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Regina’s outfit was meticulously planned: a light pink crop top with dark pink high waisted shorts, pale pink Vans and knee-high lesbian flag socks. She looked hot, if she did say so herself, and she marched up the steps to Janis’ front door like she owned the place, her bag full of carefully selected tubes of paint thrown haphazardly over her shoulder.
Janis answered the door looking more excited than Regina had ever seen her. She was wearing the same ripped black shorts layered over tights that she wore every day, a borderline fashion crime that Regina had grown surprisingly fond of, but she’d swapped out her usual baggy jacket with a red checkered flannel and wearing ten times more gay than she’d ever dare at school. Rainbow socks peeked out of rainbow-laced combat boots, her black t-shirt had the words “I’m gay” written in big rainbow letters on the front, she was wearing a rainbow belt and even fucking rainbow suspenders.
She was grinning so big that Regina decided it didn’t even matter that her flannel clashed with all the rainbow accessories.
“So are you excited for your first pride?!” Janis asked, her eyes lighting up in that way that had Regina swooning just a little.
“Very excited,” Regina said. “Thanks so much for coming with.”
“Of course!” Janis said. “We’re all friends now. Oh, and Damien said to tell you he wishes he could be here and sends his love from Florida.”
Regina laughed. She loved her friends.
Since getting hit by the bus near the end of last year, she’d lost a lot of her power. Sure, people still moved out of her way in the halls, and she could still make freshmen boys cry with a well placed glare, but people were less intimidated by her, less worshipful.
However, she’d strengthened her relationships with both Karen and Gretchen, cutting out the power dynamics of their old friendships and replacing them with sleepovers and movie marathons and secrets that actually stayed secret. Also, with the help of an over enthusiastic Cady, she’d become pretty good friends with Janis and Damien. The latter was easy as she and Damien were both very extra and very gay, and once she stopped being a massive bitch, friendship between the two was almost effortless. They spent a lot of time together in Damien’s basement binge watching RuPaul and painting each other’s nails.
Janis had been harder. Another downside to not being a massive bitch was that you actually had to feel things, and as soon as Regina had allowed herself to have human emotions, which happened to be at the end of Spring Fling, she’d been hit with a wave of guilt so hard that she thought she was going to throw up. She immediately stumbled over to Janis, tears forming in her eyes and apologies rolling off her lips. Admittedly, it must have been quite the sight: Regina George in all her spinal halo-d glory, mascara streaking down her face as she bawled her eyes out to Janis Sarkisian.
Eventually, Janis had realized that Regina was on a lot of drugs and probably was not going to stop crying anytime soon, so she dragged her outside the school and sat her down on a bench, trying to calm the hysterics.
“I know I don’t deserve it, but please forgive me,” Regina had said, looking down at her lap.
“I forgave you as soon as you got hit by that bus,” Janis said back.
Regina had looked up at that, catching Janis’ soft smile and giving her a rather watery one back.
“You did?”
“Yeah. Doesn’t mean I’m gonna trust you right away, and doesn’t mean I’m not gonna totally make you make it up to me, but yeah. And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry I tried to mess up your life, and I’m sorry you got hit by that bus.”
“Don’t be, I deserved it,” Regina had told her, laughing bitterly.
Janis had shook her head, looked directly into her eyes and said something Regina would never forget, “You didn’t deserve to die, if only for a few seconds.”
The air was tense around them for a few seconds before Janis had shrugged and added, “Maybe you deserved Cady stealing your boyfriend, though. I’m not all that sorry about that one.”
“They’re cute together. And besides, I didn’t really care about Aaron all that much. Or Shane. Or any guy, for that matter.”
And that was how Regina George had come out to Janis Sarkisian.
Since then, she and Janis had gone from tolerating each other, to kind of enjoying each other’s presence, to actively making plans to hang out, to becoming friends. They still weren’t as close as they were in eighth grade, and Janis was still more closed off with Regina than she was with the others, but Janis was even more amazing that Regina remembered, and their friendship was so much more than she deserved.
So, yeah, Regina might not be the HBIC she used to be, but she wouldn’t trade any of her friends for all of that power back. She was glad to be a part of their odd group of plastics and art freaks and Aaron and even the mathletes, who were way more tolerable than Regina would have ever expected.
“Earth to Regina,” Janis teased, waving her hand in front of Regina’s face.
“Sorry, what?” Regina said, blushing a little.
Janis just rolled her eyes goodnaturedly and grabbed Regina’s wrist, pulling her into her house and shutting the door behind them.
“I said we need to get your face paint done so we can head out.”
Ten minutes later, Regina and Janis were sat on the kitchen floor, Regina’s paints between them. Janis was painting a little lesbian pride flag on Regina’s right cheek, careful strokes of pink streaking across delicate skin.
“So what were you thinking about that had you zoning out earlier?” Janis asked, swirling her brush in a cup of water set off to the side.
“Just how much I love you losers,” Regina said with a smile. Only a few months ago, she would’ve been loathe to admit she cared about them at all, but a lot had changed in those few months.
