Chapter Nine~
Regina's POV~
My hands shake as I look over the last words of the letter and I can't remember a time that I felt more vulnerable… well, I guess with my condition that's not saying much.
I'd found it on my doorstep this morning. A plain white envelope with large, neat letters that spelled out "Regina" written out on the front of it. I hadn't really known what to think at that point, so I opened it with no further emotion than slight curiosity. My eyes flew across the paper, moving slower and slower as the words began to sink in.
It was just a letter, and it didn't really express anything more than deep friendship and admiration, but somehow it made everything in the world feel okay again. I felt that strange sense of something again, like a bolt of electricity flooding through my veins and filling up my mind with a sense of remembrance. I couldn't remember anything specific, not an exact memory or place or act…. Just a feeling. Something warm and good pumping through my heart. I could faintly see a blonde silhouette, vaguely hear her laugh, just barely feel her soft skin….. But then a huge gust of wind whipped the paper from my hands and knocked me from my thoughts.
I scrambled after the letter, scooping it up in my hands to safety, but the feeling was gone. And again all there was was loneliness.
I walked back in the house, closing the door behind me, letting the silence envelope me. Henry was at school, and I was all alone in this big house. It was depressing, but the depression was comforting. I let myself become enveloped by it, immersing myself in the sorrow that was bogging me down.
I pressed my arms firmly around my figure, trying so desperately to keep what felt like a breaking soul held together. I took a deep, shaking breath, trying to keep myself sane.
This….. this feeling. I was so afraid. Ever since the day I had first waken up in the hospital, I had felt it living inside my chest. It was something fragile and full of life, like a baby bird. It quaked and chirped within my chest, reminding my heart how to beat, my lungs how to breathe, my mind how to think… and it was all because of her, because of Emma.
Something was so different about her. The way she made me feel…. She made me feel like she was the reason I was even living at all. It was like my heart had some silent pact with Emma's… just as long as Emma's heart was beating, mine would keep on beating too.
And this frightened me, so very much. What was this feeling I was feeling? I had tried so often to push it away, to ignore it, to close off my mind. But the mind and heart aren't really connected at all. They say that the heart has reasons the mind will never understand, and this is one of the cases.
I take another shaky breath, hoping that it will erase this intoxicating feeling Emma poisons me with. But it doesn't, and I just can't help but feel so alive when I think about her. If only I could figure out why.