Archive of Our Own ^beta

Gretchen Weiners does not deserve this, she thinks as her she sobs on Karen’s trampoline, locked out of the house after offending Regina. She’s in seventh grade, and the whole scene feels so seventh grade, from the way that her wobbling lip scrapes against the sharp poke of her braces to the way that her pink nail polish has just begun to chip.

That’s bullshit, she decides. Gretchen Weiners absolutely deserves this.

Her hair is frizzing in the mid-March humidity, and her phone is locked in the house, so she can’t even call her mom to get bailed out. She’s horrifically lost, and it’s all her fault, apparently.

After all, Regina said so. Regina said that she crossed the line with that line about Regina having outgrown her shirt, and when Regina George speaks from those cherry glossed lips, Gretchen Weiners would be a fool not to listen.

And sure, sometimes she feels like that’s all she ever does: listen to Regina complain about her lame-ass mom, listen to Henry from English talk about how his ex totally cheated on him, and even listen to Janis bitch about how Regina won’t let her wear black lipstick.

Every time that Gretchen talks, she feels like the words are cursed. She’s always talking too fast, or her voice is too high pitched, or she spits a little bit and all her words get cancelled out by that embarrassment.

Fuck braces.

She lets out another wet sob, and she’s so lost that she wonders who she even is anymore, but then the locked door leading to Karen’s backyard clicks open, and is pushed open, revealing Karen: bathed in golden light from inside, fighting the descending blues of the night.

Karen is smiling kindly, her hair has a couple flyaways that are illuminated in the light. She’s so beautiful that Gretchen cries even harder. Karen steps out, barefoot on the grass, and she climbs into the trampoline. Gretchen hears the squeaks of tired springs, and next thing she knows, she and Karen are putting a dent in the center of the trampoline.

There’s a dead leaf next to Gretchen’s foot, but she ignores it, because Karen takes a soft breath in, cuing that she’s about to speak.

Gretchen may be “the dumbest idiot” Regina’s ever met, but she knows her friends.

“Regina says you can come inside. Janis convinced her. I got dared to lick my own sock, it was pretty funny,” Karen says, and there’s a pause as Gretchen tries so, so hard to stop the tears, and then Karen continues, “I really wish you were there. I had the perfect dare for you.”

“What was it?”

“I forgot. But it was so good!” Karen says, and Gretchen rushes into a hug. It makes the trampoline squeak again, and Gretchen recognizes Karen’s perfume but she can’t name it (the pink stuff from Claire’s, maybe?). Gretchen feels Karen have a giggle, one with no direction or purpose, and she can only hug tighter.

“I wanna leave,” Gretchen whispers, before Karen pulls out in shock. Gretchen misses the warmth.

“Why? It’s supposed to be a sleepover!” Karen says, like Gretchen is dumb.

“I- I know. It’s just that I miss my mom.”

“You can see her next morning, though.”

“I just think I need some space. Can you get my phone? I don’t want them to see my messed up makeup. Can you do that, Karen?” Gretchen asks, mentally plotting out her escape plan.

“I can, but I don’t want to,” Karen says, and she’s petulant under the moonlight, distressed in her own squirrel-like way.

“Do it for me?”

“I’ll do anything for you, Gretchen. Promise me we can hang out some other time, though?” Karen asks, and oh, that’s what this is all about. It’s sweet, and Gretchen smiles again.

“Promise.”

“Pinky Promise?” Karen asks, holding up her pinky, which Gretchen gladly accepts. It’s perfect.

-

Gretchen hears the rumors about Janis at the very worst time, because there’s something about hearing people whisper about Janis being an invader to the Group™, because she likes girls in that way. Gretchen herself wonders if she’s an invader, if she’s a spy among civilians.

Gretchen, simply put, has begun to notice things. Things like the way that she feels a flutter in her stomach whenever Regina dances to Britney Spears, or how she wonders what it would be like to kiss Janis. Would her lips be chapped? Soft? Gretchen had kissed a guy before, but it doesn’t feel like a real first kiss.

In the weeks before she learns to feel guilty about it all, Gretchen begins to sort her best friends into categories of romance.

For example, she wants to marry Regina. A gorgeous wedding, resplendent with their shared incomes (in this fantasy, Gretchen is a CEO and Regina is a high-powered lawyer, and they both rake in enough cash to have the wedding of the century). She wants to build a life with Regina in the way they’ve built their friendship: brick by brick, until the foundation of shared affection is strong enough to withstand just about any earthquake.

On the other hand, she wants to kiss Janis. Janis had been trying to learn guitar in the past couple of months, so her hands had become a bit more rugged, a bit more calloused. Gretchen wanted Janis to run them through her hair, and smile wickedly against her lips.

Finally, Gretchen wants to have some cinema romance with Karen, where they kiss in the pouring rain and confess big, grandiose feelings to each other. In Gretchen’s imagination, daydreaming while the clock ticks away in her science class, Karen is endlessly poetic beneath the moonlight.

All of these go from sweet dreams to dirty secrets the first time Regina whispers her suspicions of Janis in her ear, but something weird happens: Gretchen decides that she just might deserve it.

-

When the Space Dyke fiasco goes down, Gretchen learns to exist in a state of simultaneous guilt and glee. She feels powerful, despite the fact that Regina is clearly the captain of this ship. The house of cards that is Janis’ social life gets knocked over with a little nudge, and it feels both disgusting and heavenly.

She doesn’t talk about it, but Gretchen is highly aware that if Regina felt like it, her life could crumble too.

In a way, it already has crumbled. Her grades are down, her relationships with her parents are straining, and she can’t sleep anymore because all of her fears and worst case scenarios keep firing up her brain. But none of that matters, because Gretchen is friends with Regina, and nothing is free. Her sanity is like a 20 dollar bill: worth something, but meant to be used for something.

Regina only confirms this, with her glares and subtle reminders of the fact that Gretchen could be replaced with just a snap of her fingers.

Gretchen doesn’t cope, because she doesn’t have to, no matter what her mom keeps saying.

Instead, Gretchen buys some concealer and spends the end of her seventh grade year trying to cover up the bags under her eyes.

It’s one of those never ending cycles, where she has to stay up late to handle everything that needs to be done these days (homework and listening and taking notes and counting calories and stepping carefully around fights that happen in front of her and everything else, all piled on top of each other), and then she has to wake up early so she can make herself look like she didn’t stay up all night juggling the drama of ten different people at once.

She reasons with herself, turns her homework in on time with a smile on her face, and keeps her head above water.

She figures it’s better than being called a Space Dyke and having to fold into herself. Gretchen wouldn’t be able to pull off the “I’m wearing my dad’s jacket and finding myself” look, anyway.

-

The summer between seventh and eighth grade is spent in Minnesota, visiting Gretchen’s grandparents and cousins and cousins of cousins. They spend an exorbitant amount of time at various Dinner Theatres, watching dazzling shows while chewing on mediocre steak.

Gretchen learns the joys of getting away from it all. Here, beneath the towering, emerald green trees, there’s no pressure to skip breakfast or keep up with the trends. She falls severely out of fashion as she forgoes her Teen Vogue reading time in lieu of spending days at the lake, her feet dipped in the fresh, cool water.

This gives her a lot of time to think, which isn’t necessarily the best thing for her frenetic, crazy brain. She even makes some resolutions, while getting tans and freckles.

The first is to join Model UN, the second is to stop straightening her hair, and the third is to get the fuck away from Regina George. Something about being away from the hairspray fumes makes it clear to her that whatever game they’ve been playing, it’s been destroying both of them for a while.

It sort of reaches a point where Gretchen has to take matters into her own hands, by leaving her phone in her room and deciding to renovate herself on her own terms. She sits in the bathroom at her grandma’s house, staring into the faded, dusty mirror with a makeup bag, some scissors, and sugar-fueled courage.

