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It ends the same way it begins. The two of them at the same table in the cafeteria. Regina supposes she should’ve seen it coming. Cady isn’t like Karen or Gretchen, she can’t spend too long under Regina’s control. Regina hates that Cady blinded her to what was really going on.
She waits for someone to defend her. For Gretchen, god even Karen, to stand up for her and tell her to stay. Karen stays quiet, a smart move, but Regina knows Karen wasn’t thinking of that.
“You can’t sit with us!” Gretchen’s voice is panicked, her words quick. Regina hates it.
She doesn’t know where to go. She thinks, briefly, that she could join Janis and Damian at the Art Freak’s table where Karen and Gretchen go when they’re kicked from the table, but the idea of being rejected by the social outcasts is more than she could handle. Instead she ends up in the bathroom, blinking back tears and looking in the mirror, wondering how she became this person.
Two girls come in, freezing when they see Regina. She wants to scream at them, tell them to get out, but instead she takes a shaky breath and turns back to the mirror. One of them stands at the sink beside hers, and Regina hates that she doesn’t cower from her. Regina clenches her teeth as a tear rolls down her cheek and she furiously wipes it away. Her mascara is running and Regina wants to scream. She sees movement out of the corner of her eye. The girl is offering her a tissue. Regina wants to slap it out of her hand and tell her she didn’t need her pity, she’s Regina fucking George after all. Instead, she gives her a small smile and takes the tissue, dabbing the makeup off under her eyes.
Regina doesn’t want to go back to the cafeteria. She doesn’t want to face the crowd again, but she wants to see how they fared without her. The cafeteria goes silent as she walks in. She grabs the box of Kalteen bars off the table, trying to look like she wasn’t just crying alone in the bathroom to save some of her dignity.
“Almost forgot these.” She starts to leave when Cady’s voice stops her.
“Regina, I’m sorry this had to happen.” Cady sounds apologetic, but Regina knows it’s a lie. Cady doesn’t react to her glare, doesn’t cave like she’s supposed to, so she fixes it on Gretchen and Karen. They shrink under the weight of it, and Regina relishes in the fraction of control she still has.
“See you in eight minutes.” Regina says as she leaves. She doesn’t look back at Cady.
***
That wasn’t really the end. That was more of the beginning of the end. The true end came later, after Regina found out about the Kalteen bars and the revenge plot, after she released the Burn Book, after Regina started to get her power back.
It ends in the gym. Janis is making her apology, telling everyone how her and Cady created this plan to take Regina down. Regina expected it from Janis, it was bordering on cliché, but Cady, she never saw coming. She hates it. She feels like she can’t breathe, like she’s trapped. Cady is looking at her from across the gym, tears in her eyes. Regina feels anger then, pain too, but she pushes it down. She can’t stay in the gym anymore, can’t look at Cady anymore or listen to Janis describing her downfall. She runs out of the gym, out of the school, away from the stares and the whispers. She can hear Cady running after her, apologies falling from her lips. All Regina wants is for Cady to shut up.
A bus travelling at 40 miles per hour gives Regina what she wants, in a way. She supposes Cady probably doesn’t stop crying or apologizing, but Regina just can’t hear her anymore.
***
Regina wakes up, alone, a few days later in the hospital. She’s in a neck brace, surrounded by flowers and cards, and she’s in pain. She can’t move very well on her own, so she’s forced to wait until someone comes to check on her to move into a better position. She hates it. She hates relying on others. Regina George is independent, she doesn’t need anyone’s help. A whimper falls from her lips and she thinks that maybe she isn’t Regina George anymore. There’s a knock on the door and when Regina looks up, Cady is standing in the doorway, nervously shifting from foot from foot. Regina can’t look at her.
“How are you feeling?” Cady asks. Regina hears her sit in the chair beside her.
