" Kylie asked snottily. "Haven't you known her since like kindergarten?"

"NO!" Regina snapped. "Fifth grade." She wanted to add that there was a huge difference between being friends with someone because you happened to be in the same social group and being friends with someone because you legitimately liked them, but she wasn't sure how to put it.

"I just don't understand," Angela said, looking mournfully across the table. "You used to be so good with people. What are you so afraid of?"

"I'm not afraid of anything," Regina snapped. "I'm just…busy."

"Everyone's busy in college," Regina's father chimed in brilliantly.

"Maybe they're all afraid of you," Mrs. George said under her breath. "Maybe they see you and think: watch out – bully!"

"Yeah!" Regina said, her anger rising. "Maybe they do! And maybe they SHOULD!"

"Regina, this is ridiculous," Angela snapped. "Stop being a victim!"

"How am I being a VICTIM? I just said maybe people don't like me because I used to be a massive bitch. I'm OWNING UP to it."

"Well," Henry said, reaching for the green beans, "at least you're still getting good grades. Isn't that right, Pumpkin?"

"Of course she's getting good grades. She isn't wasting her time on stupid things like socializing." Mrs. George glared at Regina until she felt her face getting hot and her pulse quickening.

"May I be excused?" she asked coldly and didn't even wait for their answer.

Angela grabbed Regina by the elbow and guided her over to, of all the horrible people that Regina could encounter tonight, Janis Ian and her mother. It took every bit of Regina's resolve not to pull away and bolt to her room.

"Go talk to your friend from high school," Angela whispered harshly, forgetting that Regina and Janis had stopped speaking to each other somewhere around the 7th grade.

"HEY!" shouted Janis, sounding suspiciously cheerful – perhaps she had had one too many glasses of champagne already.

"Hi," Regina said, grinding her teeth together.

They stood awkwardly while the two moms exchanged pleasantries. Actually, the whole thing amounted to Mrs. George and Mrs. Ian telling each other the details of their daughters' first semesters as if Regina and Janis weren't even there.

Janis had just declared a theater major and absolutely loved her drama clubs/art classes. She had a new boyfriend, too, who was every bit as theatrical as she was and was rooming with Damien and several other extremely fun-loving people.

"How about you, Regina? What are you taking?" asked Mrs. Ian, sounding ever-so-slightly bored about the whole thing.

Regina rattled off her classes to Mrs. Ian, who kept jumping in to tell them other things about Janis' beyond awesome first semester.

"She's been really engaged in her studies," Angela announced and Regina suddenly felt over-heated despite wearing nothing but a slinky dress. "She doesn't really get out much." For some reason everyone not named Regina found this hysterical.

"I'm…um…going to get some more punch," Regina said quietly, although what she really meant was she wanted to get some fresh air and scream until she was hoarse.

"I'll go with you," said Janis, smiling brightly and Regina wanted very much to bite something.

"So," said Janis. "No friends at school, huh?" she smirked.

Regina sighed. "Bet that makes you happy, huh?"

Janis shrugged. "Not happy exactly," she said. "But you do have to admit it makes sense. I mean, karma, right?"

"Karma?" Regina repeated. "Okay, then what do you call getting hit by a bus?" She was short of breath and suddenly felt that her dress was way, way, way too tight – like one of those corsets ladies wore in Victorian-era England. She had done her best to avoid Janis since Junior year not only because Janis was a hateful bitch, but also because it was sort of Janis' fault that she had gotten hit by that bus.

Although it didn't play much of a part in her bus dreams, Regina definitely remembered Janis' words on that fateful day. "I thought it would be really fun to ruin Regina George's life. I'm sorry, Regina. I guess it's because I have a big LESBIAN crush on you!" The entire crowd – with the exceptions of Cady, Karen and Gretchen - had cheered uproariously.

But where was Janis' retribution? Cady had to apologize to the whole school and be generally hated by everyone, but Janis basically got off scot free. And now, she was thriving in college too. Go figure.

"Probably hard without your Plastics, huh?" Janis said. "Now you actually have to get a personality."

This was like an ice pick in her stomach. Because, as much as Janis sucked, she was also sort of right. And Regina had failed miserably at "getting a personality."