Her hair is still a bit wet from taking a shower earlier, and it feels like the stars have aligned for this moment. Gretchen pulls a lock of hair to the front, and snips it off, brushing it forward to form the beginning of her bangs.

She knows that Regina may think that bangs are the devil, but Gretchen gets the vague sensation that she’d look good with them, and she’s home alone.

Another snip, another brush.

The two new strands look a bit uneven, less polished than she expected. It gets her down for a second, judging by the dip she feels in her stomach, but she powers through to continue, piece by piece. At moments, she has to set the scissors on the counter and close her eyes, gripping the edge of it with both hands and trying to still the shaking in her shoulders.

“You can do this. You can do this,” she whispers to herself, because this all somehow seems bigger than just cutting her own hair.

It seems like every second of her life, every decision she makes, has the looming scent of Regina George in it. Gretchen sees her in everywhere she goes, from a pink flower by the lake to advertisements on magazines, Regina is inescapable, even when Gretchen is halfway across the country from her.

She makes the mistake of closing her eyes during one of the more substantial cuts, and it makes an odd diagonal across her forehead, and she keeps rolling despite the fissure of terror that clamps down on her throat.

She sets the scissors down on the counter for a second, falling into a long exhale, listening to the sound of the metal on the surface.

Then, she looks up, locking eyes with herself with laser intensity. She sees the uneven ways it stops on her forehead, above her eyebrows and right below and in the middle of her forehead. It hits her with a quiet intensity that Janis would love this.

“You can do this,” she repeats, before grabbing the back of her hair into one big ponytail, and she takes a blind chance, twisting her arm to the back of her head and getting a messy hold on it, and she hacks at it with fervor, trying to keep her eyes open to watch it all fall down.

Finally, the scissors break through all of the hair, and she shakes it off, letting it all fan out across the bathroom, and she’s fully aware of the mess she’s making, but for once in her life, the mess doesn’t matter to her. She’s so intent on staying neat and proper at all times, whether it means standing in front of the mirror and using a Q-Tip on her lip glass to make sure that none of it strays from the neat lines of her lips.

This is the opposite. This is messy, sweaty, and weirdly butch, and that makes it so much easier to tear Regina out of the situation.

Soon, the jagged bangs are complete. They’re slanted and odd and it somehow empowers her and reminds her that her hair is her own, and that doesn’t change if she’s good or bad at cutting it. The scissors drift around, and she contemplates going all the way. It seems like a now or never moment, where nothing matters. She hears a door open from downstairs, and she makes her decision.

She cuts off a chunk in a cut that could only be described as angry, and she feels the scissors slice through her hair, and lets it fall to the floor. She looks in the mirror and notes the change.

Someone shouts from downstairs, asking where she is, and Gretchen wonders the same thing. Where is she? Where did Gretchen go? She didn’t know the girl looking back in the mirror, this one is too bold and too gay. This isn’t the one she saw in so many family pictures, in yearbook signatures.

“I’m up here, ma!” she yells, half focused on the words and half focused on blurry memories of Janis and her changes and the way she embraced the words used against her, turned it into an identity. Gretchen realizes with a pang that she sort of misses Janis.

She hears the knock of steps on the stairs, and a faded “can I come in?” through the door from her mom. It’s followed by a quick “I brought a present”, and Gretchen lets out an affirmative noise.

The door opens, and Gretchen doesn’t even look away from the mirror, she just absorbs the soft shriek her mom makes, before calming down. She can see her mom’s shoulders drop a bit in the mirror, until she whips around to face her head on.

“That’s one hell of a mess,” she says as she scans the floor as it’s blanketed in her hair.

“I know.”

“Do you wanna get that cleaned up tomorrow?” her mom asked, eyebrows furrowed kindly.

“I don’t think so,” she says in response, before thinking for a moment and continuing, “before school starts we’ll do it, but while we’re in Minnesota, I think I’m good,” she says, voice shaky and unsure. Her mom nods, and they share a moment of eye contact and shared understanding.

“Your dad is going to hate it, don’t let it faze you,” she says, and Gretchen gets the feeling that her mom knows something she doesn’t. It feels a bit gross, a bit unnecessary.

“Got it. Haters gonna hate. What are ya gonna do?” Gretchen asks, the joking quotes marred by her bland, dazed voice.

“You are going to eat dinner. The present I got was some fantastic pasta. Gourmet,” her mom said, walking closer and ruffling her hair with a manicured hand.

“So you’re not… mad?” Gretchen asks, feeling like she definitely should be in trouble for this. Everything she’s ever been told about girls and girls with short hair, it implies that there’s something in her to be punished, something wrong and gross and not glossy like Regina, or velvety like Karen.

“No, of course I’m not mad. You didn’t get a tattoo or anything, and self-expression is important. Not to sound like a cool mom, though,” she says, and they both laugh over the memory of Regina’s mom, so loud and ridiculous. It’s a moment of shared understanding, and somehow that calms Gretchen down more than the sentence before it.

“Thanks. For being, umm not a cool mom, per say, but a-”

“I think Awesome Mom would work. I’m pretty awesome, if I do say so myself. Now let’s eat some pasta,” she says, leaving the room and not giving Gretchen a single moment to doubt or question.

Gretchen can only smile and follow her out, letting the blunt edges of her hair tickle the back of her neck, feeling more like herself than she had felt in a while. Her dad takes the new cut with a grimace and begrudging acceptance, and everything is alright.

-

She leans into this feeling, this total freedom. She mismatches her clothes, she watches shows that Regina complains about, and she eats ice cream without bothering to ask about a low fat option.

The ice cream flavor of the summer becomes cotton candy, with all of it’s sticky sweetness, and empty calories. She savors it, lets the sugary remains of it stick around her lips long after she’s left the ice cream shop.

It’s like this on that fateful Wednesday afternoon, with the sun shining bright above her as she sits in the kayak, the oars in her hands as the lazily sails on the clear lakes. She can feel the sun on her face and the thick air around her, humid as ever. She can hear the faraway music from her mom’s speaker, and the occasional strains of laughter, but otherwise? She’s in her own world.

Gretchen uses this time to Think with a Capital T, examining the world she knows and everything she wants so desperately to know. It seems like the curtain is lifted, like she’s finally ready to see the world clearly. She knows she can certainly feel the world clearly, every cool drop of water on the lake that splashes into the kayak is keenly felt, like everything is heightened and utterly real.

Like this, feeling everything so deeply and sharply, she lets herself calm down and think. Her mind first strays to Regina, as it is wont to do. She thinks about Regina a lot, she realizes, remembering long, insomniac nights where she imagines some future where Regina starts to care.

Gretchen wonders, with her traitorous heart, if Regina secretly does care, and she just doesn’t know how to show it. Maybe Regina’s teeth are too sharp to form a good, caring smile, and Gretchen is just the occasional victim of her attempts at kindness.

Regina can be kind, she figures. Sometimes she gives Gretchen these tight hugs that make her feel like she’s in heaven, and sometimes they stay up late together, staring up at the ceiling of the George’s living room while talking in circles and letting the night settle down on them.

One time, on Valentine’s day, Regina broke up with her boyfriend and ran right to Gretchen, giving her all the chocolates and love letters that would’ve gone to Kevin. It felt warm and lovely, like they were in something deeper, something more.

It felt like they were dating.

Shit.

Gretchen’s fondest memory of Regina was the one where she felt like they were dating, which was kind of… gay.

Shit, Gretchen has a crush on Regina. A gay crush. The kind where she wants to be hugged and kissed and loved. The sun shines bright in her eyes, and water splashes into her boat, and she feels absolutely overwhelmed with it.

