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At some point of her life, Gretchen thought she would do anything for Regina. Like that one time she asked that, if none of them were married by the time they were thirty, maybe they could adopt some kids and live together, and Gretchen nodded her head. She didn’t blindly accept the offer, instead asked if the kids could have Jewish names and if Regina would be willing to learn Spanish, both things Regina accepted under the condition that she could pick their middle names and that they wouldn’t move somewhere horrible like Miami.
It is easy, on the good days, to still believe that. To think that the way Regina cares is enough, that she knows she’s loved, that it doesn’t matter how cold and uncaring she tries to be to the rest. The backhanded comments, although it makes Gretchen insecure, don’t matter, because she knows she doesn’t mean them. And sure, she might not be as pretty as Regina, or as good in literature as her, but she doesn’t believe herself to be half horrible, at least, most of the time.
She hates that deep desire to explain herself, to tell people, most of the time Janis, who questions without caring, why she’s still friends with Regina. Because she knows she has her reasons, she knows how she changes when it’s just the two of them, the way her eyes flutter when she sleeps and the nightmares that she has had even before the bus and all that came after.
People don’t know Regina like she does, and she wishes they did. But something selfishly inside her enjoys that, enjoys the idea that it’s something made just for herself.
Gretchen considers herself fragile , and she knows others consider her too. For instance her mom can’t ever understand how she has more feelings than rationality, how every decision is based on her mood and impression rather than introspection and coherence, and Cady has told her once when drunk, that she was so sorry about the revenge party and that she never wanted her to be involved. She thinks that’s what others must think too when they see her bending over backwards, trying to make Regina happy.
But it doesn’t matter, she doesn’t care about it. She knows herself, and she knows that Karen and Regina know her too, and that’s enough.
She considers herself weak each time she thinks about Regina loving her. Each time she catches her friend’s eyes and there’s something else, when there’s that sad, foreign look she so casually pulls every now and then. The way the blue will pierce through Gretchen’s soul, and the way she believes that maybe that is to be loved, to be changed and broken and to have that dreadful feeling constantly nibbling in her stomach.
(She hates herself when she thinks about it, when she thinks about loving Regina, being one more, like Kyle or Aaron, one of the guys who failed at it so miserably.)
She doesn’t enjoy the idea, but she sometimes gets lost in daydreaming about her hair, in thinking of running her hands through it until the world doesn’t exist. And there’s something comforting, in what she has known since forever, in the good and the bad and the half hearted apologies that always start on her side.
Gretchen thinks she likes university. She likes that no one knows her and that she’s not popular (no one is really popular in university) but she has been able to build a good group of friends and isn’t failing anything yet, no matter how difficult she thought it might be. She’s average and she could escape Regina’s shadow if she wished to.
But she doesn’t want to, instead talking about her to most of her new friends, letting herself thrive in telling stories (always avoiding the bus, obviously), and explaining the social hierarchies at Northshore High while listening to what others have to say. She does mention all of them, but takes more time when it comes to Karen and Regina.
Regina, Regina, Regina, it’s like something she can’t never keep out of her lips for a long time, a somewhat strange need to mention her name at every turn, to remember who she is to others, to assert her dominance in people who might never know her. And it makes her feel like an idiot, although it sometimes happens too when it comes to Karen. But it’s different with her, it always is, the codependency she’s not able to shake from her bones.
(And it is bad, it is so bad.)
One of her newest closest friends mentions one day, how close they seem. And something like pride and disgust swirls in her chest, until she realizes that she doesn’t say it as if it is just one sided, as if it’s only Gretchen fighting everyone in trying to explain how they don’t get it . Her new friend, the one who doesn’t have anything else to go by except her stories, points out the stravagant gifts Regina has given her, the pride pin she keeps in the back of her closet, and the way she would call her in the middle of the night just to hear her voice.
(She fears the idea, she fears what it would mean if it is true.
If all she ever wanted was so close, so near, so real. What would that mean? What should she do with all the nights she has already spent convincing herself it was never meant to be?)
She says it one day to Janis, they’re alone, the only in their group to end up in New York, and Gretchen says, I sometimes think Regina might like me , to which Janis gives her this sort of incredulous look. As if she’s a fool (which she knows she is) and it’s mixed with pity about the fact, but says nothing. She doesn’t try to change her mind, and then they laugh. Gretchen actually laughs at the possibility of it happening, so far fetched from reality it can never be, and she feels it bubbling in her throat as a peace settles on her mind.