"Hey," Janis said, nudging her. "C'mon, relax! It was a joke!" Regina realized how she must have looked. "So, no offense," she continued. "But this party's lame as hell. Damien and I are going to a Zoom Puff concert in a little bit. Wanna' come?"

Regina absolutely did not want to come and she was about to say so when Angela swooped out of nowhere. "That sounds like a great idea!" she squealed.

"I'm really kind of tired," said Regina.

Angela's nice/not mad mask evaporated. "Go to the concert with your friend!" she shouted.

"Mom," Regina said through gritted teeth. "She probably was just asking me to be polite."

"I was," Janis agreed. "It's probably not really a Regina activity anyway."

"Well," Angela said, an icy smile jumping to her lips. "What even IS a Regina activity anymore? You should go."

Regina thought it over and suddenly realized that as much as she wasn't interested in going to some punk rock concert with Janis, at least she would be away from her mother. She gave a tight-lipped smile. "Sure," she said. "Sounds cool."

Once Regina, Damien and Janis had arrived at the dank club, however, Regina really, really wished she was back listening to her mom gush about Kylie's soccer trophies. It was too crowded, too loud and people kept bashing into her still-aching ribs. She was pretty sure this was about to turn into a full-blown panic attack – maybe even worse than Marianella-Gate. Her intellectual mind knew very well that a crowded club wasn't a school bus and that bright yellow strobe lights weren't a school bus and that even the fake devil bus Zoom Puff had on stage was not a school bus. She knew all this, but the crowd was suspiciously similar to the hostile high school girls during Mrs. Norbury's pep talk and the yellow lights were exactly school bus colored. Her skin was cold and clammy, icy sweat dripping down her back, her throat felt tight and her chest felt like it was about to burst open.

She needed to get the hell out of there, but she couldn't find Damien or Janis anywhere. She thought for sure she was going to faint, but she knew if she did she would probably get trampled – things like that actually happened at concerts, she had heard. Someone ran into her again and she pushed him/her/it away and rushed out the door, sat down against the wall and rested her head on her knees just in time for everything to go pitch black.

She awoke to people laughing in the distance and realized that no one was paying any attention to her - probably because people passed out drunk so often here that it wasn't even worth noticing. And speaking of not noticing, she was also pretty sure Janis and Damien weren't missing her at all. Damien had been super enthused to see her, but that was how Damien always was to everyone. In fact, she couldn't believe that Damien and Janis were still friends. She stood up shakily, feeling disgustingly disoriented, and found her cell phone. No way in hell was she going back in there. Unfortunately, she could just imagine her mom's reaction if she called for a ride ("Oh c'mon, I don't care if you had a panic attack and passed out! Stop being a drama queen and go socialize or I'll stop paying your college tuition.") She would have called Gretchen, but she knew she was at Greg or Graham's house (Regina still couldn't tell those twins apart) for post-Thanksgiving dinner. Her only option, she realized with mounting dread, was calling a taxi. And taxies were, for all intents and purposes, just much smaller school buses.

The taxi driver smelled like vodka, old cigars and salami and he also happened to be a major asshole, which was unfortunate because almost as soon as Regina got in, she threw up all over the back seat. "College students," the taxi driver mumbled, rolling his eyes.

Despite the fact that panic attacks are supposed to take a lot out of a person, Regina didn't sleep at all that night. Her mind kept flashing to her mother's comments about her friendlessness, Janis' proclamation of how she purposefully ruined her life and icky, jaundiced yellow strobe lights. Gretchen often said that not sleeping is "gross" and wow, was she ever right. At 8 in the morning, Regina's entire body ached as if someone had taken every single organ and muscle and put them through a meat grinder. Her arms and legs felt magnetically attached to the bed so she couldn't move even though she had one of those weird stomachaches where she wasn't quite sure if she was hungry or nauseous and her bladder was achingly full (which made her wonder how her parents would respond if she pissed herself – she somehow didn't think they would take it very well). Unfortunately, the thought of getting up – or even moving a single inch – was somehow the most terrifying prospect in the entire world. It made her heart hammer and horrible dizziness descend on her. Every time she heard movement outside her door, her skin prickled and her heart nearly exploded.

"Regina, honey?" Angela called at around 11 am, "You going to get up?"

Her throat was dry as sand paper and the words caught in her throat making her voice barely a whisper. "Yeah, maybe later," she said.