Her history flashes behind her eyes, all those little crushes and feelings for the women celebrities on the screen, how her favorite bands were always the girl bands, and the way that she just- she just couldn’t put it in words.

How could you describe it? Wanting love letters from the ladies in her life, the ones with their soft hair and angry tears. What words fit this feeling, this feeling of affection and love for them?

It’s a crush. A gay crush. Gretchen has feelings for girls, and that can’t be ignored anymore.

She almost falls out of the canoe, but then steadies herself on the water, and lets her eyes flutter closed. She feels a strand of chopped hair on her cheek, and settles into it.

She has crushes on girls.

She keeps paddling around, soaring above the cool, blue water as the realization set into her blood. It becomes a fact in her mind, a newer, clearer vision of herself.

The water ripples out, but as far as she knows, it could be as still as ice, but she’s not looking out anymore. She’s not looking at magazine covers or the rush of people on the street, she just looks inward.

There’s a quiet moment where Gretchen wonders if she’s naturally happy, and one day, when she just gets away from the world she got caught in, she’ll find the contentedness that she’s always wanted. She just wants this feeling with Regina, the calmness after the storm, and there’s this thought that she just might get it.

Gretchen smiles out at the horizon, and closes her eyes.

-

It’s sometime at a mall, lingering in the candle section of a Bath and Body Works and watching her mom try eight different lotions at once, that Gretchen realizes that her mom may be the human encapsulation of her Minnesota experience. She’s always nicer in the summer, and she doesn’t ever make Gretchen feel disgusting and wrong in the way that Regina does.

“Hey, mom?” she says, feeling daring, the kind of daring that made her cut her own hair, the kind of daring that made her cannonball into that lake, not worrying about the cold water. She’s holding a Sweet Pea scented candle in her hands, one of the gargantuan ones with three wicks.

“Yeah?” her mom asks, looking so kind that Gretchen wants to cry.

“I think I’m a lesbian,” she says, and the words feel unfamiliar and weird on her tongue, but they also feel inexplicably right. She puts the candle down on the nearest shelf, and for once her neat freak tendencies keep her from searching for the proper shelf to place it. There are more important things in her mind.

“Oh, okay…” her mom says, and Gretchen wonders if the look in her mom’s eyes is disappointment.

“Are you okay with it?”

“Yeah. I just hope you don’t have a crush on Regina, I don’t approve of… that,” her mom says, and Gretchen has this moment of confusion. Is that where the homophobia part of this happens? She’s seen enough episodes of teen television to know that coming out usually has at least one bad side effect, is this it?

“So… you’re not okay with it?” Gretchen asks, and she has a terrifying moment where she wonders if people are staring. She looks around, eyes wide like prey under attack. They aren’t looking.

“Gretchen Isabel Weiners, I am okay with it. I just- if and when you date girls, please find one who treats you well.”

“Why’d you bring up Regina, then?” Gretchen asks, even if she mostly knows the answer.

“Because Regina’s not a girl who treats you well, sweetie. I don’t like her, you know that. She literally locked you out of her house once, you can’t think she’s good for your sanity.”

“But I deserved it,” says Gretchen, and her mom looks so angry for a second, and Gretchen has this deadly fear that her mom is angry at her, but the look fades before she can analyze it further.

“When we go back home, you need to find new friends,” says her mom with ice in her voice as she makes her way to the cash register. Gretchen takes one last sniff of a summery, three wick candle, and wonders if it’s bad that she feels better.

As a “coming out gift” her mom lets her buy the candle. The summer smells so sweet, and Gretchen hates that it has to end.

-

She goes home in a sort of daze, stuck in a high from the unlikely beauty of Minnesota in the summer. The airplane ride is nakedly quiet, like some communal realization, like people taking off pride stickers on the bus ride home from a pride parade so they can drift back into the closet with a bare, stinging face.

Gretchen’s hair is still blocky and beautiful whenever she looks in the mirror, checking out the frizz with nothing but love in her eyes, even though she knows that it’s about to be cleaned up into something presentable soon. One of the truly sucky things about the town she called home was the obsessive aura that surrounded presentability.

Being a thirteen year old worried about her image felt inherently wrong, inherently stressful and overly large for someone who got her period only a year ago.

Two days after they land, she and her dad go over to the local hairstylist, a friend of her dad’s who works out of her garage and has one million side hustles. She tsktsks at Gretchen’s current haircut, before asking Gretchen what she wants.

What Gretchen wants.

“Honestly? I want this haircut,” says Gretchen, and some inner defense response kicks in, and she cringes harshly when the awkward silence sets in.

“Honey…” says the hairdresser, and Gretchen wants to retreat even more into herself because she absolutely hates that tone of voice, the one that sounds like she’s being pitied.

“Clean it up, make it appropriate, whatever. I just really liked this, and I know I can’t keep it, so do what you want. But you asked and I answered honestly,” rants Gretchen, and she’s sure she sounds absolutely insane.

She just looks at Gretchen’s head, and hums a soft “mhm” before the hairbrush is in her hand and scraping through her hair. Gretchen, for one of the first times in her young life, has a moment of true hatred for this fucking town.

-

When eighth grade starts, she falls into the same old routine with a new taste of loathing on her tongue, where she’ll do everything she’s always done (keep secrets, look good, lie when necessary) but it all has an added edge to it.

She misses Minnesota so much, and she hates this town so much, and the resentment just sort of grows. She gets the dangerous feeling that she deserves better.

Regina still calls her a dyke at her haircut, since it’s cropped close to her chin instead of flowing down her back like “normal” girls. Janis tries to give her a high five over the chop, but Gretchen just gives her the evil eye, because it’s her job. Janis doesn’t even seem fazed by it, she just stares into Gretchen’s eyes and pretends like she doesn’t understand.

Everything is it’s normal sort of hellish, and Gretchen gets used to it, to the grind and the edges setting in, but it never really affects her until Karen steps in with a scheme of her own.

-

Thomas has floppy bangs and hazel eyes, and Karen decides that he’s the perfect guy for Gretchen.

“Both of you are smart, pretty, and perfect for each other. Come one Gretchen, you gotta. It’s just one date, and then when you realize that he’s your soulmate, you two will become boyfriend-girlfriend, and then… marriage?” rants Karen, waving her hands wildly at the cafeteria table as Regina looks on with a quietly approving eye.

“But I don’t even have a crush on him!”

“Not yet. Go on the date,” says Regina, and that’s when Gretchen knows that she’s absolutely screwed, because that’s a direct order, and ignoring those never leads to anything good.

“Alright, alright. Only if he’s the one who asks me on the date.”

“I can arrange that,” says Regina, giving Gretchen that unnerving look, the one that looks like Regina is mentally dissecting her from across the table.

Gretchen can only shake it off and hope that whatever this is, it’s over soon. She knows that those two can act fast, and this only gets proven when THomas asks her out the next day, and she responds with a too-smooth “sure”.

Next thing she knows, the two of them are dressed like they’re going to church and sitting in a booth of their town’s third nicest Italian restaurant. Karen had spent thirty minutes before the date telling Gretchen how badass it was that she was lying to her mom about where she was, even though Karen didn’t know why.

Gretchen claimed that she was going to a sleepover, and Regina’s mom was willing to participate in the hoax by driving her to and from the restaurant, since she was so flattered that the kids actually asked for help in the scheme.

Whenever they ask her about why she’s lying to her mom, she just says that she’s not allowed to date until college, and leaves it at that.

So, all in all, there’s a lot of non-Thomas stuff on her mind when they sit down, and she thanks her lucky stars that he doesn’t notice.

He just talks about baseball while she politely nods and eats the appetizer bread, being careful not to put too much butter on it, because Regina would kill her for using too much. Nonetheless, his voice was a good background to her thoughts and worries, and she found it almost a little bit comforting.