“I got hit by a bus.” Regina says. Cady starts to apologize and Regina cuts her off. “I was hit by a bus, and my friend, my best friend, plotted to ruin my life and I’m in this stupid brace and I can’t move and I’m in pain all the time.” Regina doesn’t look at Cady, but she knows the other girl is crying. “I created you. I gave you what you wanted. You wanted to fit in, you wanted Aaron, you wanted to be like us, and I gave you everything. Everything you are is because of me. I gave you everything I could and you still tried to ruin me.”
“I didn’t want to be like you.” Cady whispers. “I don’t think I ever wanted Aaron either.”
“Maybe I deserved it.” Regina says quieter. “Maybe I always deserved it.”
Cady doesn’t respond to that.
They sit in silence then, broken only by Cady’s sniffles and Regina’s laboured breaths. Regina wants Cady to leave, but she doesn’t want to be alone. She doesn’t know what she wants, but she knows she hates having Cady there, hates how she feels with Cady there.
“Gretchen and Karen came to see me.” Regina says. “Gretchen cried. She told me it was all your fault.” Regina scoffs. “I don’t think I believe her. And Karen, Jesus, Karen told me everything would be okay because I got hit by a bus but I didn’t die, and you took me down but everyone feels bad for me now. They’re just pawns, they’re not like me. Or you.”
Cady leaves then, and Regina cries. She won’t tell her mom why, won’t tell her about Cady’s visit. Her mom assumes she’s in pain, and the nurses give her more pain killers. It doesn’t stop her crying, but she can sit comfortably now, and maybe that means everything will be okay.
***
She doesn’t see Cady again until Spring Fling. It’s in the bathroom and Cady’s wearing her mathletes jacket and Regina hates that she likes it. Cady apologizes again and Regina just wants everyone to stop apologizing for the same thing. She tells Cady it wasn’t her fault, even though it was, in a way. The revenge party, the betrayal, that part was, but the bus wasn’t. It feels normal, talking to Cady. Regina can almost pretend none of it happened. She realizes why it hurt so badly.
“Turns out Percocet is kind of a truth serum for me.” Regina says. Cady makes a comment about her being a bitch, and Regina decides she doesn’t want to fight anymore. “You know what they’d call me if I was a boy?”
“Strong?” Cady asks.
“Reginald.” Regina says. “That’s what my mom would’ve called me, so I’d rather be a bitch.”
It all seems worth it to see Cady’s smile.
***
Cady wins Spring Fling queen, and Regina can’t bring herself to be mad about it. Cady makes a speech, and when she starts breaking the crown, Regina knows it’s another apology. It’s not to her this time, which Regina is grateful for. When Cady tosses her a piece, she puts in her hair and smiles.
When Cady’s done and they’re all on the dance floor, Cady pulls Regina off to the side. She starts to apologize again and Regina wonders if Cady knows how to shut up. Regina does the only thing she can think of, the only thing she’s wanted to do all year. She grabs Cady’s face and kisses her. She’s tired of forcing her real feelings down, tired of hiding. The instinct to push away everyone she cares about is gone, washed away with plastic crowns and truth serum. Cady doesn’t pull away, but she doesn’t kiss back.
Regina’s the one who ends it. Cady is flushed, Regina’s still holding her face, and Regina thinks she’s the most beautiful person in the entire gym. Cady doesn’t react right away, and Regina can feel herself start to shake. She wants to pull away completely and to run far away and pretend it never happened, but she forces herself to stay. Her hands tighten in Cady’s hair and she holds her close, waiting. She can feel Cady’s breaths against her cheek and uses it to ground herself. Cady smiles, her smile taking up her whole face, and she’s kisses Regina again. It’s passionate and messy and Regina can feel her lip gloss smudging, but as she laughs against Cady’s mouth, she finds she doesn’t really mind.
The beginning, the real beginning, comes after the end. And as Regina looks into Cady’s eyes, both of them swaying to the music around them, she finds herself hoping Cady never shuts up, never stops squeezing her hands on Regina’s hips, never stops pressing her lips to Regina’s, but most of all, Regina hopes it never has to end.