“It’s nice when your friends aren’t just your friends because they’re scared of you, isn’t it?” Janis said, giving Regina a look that was half pointed half teasing.
Regina rolled her eyes and murmured in agreement just as Janis’ stomach growled. She looked up at Janis, who was still painting and wouldn’t meet her eyes.
“Jan?” she said, raising an eyebrow. “Did you eat this morning?”
“No,” Janis mumbled, still not meeting Regina’s eye.
Regina huffed.
“Babe, we talked about this. How many times do Cady and I have to tell you that it’s not healthy to skip breakfast? Especially not when we’re about to be out walking around in the sun for hours. You need something on your stomach to keep your strength, ideally protein.”
Janis furrowed her brow, continuing to paint Regina’s face with more concentration than was probably necessary. She finished the last stripe before answering.
“I just forgot this morning because I was so excited about pride. Geez, you don’t have to give me a lecture.”
Regina bit back the, “Clearly, I do,” on the tip of her tongue.
“You’re right,” she said instead. “I shouldn’t have been so condescending about it. It’s your life and your health, so I can’t tell you what to do. I just care about you and want you to be healthy, Jan. Can I make you some eggs?”
Janis seemed thoroughly surprised with that and nodded dumbly, moving to get the eggs out of the fridge.
“I guess you’re kinda right, too,” she said, her back to Regina. “I should take better care of myself.”
Regina smirked in victory and grabbed a pan from the cabinet below the stove. She turned on the burner and popped a couple of pieces of bread into the toaster while she waited for it to heat up. Janis packed the paints back up while Regina scrambled an egg on the stove.
“I see you’ve made yourself something, too,” Janis grinned, eyeing Regina’s toast, which she’d covered in peanut butter and bananas, once they were sat at the table.
“Yeah, well, I figured it’d be awkward if I just sat here and watched you eat.”
Janis shrugged, scooping a forkful of eggs into her mouth.
“That’s fair.”
After they ate, Janis tried to leave immediately, but Regina dragged Janis back into the kitchen by one of her suspenders and made her help with the dishes, arguing that it wasn’t fair to Janis’ single mother to leave dirty breakfast dishes out.
When they finally left, Janis spent a solid five minutes trying to convince Regina to hop on the back of her motorcycle, but although Regina had become a lot nicer and more considerate of other people’s thoughts and feelings, she was still the most stubborn person at Northshore, and she was decidedly not going to ride on the bike any time soon.
They went in Regina’s little black hybrid convertible (Regina may have been a bitch, but she’d always cared about the environment, she was just more vocal about it now). Janis nabbed the aux cord and forced Regina to listen to Arctic Monkeys, a band the blonde refused to admit she kinda liked, and soon enough, they were searching for a parking spot.
“Alright, so we’re gonna watch the parade, and then we’re gonna go hang out in a nearby field for the rest of the day,” Janis said as they got out of the car.
“A field?” Regina said, cocking her head to the side. Just because she cared about the environment didn’t mean she really enjoyed being outdoors. Outdoors was dirty, and she didn’t have the time, the patience, or the outfits for dirt.
Janis smirked and grabbed her by the wrist, dragging her towards an empty spot on the side of the street.
“Trust me, princess. You’re gonna love it.”
Regina loved it. When the first float passed, a bunch of drag queens voguing to Lady Gaga, she decided immediately that this was going to be one of the best experiences of her life. Apparently, the people who marched in these parades tended to hand out something, like candy or ribbons or pins or plastic mardi gras necklaces. All of Regina’s things went into her backpack, but Janis wore anything she possibly could, which included tucking a lollipop in a rainbow wrapper behind her ear and pouting when it fell on the concrete and cracked.
Regina got the attention of a lot of the queer girl marchers (which, like, duh. Have you seen her?), and Janis attracted a fair amount of girls, too, which increased the amount of stuff they got tenfold, making her doubly glad she brought her backpack. Regina could have sworn Janis’ megawatt smile dampened every time one of the marchers, or sometimes other onlookers, would ask for Regina’s number. She shook off the feeling, figuring she was probably just being delusional and remembering that she was still trying to get over her (not so) small crush on Janis, and ended up pulling a pen from her bag and writing her number down on a fair amount of hands, ending up with a few written up her own arm.
After the parade was over, Janis bought them tacos from one of the food trucks parked in the field where the rest of the event was being held. They sat on a picnic bench a little ways away from the makeshift stage where the hayley kiyoko cover band was playing. She smiled softly at Janis, kicking at her ankle and taking a big bite out of her taco. There was something about being surrounded by other queer people that was just magical and right.
If you had told junior year Regina George that she was going to feel happier than she ever had when she was sitting on a picnic table outside, dressed like a human lesbian pride flag and eating greasy food truck tacos next to Janis Sarkisian of all people, she would have laughed in your face. But there Regina was, feeling nothing but cheerfulness and utter belonging.