“So, uh, how was your day?” he asks, a little too late and a little too sweetly.

“Good,” she says. She doesn’t really want to elaborate.

“How good? On a scale of, like, one to ten. One being wet socks and ten being, like, heaven?” he asks, and he sounds desperate enough that Gretchen decides to fake it until she makes it.

“6.5. Ms. Gehrig yelled at me, but nothing else bad really happened, I guess,” she says, and then she smiles, close-lipped and as nice as she can muster.

“Ms. Gehrig? Ugh, I hate her! She called me a punk one time,” he says, and she tries to giggle a bit, and it bolsters him to keep going. “She never calls on me, she hates me that much. It’s why I’m failing, like, every quarter.”

“Wow, she fails you because she doesn’t like you?” Gretchen asks, mentally rolling her eyes because no, Thomas, you’re just bad at math.

“Totally!”

“Is she even allowed to do that?”

Of course not, Gretchen thinks to herself, but playing dumb is so much easier than challenging him, so she lets him bluff about secret rules, and the principal looking the other way. He mentions that his parents have been going to the administration about it for years, and she feels this overwhelming pity for all of the adults who had to put up with this.

At the end of the date, after she’s politely declined dinner and paid for her half of the meal, he asks her if she can be his girlfriend.

Gretchen realizes that she hates Thomas with every fiber in her body. Hates his hubris and his unwavering belief in his own infallibility. Hates the way he uses gay as an insult, and says that he likes the Transformers movies. She absolutely despises the way he feels the need to explain every little thing to her, how he’ll sometimes speak as if she’s a child.

Despite hating him, she still says yes.

She gets the feeling that she really doesn’t have a choice, and shudders to think of being like Janis, being someone who says “no” to Regina. If the choice is between dating Thomas and being Janis, she’ll choose Thomas every time.

-

The first time they kiss, it’s a week later, standing outside the movie theatre. His dad’s car is going to roll around any time now, Gretchen thinks, tapping her feet to distract herself from the awkward silence in between them.

“Why didn’t you kiss me?” Thomas asks, his voice harsh with brusque disregard.

“What?” Gretchen asks, even though she definitely heard him the first time.

“During the movie. We were in the back seat. Why didn’t you kiss me?” he asks, sounding somewhere between hurt and offended.

“Making out in a movie theatre is trashy,” she says, closing her eyes tightly. The idea of looking Thomas in the eye during this conversation gives her a headache.

“How about making out outside of a movie theatre?”

“Not as trashy,” she says, forcing a flirty lilt to her voice and opening her eyes. She looks at Thomas and hopes that he can’t see the dread that hangs behind her eyes.

He doesn’t say anything more, he just leans in. His eyes close, and she lets hers fall too. Their lips touch, and she feels something gross and angry settle in her stomach.

She pulls away, and smiles. Thomas smiles back. She wills herself to not do something embarrassing, like break out into tears or come out.

-

She inevitably has to tell her mom about Thomas, and it makes for one of the most awkward dinner conversations. Her dad doesn’t know about her apparent lesbianism, while her mom has known since the beginning.

“So, umm… I have a boyfriend. His name is Thomas. Karen set us up. I thought you guys should know, y’know? Because it’s a new thing in my life and you guys might have to drive me to dates, and all that,” she says, hoping that her latent anxiety doesn’t play out across her face.

“Really, Gretchen?” her mom asks, looking so disappointed that it absolutely breaks Gretchen’s heart. She hate this feeling, the feeling that she’s let her mom down, that she’s let herself down just as deeply.

“Yeah. Really,” said Gretchen, and she felt the obligation to put up a front of anger, of teenage defiance, despite the fact that Gretchen probably hated this just as much as her mom did.

“You’re pretty young, Gretch,” says her dad, filling in the tense silence of secrets with the obvious objections. Those were the easy ones, the ones that Gretchen has good answers to.

“I’m young, but not a child. And we aren’t, like, gonna get married or do something too adult.”

“I trust you enough to do do that, but it’s still hard to accept.. My little girl…” her dad mumbles, and she feels so fond for him and his simplicity that she might burst of melded anxiety and love.

“Are you sure that this is something you want?” her mom asks, looking more sad than anything.

“Yeah,” lies Gretchen.

At least the hardest part is over, she thinks. She broke the news, let it sink in. The weird thing is that it solidifies the relationship in her mind, it makes their kisses and their idle conversations real. This mistake she’s making is so obvious and glaring to her, but she’s nothing if not dogged.

“Gretchen, I’m sorry,” her mom says as a prelude, and Gretchen only has the time to look confused-worried until her mom launches into her tirade. “I can’t allow this. You are too young for a boyfriend. I don’t care if you like him, or if you say he’s a good guy. You are just too young for that kind of experience.”

For a moment, Gretchen feels totally relieved. good, she thinks. A reason other than being a lesbian. She rehearses it in her mind: the “I really like you, but my mom will make your life hell” talk, or the “My mom is crazy, she won’t even let me spend time with guys I like, of which there are many. I love men.”

“No, no. I’m sorry, but I have to disagree with you on this one,” says her dad, and Gretchen’s anxiety ramps back up along with her obligation to keep acting like she wants to date Thomas in all of his wretched bravado.

“I won’t budge on this one,” says her mom.

“I invented the toaster strudel, Anne. I don’t budge either,” says her dad, and she doesn’t have to look at her mom to know that she’s subtly rolling her eyes.

“There’s a chance that motherly conviction outranks Toaster Strudel Confidence.”

“You’re such a lawyer, sometimes.”

“Yeah, because that’s my job,” counters her mom, and she can see that this is going off the rails and tries to pull the train back into the station. She has a moment of the aforementioned Toaster Strudel Confidence- the good breeding and ingrained confidence makes her think that she can make this work for her.

“Dad, I for one, agree with you. Me and Thomas are in love, and-”

Her dad sputters, practically spitting out his drink with the force of it. Hook, line, and sinker.

“Love? Woah, woah, woah young lady! You’re awful young to be talking about love,” he says, hands raised in alarm.

“What, are you saying I can’t be in love at my age? Regina and Peter are in love! They kiss, like, all the time!” says Gretchen, and she leans into the nasally, immature tone. Her mom is looking at her like she’s an alien, and her forehead burns a bit with the victory.

“Okay, now you’re making me think you’re a bit too young to date, honey,” her dad says, and she resists the urge to pump her fist. She should’ve taken theatre instead of yearbook, she thinks.

“Gretchen, dear, why are you smiling? We’re about to make you break up with Thomas,” her mom says.

“What? I thought I was about to convince you guys, though!” says Gretchen, desperately trying to school her face.

“You said that Karen set you two up?” her mom asks, spearing her salad with her fork. Her eyes have the lawyerly crinkle to them, like her mind is moving a mile a minute.

“Yeah? Why do you ask?” Gretchen asks, and she can see her mother and father exchange a knowing glance, which throws her stomach into unease.

“Because your ‘but daddy I love him’ act isn’t totally convincing, and I’ve never seen you have a crush on a boy before. This clearly isn’t your idea,” her dad says.

“Was… was my acting that bad?” she asks, letting the walls come down. The jig is up, and they all know it.

“Yeah. Pretty bad,” her dad says.

“Can- can you please just say that you don’t approve so I can pass on the message? I don’t want to deal with my friends when they figure out why I don’t want to date Thomas,” she says, and her dad looks concerned for a reason, and she feels like she’s about to burst with the secret.

“You can tell him, he’ll be fine with it,” her mom says, and Gretchen figures that there’s no denying it now.

“I’m gay,” she explains as matter of factly as possible. “Thomas is one of the only reasons that no one is calling me a dyke right now. I also hate him, so… please just back me up here, alright?”

