Regina bent at the waist, peering into the oven. She smiled as she saw the banana and chocolate spread loaf Emma had begged her to bake coming along nicely.
"You look pleased with yourself."
The smile fled from Regina's face, and she swallowed thickly as she turned around. "Mother?" She found herself unconsciously stepping back, away from the woman, until she was pressed against the counter.
"So this is where you've been hiding?" asked the older brunette, walking slowly towards her. "Here, playing housewife with your little tramp of a girlfriend?" she growled dangerously. With a sudden flick of her wrist, she threw down the file she had in her hand, its contents spilling out into the island between them. "Continuing with your unnatural ways."
Regina recoiled as though she had been struck when the photos spilled out. Each photograph showed her in her efforts to hide from her mother. Her climbing out of the trunk of Ruby or Emma's car, when the new engine had finally been fitted, sneaking in the back door of the B&B. There were also many of her and Emma. Without thinking, she stepped forward, sifting through the pictures. Someone had been practically stalking them. There were photographs of almost all of their quiet moments over the past couple of weeks, including a particularly damning one of she and Emma at the waterfall, which had quickly become their favourite spot to sneak away to. It showed them together, her arms around Emma's neck as the blonde held her close, kissing her deeply.
She was so caught up in the anger of someone intruding on their private moments like that that she didn't see the slap coming until it was too late. Stumbling, she found herself landing hard on the kitchen floor, staring with terrified, wide eyes, up at her mother.
"How could you do this to me?" snarled Cora. "I teach you to be a lady, how to behave, and you do this? And then worse, you hide from your own mother when she tries to correct your mistakes!"
Regina tried her best to scramble backwards away from her mother, but the older brunette was quick. She snatched at Regina, catching her wrist tightly and hauling her to her feet. "Mother, please! No! You're hurting me!"
"Well then I suggest you stop fighting me!" snapped Cora, dragging her struggling daughter out to the car and almost throwing her in the back seat.
The ride back to Mifflin Street was on Regina's part, a silent one. She stared mournfully out of the window, tears streaming down her face. Her mother continued to shout, hurling abuse at her, but Regina barely heard a word. All she could think about was Emma. She knew the blonde too well to think that she would be sensible and not confront her mother. Without a shadow of a doubt, when Emma arrived home to find her banana loaf burnt in the oven, she would be at her mother's doorstep within the hour.
And what would her mother do then? Her mother had the power to destroy Emma and all she had been working for. Regina had been helping her with her classes, and with Emma really putting in the effort, she had managed to get her grades up and on track for college. Regina would always be the smart one, she would say, but she didn't want to be working in some cafe while Regina went off to college, all the pretty girls and boys falling at her feet.
As if any of that would be happening now. She was shaken from her thoughts when the door of the car was yanked open and she was roughly pulled from the car. Being dragged along behind her mother, she stumbled up the front steps and almost fell into the front door.
"You want to hide away from the world, fine!" snapped Cora when they were safely inside.
Regina tried to pull away from her mother when she realised where she was being led. "Mother, please! Mother! I'll do anything!"
Her pleas fell on deaf ears as she was dragged down to the basement, and roughly pushed among the boxes of old furnishings and other discarded items her mother no longer considered good enough for display in the house. "You'll stay down here until I've decided what to do with you!"
In the dark, Regina didn't even try to hide her cries, sobbing as she brought her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. The basement, where many happy memories of the past were now stored in the form of old toys and albums, was now her own personal prison cell.