Obviously the only way someone could think about Regina loving her is if they don’t know Regina at all. If they haven’t seen the way she moves herself, her confidence, and how she’s way too many steps ahead and above Gretchen, who is as mundane as the rest of the humans. That is something Regina doesn’t like, she escapes the average, detests mediocrity and ordinarity. Loving Gretchen is not something that she’s capable of.
(Even if she was, Regina would never say it. Never admit it outloud.)
The next time they all see each other again is at Karen’s halloween party.
Gretchen can’t stop herself from gushing about her new friends, the classes, everything that she loves from campus. She thinks that for maybe the first time she has something that’s only for her, something that isn’t some sort of sinful gossip that will leave her overthinking about if she did the right thing by talking about it.
(It’s freeing to think like that, honestly. To grow up, to become better.)
At some point in the night, after they have already taken enough vodka, she sees Regina walking into the bathroom, something wrong in her stare. And, as she’s so used to, she follows. She opens the door without a care, they’ve seen each other too many times in too many embarrassing situations for her to really care about it.
And suddenly Regina is crying. She’s actually crying , big tears, with that almost broken, sad look she directs at her. The tears stream down her face, leaving traces of black mascara that hides blonde eyelashes. Gretchen has seen this a multitude of times, especially since after the bus, her phone carries some photos of Regina tearing up after finishing The Lion King because Cady insisted she had to watch it at least once.
Gretchen thinks it would be so easy to console her, but there’s still the doubt in the back of her mind, if she should reach for her, simply stretch her fingers the smallest bit and reach that space in her back. Feel the scar that runs through her back through the thin soft fabric of her shirt.
(Would Regina like that? Would Regina push her away?
Is Regina actually crying over something she did? If she has only talked about her new friends, it makes no sense.)
She needs to know, she needs to know before she moves, before anything else. She needs to know if she has to say sorry, if she has to remark how important Regina is, how gorgeous she is, the speech she has known for years. The one she believes, of course, she does, how can’t she?
(Isn’t Regina the girl all boys and girls want to have? Isn’t she the best of them all?)
“It’s okay,” Gretchen says, her voice low and echoing in the bathroom walls, “it’s okay, whatever it is is okay.”
“‘s not,” she mutters in between sobs, “I love you. Like, I really love you. In love with you , love you.”
For a moment, it feels as if time has absolutely stopped. It’s normal peace, the way the world goes around as it always does, totally interrupted by that admission. By the awfully, unnatural idea that Regina George , with the many Gs in her name and her reputation, likes (actually, sincerely, the way that gets her to bawl her eyes out in a party bathroom) Gretchen Wieners, the too loud, too noisy, too unlikeable best friend that only knows how to shine under her light.
She moves in automatic, almost as she has seen once in a TV show, where a character has a panic attack and, and she kisses her. She takes her head in her hands, looking carefully for some type of disapproval, before collading her lips, maybe a little too forcefully with hers. She kisses her in an attempt to make it feel easier, to calm down her broken weeping, to bring some sort of comfort to her.
But in doing so, she realizes: she doesn’t want this.
She doesn’t want to be Regina’s girlfriend, she doesn’t want to hear people telling her how much of a bad decision it is. She knows it already, she knows how she walks on broken eggshells, fuck, not even seconds ago she was already overthinking, scared to death that she might’ve done something wrong, as if this was still old Regina or whatever that means.
(Regina has always been Regina, and Gretchen has always loved her, no matter what. But for whatever reason, she doesn’t want this, she doesn’t want her. Not like this, or not now, or, honestly, she doesn’t think she knows why. But she knows what she feels.)
“I’m sorry, I-” she feels out of breath, a mix of the kiss and her own panic and the way her heart breaks while she’s breaking Regina’s, “I can’t do this.”
Her cries intensify, as she tries to fight Gretchen off before melting totally in her embrace. None of them know how to continue, as if the world must be glitching. She’s crying too now, big tears and the guilt of feeling that this might be the only thing she cannot give to her, the only thing that if she gives up, if she gives away, might be enough to break her.
(She knows that she could try, she knows she would do it just to make Regina happy. She knows it is wrong.)
A part of her awfully fears getting out of the door, existing in the real world knowing that she has kissed Regina and then rejected her in the spawn of a couple of minutes. A horrible part of her feels almost smug with the knowledge that she has turned down what everyone dreams of, that she has enough power, that she is the one who says no . It makes her feel awful, to know that she’s just as much a bad person as everyone else, just covered by how everyone thinks so lowly of her, as if she’s so stupid (so fragile ) she can’t also play their mind games.
And she feels bad because she loves her, she truly, sincerely, does, except that is not enough.
Somehow love is not enough.
(She hates herself for it.)