“You’ve got it from me,” her mom says before taking a casual bite of her dinner, like the whole thing was no big deal. Gretchen mentally debates whether the warmth in her heart is anxiety for what’s to come or overwhelming fondness for her family.

“Me too, honey,” her dad says, and he turns to his dinner with the same air. Gretchen smiles with relief because thank god, she’s out of this.

“So, in other news, Karen did the funniest thing in science today…” she says, changing the topic with an unbreakable smile on her face.

-

Gretchen decides to break the news to Thomas over lunch, which proves to be a harder task than expected, because he’s so easily distracted. This used to work in her favor, when she could avoid a conversation by sending him off on a tangent, but when she needs to get this done as quickly and cleanly as possible, it all becomes much more problematic.

The first obstacle in her quest is that, for whatever reason Thomas really doesn’t want to leave his lunch table, which is overwhelmingly rowdy. There’s a series of whoops and “Thomas, it’s your sweetie!”, which is probably an inside joke considering the peals of laughter it causes.

Gretchen fights discomfort at the fact that she’s now an inside joke, but she swallows it down and grits her teeth, lifting her chin a bit, exuding all the fake confidence she can scour from her body.

“Thomas, this isn’t a conversation you want to have in front of your friends,” she says, garnering an ominous “ooh” from the table. Something in Thomas’ eyes turns a bit dangerous, a blush beginning to color his face. Embarrassment and middle school boys with entitlement issues is a bad combination, Gretchen thinks, but she doesn’t let her expression falter for a second.

“Babe, I don’t wanna fight…” he says, forcing a cool tone. It wavers a bit on the end of his sentence, and to the untrained eye, it could be misconstrued as a chuckle. Gretchen knows better.

“Then let’s walk to the courtyard and have a conversation. You’ll be back before you know it.”

“Alright, alright, you wore me down,” he says as he raises his hands in surrender, before carefully extricating himself from the group. He brushes his hair back for a second, and Gretchen braces herself for the worst.

First, she smiles at him in the saddest, most innocently watery way she can manage. She has to pretend that she doesn’t want this, she reminds herself.

He lumbers over to her, and she grabs his hand and pulls him down the hall, out into the open. She sits on the bench that faces out towards the city, where they can see the hum of activity while still under the safety of their middle school.

“What’s this about, Gretchen? You totally embarrassed me out there, and-”

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I embarrassed you, it’s just-” she starts, her voice straining and getting teary enough to silence him, “-I don’t know how to tell you this.”

“Are you gay?” he asks, quietly and earnestly, making Gretchen’s stomach flip.

“No! Of course not! My parents just- they said we can’t be together anymore. I’m not gay. Why would you…?” she asks, hoping that the panic wasn’t too obvious.

“I’m sorry, my sister came out last night and the way you guys, um, prefaced it? Is that the right word?” Gretchen nods, so he continues, “it was the same and I thought that I can’t be that unlucky, but whatever. So your parents don’t want us to be together?”

“Yeah. I’m sorry, Thomas, but my family is too important to me for me to go against them like that. I really like you, but I can’t be with you if it means lying to my parents.”

Then, silence. Thomas seems to chew the excuse over, thinking hard on it. Unreadable emotions flash across his eyes, until he seems to mentally make a decision, bringing his eyes back up to Gretchen with all of the conviction he could muster.

“I think that’s bullshit.”

“What?”

“You’re lying. I don’t know what you’re lying about, but I’m not dumb. I know that you think you’re being so smart right now, lying to me and getting out of this easy. Fine, you’re out. I never really liked you that much anyway,” says Thomas, daggers in his words like he’s aiming to hurt. Gretchen can’t be hurt, not by Thomas. There’s not enough left of her that he can hurt.

“The feeling’s mutual,” she spits out. “You can go back to your friends now, tell them about how much a bitch I am.”

He doesn’t even dignify that with an answer, he just stands up and walks away.

-

Her heart is beating fast, her body totally overcome by fear. Breakups, she realizes, even the most necessary and needed ones, will never fail to provide a massive internal action. Her stomach won’t stop flipping over, and she wonders idly if she should go home to rest, to fight the wave of nausea that always ripples beneath her skin.

As if the physical sensation of all that isn’t enough, the whispers begin around her, winding around her eyes as if they were tendrils of smoke, floating out of their mouths. Gretchen is too focused on this paranoia to notice Karen until she pointedly taps her shoulder.

“Yes?” Gretchen asks, hoping that her voice isn’t cracking in fear. The fear is what’s engulfing her, she can see disaster on the horizon.

“Is it true that you slapped Thomas?” Karen asks, and the fear bubbling in Gretchen’s stomach momentarily gives way to confusion.

“No?”

“Why make it a question? Did you, like, kind of slap him?” Karen asks, looking quite innocent.

“No! I just don’t know who told you that. Because I didn’t slap him, that’s idiotic,” Gretchen says. She hopes she sounds more confident than bitchy, but judging b the way Karen’s face falls a bit, it looks like the latter.

“Well, that’s what Regina told me that Kelly told her, and I don’t know who told Kelly that but-”

“Wait, Regina? She said that?”

“Yeah, apparently Kelly was saying-”

“I don’t care about what Kelly was saying,” Gretchen snaps, “what was Regina saying? Did she say I was a bitch, or something? Or that I left him because I’m a lesbian? Because I’m not a lesbian.”

Gretchen is letting her fears slip into her trembling voice, but Karen doesn’t notice that as much as she notices the way that any possible answer is definitely going to send Gretchen flying into hysterics.

“Regina was saying that Kelly was saying. I don’t know what you want from me,” says Karen, her tone frank and her eyes wide. Gretchen hates how insane this makes her feel, like she’s just making it all up, that something is irrevocably wrong with her and she can’t find it herself. Is she overreacting? Is she being an idiot? Is the spike of confidence just a mistake? She remembers that Karen is staring, and she gathers up every speck of resolve in her body to respond.

“I’m just worried that Regina believes things about me that are… untrue. I didn’t slap Thomas. I really don’t want that getting out,” she says, her voice calm as she could make it.

“I can tell Regina, if you want. Or you can tell her. I don’t know if she wants to talk to you right now, though.”

Gretchen’s stomach drops.

“What?”

“I don’t know, she seemed kind of annoyed that you and Thomas broke up. Something about you making us look bad, I think? She was talking pretty fast,” says Karen, and Gretchen’s blood is boiling while Karen’s words amble on at her signature slow pace.

“I need to go talk to her. Where is she?” says Gretchen, and she cringes for a moment at the sound of her own voice, at the way it scrapes against her ears. Karen doesn’t notice, her eyes are on the ceiling as she considers the question.

“I kinda remember her saying that she was going to be spending lunch at the student garden?”

“Why?” Gretchen asks, remembering how Karen hated dirt almost as much as she hated the “suckup sixth graders” who made a school garden and got a charity award for it.

“She got gardening shears from her grandma so she’s gonna use them to cut up the tomato plants.”

“Couldn’t she do that with normal scissors?” Gretchen asks, and the distraction calms her down the tiniest bit. This, unlike so much of the other shit that’s been swirling around in her life, is it’s own twisted kind of normal.

“Yeah, but the shears gave her the idea.”

Sounds like her, Gretchen thinks idly, before remembering with a shock why she was here in the first place- because she was in some deep shit.

“I’m going to go,” she says, turning and not even bothering to look at Karen’s reaction. All of her attention turns to her speed walking down the hall, into the ache of her stylish shoes on her feet, into the way the air hits her face as she maneuvers around clumps of students.

Soon, she’s outside, and a thought sparks in her head, and stoked by the spring air of nature and the acrid gasoline of discontent, it catches flame.

Gretchen Weiners doesn’t deserve this.