As the hours ticked by, "maybe later" seemed like less and less of a possibility. Her family's voices wafted in and out. "She okay?" her father asked.

"I don't know," said Angela, sounding tense, "I think she's depressed again."

Seemingly hours later she heard Kylie's voice. "What's the matter with Regina?"

"She's not feeling well, honey," Angela replied softly.

At around 3 o'clock, Regina finally couldn't take it anymore. The temperature seemed to have dipped considerably and she was freezing under her two comforters. Luckily, her parents didn't hear her get up (or, even more likely, they didn't want to bother her for fear of actually having to deal with her less-than-perfect mental state), so she drew up a scorching hot bath and slid in before the water had even finished running.

She dunked her head under the blistering water and felt it burn her eye balls and the inside of her nose. How easy would it be, she suddenly wondered, to just stay down here – to just let go? Soon, however, her lungs ached and she came up for air, coughing and sputtering.

Kylie burst into the bathroom, her eyes wide as saucers. "Oh my GOD!" she gasped. "What are you doing?"

Regina suddenly realized how this probably looked to her twelve-year-old sister and she felt horrible. "Nothing," she said shakily, "I'm just taking a bath."

Kylie put her hand in the water and pulled back, alarmed. "This is WAY too hot!" she practically screamed. Tears rolled down her face. "Are you trying to kill yourself?"

"No, Kylie. Of course not," Regina said. She climbed out of the bath tub and wrapped her towel around her.

Kylie's lip quivered. "Mom said you're not feeling well," she said. "She said that you're sad."

Kylie looked so upset that Regina wanted to cry too. "I am sad, Ky," she said. "But I'm not that sad."

"Promise?" Kylie asked, suddenly hugging onto Regina tightly.

Regina nodded. "Sorry I scared you," she said. "But, yeah, I promise."

Regina's father handed her a huge mug of chamomile tea. Although she was wrapped in a heavy quilt, her teeth were chattering and she felt icy cold right down to her bone marrow. Henry placed his hand on her forehead and winced. "You're burning up," he said. "Kylie, would you mind getting the thermometer?"

Regina wasn't sure how, but somehow she had a 100 degree fever – maybe all that panicking ruined her immune system. Somehow knowing this made it easier to sleep, though, and the next thing she knew it was 10:00 am the next morning. Her dreams had been fragmented, but they all centered around the hospital and her family crying and the heart monitor a straight line. It somehow seemed a lot stranger and a lot realer than most of her other dreams. Feeling slightly stronger, she made her way into the kitchen where her parents were both sipping coffee.

"Morning, Princess," Henry said. "How're you feeling this morning? Any better?"

She nodded and sat down across from him.

"Coffee?" asked Angela, pushing a mug in front of her before even waiting for her reply.

"I guess," Regina said.

"You want something to eat?" Henry said. "I was going to make scrambled eggs."

Just the thought of it made Regina's stomach churn, but she thought she would probably feel less dizzy if she ate something.

"She doesn't want that," Angela hissed. "Yellow, remember?"

"Huh?" said Regina, looking up from her coffee.

"Oh, don't you remember?" said Angela. "When we first brought you home from the hospital, you didn't want to be around anything yellow." Now that she thought about it, Regina did remember that vaguely, although she had been on pretty heavy morphine pills. She used to love Kraft Macaroni and Cheese until she realized that it was exactly the same shade as a school bus.

"Um," Regina said, her heart pounding because snippets of her dream were still floating around her head. "Was I in a coma?"

"Nah," said Henry, laughing slightly. "You weren't asleep THAT long. It's only ten o'clock."

"No, I don't mean now. I mean…before."

Angela and Henry exchanged worried glances. Angela took a deep breath. "No, honey," she said. "You weren't in a coma."

"Oh, okay…that's good."

"But…" Angela looked at Henry again. She wiped her eyes suddenly.

"What's wrong?" Regina asked, not sure she really wanted to know.

"You were…well, you know…officially dead. Just for a minute."

Regina's stomach dropped. "Why didn't you ever tell me?" she asked.

"Oh, sweetie," her mother said, pulling her close. "We didn't want to upset you. And I guess I didn't…we didn't…want to think about it." She sniffled. "But we're so glad you're still here."