Gretchen Weiners is a smart, capable girl with a big heart and pretty eyes and she’s so much more than this. She’s more than these tears that rest behind her eyes whenever confrontation with Regina looms around the corner, she’s more than this feeling of unworthiness that gets pushed on her.

She doesn’t deserve this and she never did deserve it.

Her steps slow as the garden gets closer. It’s ramshackle and nowhere as near powerful as Regina makes it sound. It’s not something to hate, it just exists. This garden isn’t a threat, or anything, Regina just hates it because she wants to hate.

Gretchen is tired of hating for hate’s sake, tired of being hated for hate’s sake. Behind a lacy vine, she can see Regina’s platinum blonde hair as she bends over, presumably trying to cut the plant from its roots.

“Hey, Regina!” shouts Gretchen. Regina’s hair lifts out of the screen of the leaves, until her head is seen just above the plants.

“Gretch,” she says in response, her voice a gorgeous cocktail of smug disapproval and feigned nonchalance.

“Karen said that you were talking about me.”

“Karen’s an idiot.”

Silence. Regina just stares at Gretchen, at the shine of the sun beating down on her shoulders. Regina’s eyes narrow the slightest bit, and Gretchen takes a deep breath and steels herself.

“Karen was dumb enough to tell me what you said. I don’t appreciate you talking behind my back,” says Gretchen, resolutely trying not to let her voice waver. She just barely succeeds. There’s a flash of fear behind Regina’s eyes, and Gretchen gets this rush of confidence, this unbeatable feeling that she might just win her life back by the end of this.

“How many times did you have to practice that?” asks Regina, and it throws Gretchen off her balance for a second.

“What?”

“How many times did you practice that? Did you write drafts?” asks Regina, and she begins to walk towards Gretchen, leaving the shield of the tomato plant.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re scared of me. I know it, you know it, everybody knows it.”

“That’s not-” starts Gretchen, hearing her own voice rise dangerously in pitch.

“True? Of course it is. You’d do anything just because I told you to. You sat outside of Karen’s house during a party just because I told you to-”

“And I didn’t deserve that!” interrupts Gretchen, louder and more passionate than she expected. Her stomach immediately drops, and she realizes that it’s out of fear. She holds back the “sorry” that just wants out of her mouth, and instead grinds her heel into the dirt of the garden, as if trying to plant herself in the soil.

“But you did it. Because you know who you are and who I am.”

“And what is that?”

Regina falters for a second, and Gretchen entertains the possibility that it’s because she just doesn’t know the answer. Then, the fire in Regina’s eyes settles and her whole body seems to relax like a villain who just found the final puzzle piece of their dastardly plan.

“Why do people do what I say, then? You’re the daughter of toaster strudel, but why do you answer to me? You may think you’re some hot shit on paper, but there’s something that you just can’t put your finger on, huh? Can’t understand why you can’t do anything without thinking of me while I almost never think of you?”

Something about that hits Gretchen right in the gut. Regina must see the way her face falls, the way that she’s bit short of breath, because she doubles down.

“You know who I am, and who you are. I’m Regina Fucking George, and your last name is literally Weiners. And next time you think of embarrassing me like that, think about that, think about the fact that there’s just something wrong with you, something broken, and no amount of bravado is going to fix that. “

Gretchen doesn’t know what this is, she hasn’t noticed it until it’s mentioned, but it suddenly seems too real to ignore. All of her confidence and rebellion crumples away as she begins to think- think about the possibility that Regina is right.

What’s wrong with her? And why does it feel like Regina is the one with the answer?

“You can go, if you want, I don’t need you. You can leave me, and you can go dyke it up with Janis or just fade away. I don’t need you,” Regina says. There’s no more weakness in her body, no sign of a tremor- she’s all power, a perfect predator in this very moment.

The retorting words hang on Gretchen’s tongue. I don’t need you either. I never did and I never will. I don’t need you I don’t need you I don’t-

“If you wanna go, then go. I’ll be fine.”

I don’t need you.

Gretchen seems to be going crazy, because she just can’t get the words out. They’re clogging up her throat, making her feel a bit woozy. Suddenly, all of the physical sensations hit her in an unbeatable rush, washing over her. She feels tired and nauseous and on fire, and she can’t tell if she’s about to faint or throw up or both at the same time.

Regina looks at her, at the way she’s gone pale, and she begins to walk away, taking long confident strides. She only turns her head back when she hears the might thump on the ground, and sees that Gretchen passed out in the middle of the school gardens, so overwhelmed by the fight.

-

The story of the time that Regina yelled at Gretchen so loudly that she fainted out of fear becomes a bit of a legend around the school merely seconds after it happened.

The story gets morphed and contorted over all the different tellings, but one thing remains unchanging, and it changes everything about the situation: Regina never tells anyone else the truth about what happened.

Gretchen may have quietly decided that she didn’t want Regina in her life anymore, but it was hard to extricate herself, especially when Regina was defending her in front of her very eyes. Regina could really work her way around a conversation, and it was mesmerizing.

The first time she sees it, she’s walking up to their lunch table while Regina is fact checking some poor seventh grader. Regina doesn’t know that Gretchen is there, so whatever she sees feels way more honest, despite the fact that it’s Regina and she’s literally lying to somebody.

“No, Hannah, she didn’t fake it. I was there, it was real. Gretchen’s not an attention whore… I’m sure that concept is unfamiliar to you.”

Gretchen doesn’t know exactly what she’s hearing, but she knows that it makes her heart warm and her brain a little bit soft.

“Gretchen was dehydrated. She was broken up over having to break up with Thomas, we all were-”

“Why did she break up with him, then? If she was so sad?” Hannah asks, crossing her arms in some weird, adolescent show of aggression.

“Oh my god, you know nothing about relationships, and it shows. She broke up with him because her parents would’ve ruined her life- they are so strict! One time, I was at her house, and they made her do the dishes. They’re like, super rich, so they could’ve had a maid do it, but they just wanted to torture her. And that was when she did nothing wrong! Imagine if she was dating a guy they didn’t approve of…” says Regina, and Gretchen breathes in sharply because holy shit this girl knows how to play a part.

It would be terrifying if Gretchen wasn’t fragile and therefore very impressed by basic signs of love from someone like her.

Regina doesn’t even need to say the words to apologize, because Gretchen forgives her somewhere between the story about her being secretly hypoglycemic and the one where she fainted all on her own, and Regina happened to discover her in the garden and therefore she has no idea whatsoever on why it happened, so stop asking oh my god-

And so with that, with the heady silence of a kept secret and the niggling question of “what if she was right about me?”, Gretchen stays. It’s easier than she ever expected it to be.

-

Gretchen discovers a lot about herself at the beginning of high school, if only because Regina spends those first days introducing the crew to the world, and her definition of Gretchen Weiners is eye opening. Gretchen Weiners becomes a character constructed by Regina’s deft hand, and that realization has its natural implications. The first implication is that Gretchen’s mom’s disappointment in her is dawning, newly becoming a defining feature of their relationship.

The first thing her mom says when she walks into the living room on the first day of school says enough. With her breakfast (a granola bar and water) in hand and a sparkly tank top, her mom just stares. Gretchen stills.

“You hate that shirt,” her mom says. It’s not a question or an accusation, just an observation, a shared memory. Gretchen can just barely recall the day she bought the shirt, with her mom at her side.

This is your fault, she thinks. You’re the idiot who told your mom how much you hated the shirt and how much Regina wanted you to wear it. Idiot. Dumbass. You don’t even deserve to feel bad.

“No I don’t,” she lies, and she practically slams the front door open with a quiet mutter about not being late to the bus. She can’t tell who she’s disappointing more- her mom or herself.

The second implication is that Gretchen is now under the obligation to keep up with an act that’s characterized by harsh intelligence and unwavering loyalty to Regina. The latter wasn’t necessarily new, but it felt heavier now, like it meant more.

Gretchen gets the slight feeling that this relationship is starting to mean more to Regina too, like they need each other. Regina hugs a bit tighter now, is gentler when she braids Gretchen’s hair. To compensate, her insults cut a bit deeper, but Gretchen just thinks that it’s because Regina cares about her, not because she hates her. If Regina hated her, Gretchen thinks, she’d know, right?

Right?

After that bombastic fight and odd making up period, Gretchen’s opinion of Regina is even more split. She wants to be nothing like her and everything like her at the same time, wants to live on her skin and be on the other side of the world from her at the same time.

Gretchen’s own confusion probably makes her easier to mold, but the more she thinks about this angle, the more her head hurts.

The third and final implication is that now Gretchen matters, because now she’s been officially added to the narrative. There’s no leaving without being a part of the official story of their tight group, and everyone is watching them. Eyes are on her, and they weigh down her shoulders.

This cocktail makes for an interesting freshman year.

Sometime in the first week, Gretchen awkwardly skirts around the club posters that she knows will cause trouble- the Jewish Student Union, the Book Club, and most importantly, the Gay Straight Alliance. That was to be avoided at all costs.

Despite vowing this to herself, Gretchen still couldn’t help but feel drawn to Room 321 when that lunch period rolled around, when she knew that the meeting would be going down.

She’s totally crazy. This is totally crazy. She can’t just go in there and say that she’s gay, that’s just a non starter.

Despite this screeching inner dialogue, she still twists the door knob, revealing the club inside.

She takes a step in and examines her surroundings: the bookshelf that stands against the wall, the rickety desks, and most importantly, the gay activities in the center.

It’s just a bunch of gay kids talking. Now, however, they aren’t talking, because a silence has come over them and they’re turning their heads and holy shit they’re looking at me, they’re all looking at me, holy shit.

“Hey! You here for the GSA meeting?” asks the person who’s obviously the leader of the pack, judging by the way they sit so confidently on the desk and all the others look to them as if they hold the key to whatever is about to go down. Gretchen can’t help but feel some grudging respect, before remembering what was happening.

Looking around, she saw all these kids, kids that could absolutely ruin her if she said the truth and they, god forbid, repeated it. She also saw kids who could listen to her, who could pat her on the back and make her realize that this is real, that things are going to change whether she likes it or not. These are kids that could be her best friends, that could hold the truth in their hands.

She turned around on her heel and walked out, with a bright red flush on her face and the soreness of held-in tears hammering against the backs of her eyes.

-

By the second month of Gretchen’s freshman year, she has a solid place in Regina’s royal court as the right hand woman, a Photos Album just named “Receipts”, and a new boyfriend named Tony.

He’s a sweetheart, really. He still listens to radio pop, he sends “Goodnight” and “Good morning” texts, and he and Gretchen have a Mutual Agreement™. It’s not a thing they talk about outside of the layers of subtext and meaningful glances.

It actually starts through radio pop, when the two of them are at a concert for some girl band pop act. She’s a bit punch drunk from the music, so after the concert, while they’re waiting outside for his mom to pick them up, she starts talking without her familiar filter.

“I always preferred girl bands, y’know? It’s like, they were just- so pretty, and, oof. I know this makes me sound like… but oof, they’ve always been my favorite,” says Gretchen, before looking over to see thar Tony looks relieved, instead of disgusted or confused.

“I’m the same,” he says, intentionally locking eyes with Gretchen, who’s suddenly aware of the feeling of her heart thundering in her chest.

Gretchen just nods and considers this the moment that they come out to each other.

-

Freshman year really is a formative time for Gretchen, because in between good morning and good night texts to Tony alongside the grand, looming terror that is her own sexuality, she becomes the messenger and all knowing worker bee at the center of the school’s biggest scandal.

Buzz attracts buzz, apparently, and after being the all knowing character in the immediately iconic “Flygate 2k16”, people started reporting to her, like she was some kind of tip line for petty drama amongst the whole grade.

It’s when Julianna Lopez-Bukowski tells her about Regina making out with her then-boyfriend that it becomes an issue.

Julianna had famously been with her boyfriend, Randy (yeah, gross) McGowan since fourth grade, until they broke up on Halloween of freshman year, which really fucked up their couples costume. As honored as Gretchen is to know the real reason why they split, the fact that the reason is Regina is… a bit of a can of worms.

Regina’s like, her protector. Is this the sort of thing that Gretchen can let slide? Can Gretchen just… know this? And more importantly, does she have to tell Regina that she knows this? Gretchen has the unwavering fear, no matter how illogical it seems, that this knowledge will end with her in a ditch no matter what.

She settles for letting Regina know, but pretending that she doesn’t believe one word of what Julianna’s saying, no matter how obviously true it is.

Regina calls Julianna a “lying bitch-ass slut”, which is quickly inscribed in the Burn Book.

The Burn Book.

Gretchen helps Regina come up with it during a sleepover, and she regrets it almost immediately. It carries too much trouble in her mind. It feels like a Pandora’s Box, with trouble and catastrophe laced in the pages.

She still plays along, laughing when Regina scrapes out “Space Dyke” over Regina’s page in that bloody red marker. It feels like Regina’s chiseling those words into Gretchen’s soul. It’s a warning, a threat. This is what happens. This is what happens to traitors of Regina’s cult of performative heterosexuality. This is the punishment.

The message is clear. Gretchen sinks a bit further into her place. She posts pictures with Tony, she takes screenshots of private conversations, and she gains Regina’s trust.

Freshman year ends like this, with Gretchen’s mind a clashing battlefield of unkept secrets and the secrets so well kept that they seem locked inside of her, like they’re a stain on her bones. They fill up her head until she’s dizzy.

-

That summer, between freshman and sophomore year, she kisses a girl for the first time. That girl is Regina.

She’s already insecure as a result of the pool party. She spent too long staring at her stomach in that two piece swimsuit, walking the way it distorted beneath the weight and stretch of her own eyes. That much spooked her, and entering the party itself just turned every feeling up to ten.

She wanted to swim away the thoughts, but she also didn’t want to get her hair wet. She didn’t know if she was supposed to look at Tony’s shirtlessness, and it was throwing her into a tailspin. If she made a point to cast longing glances, she’d probably be called a slut. If she acted as unaffected as she was, she might get called a dyke.

Decisions, decisions.

It’s a game of truth or dare when it happens. Everyone is sitting in the backyard in a crooked circle, sitting on towels and sipping on sodas (or in Gretchen’s case, ice waters). It’s Tony’s turn, weirdly enough. He’s sitting next to Gretchen, as they chastely hold hands. While he gives Regina the dare, he squeezes Gretchen’s hand meaningfully, making her realize, with a start, what was going to happen.

“Kiss a girl in the circle. On the lips,” he says.

“For at least thirty seconds!” shouts Jake Richardson from across the circle.

“Oh, I see what game you’re playing, Tony… what if I kissed your girlfriend, huh?” she asks, sultry in a way that makes Gretchen flush even though she knows that it absolutely isn’t meant for her.

“Like you could turn her,” scoffs Jake. “Gretchen’s straight as a fucking ruler.”

This is a cold comfort, but Gretchen doesn’t get the time to cling to it. She’s too distracted by Regina fucking crawling across the circle, looking at her like she’s prey. Gretchen hates how she might just be into that.

Regina smiles, and lets loose a little bit of a giggle. Gretchen can’t understand what’s real and what’s performance anymore. They’re so close now. Her eyes must be wide as saucers. Every now and then they flick down to Regina’s lips and what the fuck she’s biting them now who let her do that. Then Regina leans down and their lips touch.

Gretchen tries to stay as still as she can. She doesn’t want to reveal her inner lesbian, doesn’t want it to pop out and cause her to root her fingers in Regina’s hair.

“C’mon, Gretch, at least put your hands on her waist, or something,” yells some oy from across the circle, causing Regina to pull apart and whip her head around to face him. Some of her hair gets stuck in Gretchen’s lip gloss, and it’s so grossly intimate that she almost cries right then and there.

“Asshole! Now we have to start it again,” says Regina, and Gretchen’s eyes widen because since when were those the rules? Whatever, she shakes it off. It doesn’t matter.

“Gretchen, can you at least pretend to be into it? I’m dying of boredom over here,” says Justine, of all people. Gretchen has moment of confusion, remembering Justine talk about ending a friendship just because she suspected that her friend was a lesbian. Why did Justine want them to make out?

“Fine, fine,” says Gretchen, hoping her voice isn’t trembling. “What do you guys want me to do?”

A barrage of suggestions come floating to her from all sides of the circle. Pull her hair. Touch her waist. Put your arms around her shoulders. Slip some tongue. Act like you’re into it.

Gretchen turns to Regina, who’s sexy excitement has begun to wither away into impatience. Gretchen takes a deep breath, thinks a quick prayer, and dives the fuck in.

The realization that she now has 30 seconds to kiss a hot girl with no social repercussions hangs in the back of her mind, and she starts by sucking a bit on Regina’s bottom lip and holy shit this is awesome. Regina gasps a little at the sudden change of pace, so Gretchen uses that momentary shift to take all of the power in the kiss.

She licks Regina’s bottom lip, relishing the taste of cherry lip gloss there and appreciating the way that Regina immediately opens her mouth, inviting in the French Kiss, but Gretchen’s not done. She uses the chance to bite Regina’s lip, before diving in further. Her hands come up from Regina’s hips (when did they land there?) to grab two fistfuls of her hair. She pulls a bit, kisses her one more time as deeply as she can manage, and then uses the hair to pull Regina’s lips off of hers.

They’re getting catcalls and jeers and scattered applause but that doesn’t matter because Regina looks absolutely wrecked, and Gretchen did that.

She unfurls her fists, lets Regina go, and sits back. She shakes herself out of whatever frenzied haze of lust that thatt, whatever it was, caught her up in, and grabs Tony’s hand again. She looks around the circle. Their eyes are darting between her and Regina, so she uses the attention to snatch back the tiniest control.

“That confirmed it- I’m definitely straight,” she says with a laugh. The other people in the circle laugh.

She looks at Regina.

Regina isn’t laughing. She looks mad.

Fuck.

-

JUNE 24, 8:31
To: Regina George
From: Gretchen Weiners
Why are you mad at me

To: Gretchen Weiners
From: Regina George
I’m not mad, why would I be mad?

To: Regina George
From: Gretchen Weiners
You know why...Because of the pool party

To: Gretchen Weiners
From: Regina George
Why would that make me mad? It was a good party.

To: Regina George
From: Gretchen Weiners
We kissed. Afterwards you seemed mad?

To: Gretchen Weiners
From: Regina George
I’m not gay

To: Regina George
From: Gretchen Weiners
I’m not?? Saying that? I’m straight too

To: Gretchen Weiners
From: Regina George
LOL

To: Regina George
From: Gretchen Weiners
What?

To: Gretchen Weiners
From: Regina George
You seemed pretty gay when we kissed

To: Regina George
From: Gretchen Weiners
People literally told me to play it up I don’t know where you’re getting this idea. It was 100% performance. You and I both know that

To: Gretchen Weiners
From: Regina George
Do we? I’ve seen the way you look at me

To: Regina George
From: Gretchen Weiners
You think everyone has a crush on you

To: Gretchen Weiners
From: Regina George
No, I don’t

To: Regina George
From: Gretchen Weiners
You just can’t tell the difference between a person choosing to be around you and a person desperately in love with you. You’re so narcissistic sometimes, holy shit

To: Gretchen Weiners
From: Regina George
Fuck you

To: Regina George
From: Gretchen Weiners
FUCK YOU

To: Gretchen Weiners
From: Regina George
You’re a fucking dyke and everyone knows it

To: Regina George
From: Gretchen Weiners
The party had a full conversation on my immovable heterosexuality, so I’m pretty sure no one but you thinks I’m gay

To: Gretchen Weiners
From: Regina George
Fine. I’ll revise my statement. You’re a dyke and I know it.

To: Regina George
From: Gretchen Weiners
Calm down

To: Gretchen Weiners
From: Regina George
???

To: Regina George
From: Gretchen Weiners
I’m not gay. Are you?

To: Gretchen Weiners
From: Regina George
No

To: Regina George
From: Gretchen Weiners
Then we don’t have a problem

To: Gretchen Weiners
From: Regina George
You’re boyfriend’s gay

To: Regina George
From: Gretchen Weiners
You’re acting fucking crazy

To: Gretchen Weiners
From: Regina George
No I’m not

To: Regina George
From: Gretchen Weiners
Why are you so obsessed with me being gay? Maybe you’re the one who likes me. You were awfully eager about that kiss, even before everyone told us to play it up

To: Gretchen Weiners
From: Regina George
IM NOT GAY

To: Regina George
From: Gretchen Weiners
Neither am I

To: Gretchen Weiners
From: Regina George
Fine.

JUNE 24, 10:00

To: Regina George
From: Gretchen Weiners
Regina?

JUNE 25, 1:56
To: Regina George
From: Gretchen Weiners
Seriously Regina stop ignoring me. You can’t just do that. You have to talk to me.

JUNE 25, 2:30
To: Gretchen Weiners
From: Regina George
Ltet’s just not talk about this ever again, okay?

To: Regina George
From: Gretchen Weiners
Fine

-

Regina acts normal after the kissing debacle. Too normal.

She hooks up with and then wraps herself around Aaron Samuels, taking him over and making him move to her will like a marionette puppet. She pities him. She wishes she were him. It’s complicated, okay?

Her mom is also now on her back about everything relating to Tony, which adds another layer of weird to the whole thing, because Tony’s gayness is blooming under the harsh summer sun. He’s being stupid, letting his gaze linger a bit more, spending less time putting the effort into being with Gretchen as publicly as he can. She realizes that he might just be tired of the closet, of the constant stress and wear it hangs on you.

Of course she sympathizes. Of course she has those days where she just wants to chop off all of her hair and let herself be everything she’s feared.

But she can’t. She’s too deep in this lie, she’s been living it for so long. A small part of her wonders what she’d even be like without the thick veneer of the lie. Who is Gretchen when you take away the lies and the performance and the strain? What if there’s nothing under there?

She stays in the closet.

Two months into sophomore year, Tony gets caught making out with a dude in a closet.

Karen’s the one who catches him, weirdly enough, because she was trying to pull her own guy into the janitor’s closet, but they opened the door to discover Tony and Jonathan Greenblatt in each other’s arms. It’s horribly cliche, but it somehow makes Gretchen look fantastic.

It’s hard to call her a snooping bitch when her boyfriend just got caught cheating on her wItH a MaN(?!), Gretchen discovers. She plays that shit for sympathy for the rest of the year. The added benefit is that no one questions why she’s single… after all, with a betrayal like that, who wouldn’t need a substantial amount of time to heal?

-

Gretchen’s storm calms, weirdly enough. She finds comfort in the strain, in the monotony of the closet and screaming inside and wishing that things would change. Sophomore year passes in pity and fake sympathy, and Junior year starts the same way. Tony’s role in her story is faded away, but she’s still Gretchen. The same Gretchen that everyone sees as frenetic and fragile and wholly dependent on Regina.

It’s her brand, being pitied but hated all at once, and she’s used to things.

Then Cady Heron shows up.

Things more or less go to shit.