Work Text:
Regina’s tracking turf all over the apartment, again. Janis makes a mental note to vacuum, again. She’s wearing black Nike Pros and an oversized t-shirt that used to belong to Aaron, but he never wanted it back, and Janis can't tear her eyes away from the giant, purple and blue bruises that litter her thighs.
There’s one that takes up the majority of her quad that’s mostly green at this point but Janis still isn’t happy with the fact that it’s there. But what Regina wants, Regina gets, so she plays club college rugby.
<>
Regina gets into Cal State San Luis Obispo as an English Literature and French double major. She’s walking out the dining hall when someone yells, “Hey, blondie!”
When Regina turns around, an Asian girl sits behind a table that has a sign reading ‘Cal Poly Women’s Rugby’ and two other girls standing around the table, all watching her.
“You look like you could be a bad bitch. Do you play sports?”
Regina plasters a fake smile on her face as she approaches. “I played lacrosse my senior year. Regina George.”
“You should come check out rugby. I’m Nirina. That’s our president, Ellie, and one of our VP’s, Madi. We’re having an information meeting next Monday in the East Engineering Building, room 111, and then we’ll go off campus for froyo. Don’t worry about transportation, the vets will drive,” Nirina says as she hands her a flyer. “Hope to see you there, Regina.”
The first couple weeks of practice consist of Regina being confused about the rules of rugby and failing at passing the ball. Rugby is a lot more running than she expected. She learns how to pass and she runs way too many miles than she ever did in lacrosse. When they learn contact, Regina falls in love with rugby. It’s much more satisfying than shoulder checking girls in lacrosse or throwing the ball as hard as she can. But tackling? Regina slams her shoulder into the bag and the coach holding it grunts as he’s forced to step backwards. When she returns to the line, the vets congratulate her on her form and confidence, and Regina soaks it up.
<>
She plays for the B team for the first half of the season, but the A team’s inside centre injures her shoulder, so Regina gets chosen to play the rest of the season. Her first game is against Santa Clara, which is supposed to be an easy game, and Regina’s never been more ready.
They fuck Santa Clara up 50-12 and Regina scores her first try. They run “bite,” where Regina and her flyhalf run a switch and Regina is to pass it out to the weak side wing, but Regina sees a gap in the defensive line and books it. When one of their tiny forwards tries to tackle her, Regina tucks the ball and stiff arms her and she touches the ball down in the middle of the try zone. Her backs captain is the first one in her face, screaming “Fuck yeah, George!”
They social at the field with shitty pizza with Santa Clara, but Regina’s not in the mood to chat with the other team. Finally, they go to the rugby house and she gets to unwind with plenty of booze and she gets her boot. Regina doesn’t exactly get rugby traditions. They sing weird songs that are crude in a way that Regina, as promiscuous as she can be, is uncomfortable. There’s a strong drinking culture that she doesn’t always like (she doesn’t remember what happened at Rookie Night. The last thing she remembers is her second game of Rage Cage). And there’s the boot: according to Ellie, everyone has to “shoot the boot” after they score their first try. Regina’s is a horrible mix of vodka, yellow gatorade, pasta sauce, raisins, and cheerios. When she gags, she wonders why she joined rugby, but she downs as much as she can, liquid dripping down her chin when she pulls the boot away.
“Fuck my life, oh my fucking god, Nirina,” Regina curses her big. “Why are you so full of hate, oh my fucking god. I hate you so much right now. For fuck’s sake.”
“Good girl, Georgie. Take it like a champ.”
The video of Regina shooting her boot gets put in their Snapchat group chat, and Regina has to say that she looks fucking hot, in her white rugby shorts and green Cal Poly crop top, her hair in two French plaits, and a smug smile on her face as she puts the boot down. Regina posts it on her spam, and her phone gets blown up by her high school friends, most of the texts being from Karen and Gretchen screaming about how good she looks. They’re damn good friends, even after all the shit that they went through in high school.
[jimi.ike06 4:39 PM]
you go to cal poly?
[jimi.ike06 4:39 PM]
how did i not know this?
[georegina 4:41 PM]
Why do you care?
[jimi.ike06 4:41 PM]
i didnt know we ended up at the same school is all
Regina’s quite ambivalent towards the fact that Janis is also at Cal Poly. Janis is an art student and Regina is an English major. She doesn’t anticipate that she’ll run into Janis that often, seeing as her life mostly exists in the gym, English building, her dorm room, and the Lower Fields.
She’s proven wrong when she sees Janis in the dining hall every day the next week. So, she pulls her shit together and sits down with Janis for lunch, apologising for everything that happened in middle school and high school. Janis asks to wipe the slate clean and start fresh because she’s so tired of holding this grudge. It turns out that they both eat lunch between classes at the same time, so it becomes routine to eat lunch together.
<>
Janis is funnier than Regina remembers. She’s witty and quick, and Regina likes how she’s so laid back and really doesn’t give a shit about Regina’s bitchiness when she’s having a bad day thanks to her back and she’s sore after a tough practice. Even in middle school, Janis was the best at reading Regina, and she pulls that shoe on like she never took it off. On her bad days, Janis always walks slower and offers to do anything to relieve the pain. She takes Regina’s backpack, helps her up the stairs, and walks her to classes even though it means that she might be late to her own classes.
Regina’s not gay. Her palms definitely don’t get a little bit sweaty whenever Janis is around. Her stomach definitely doesn't flutter just a little whenever Janis greets her with a crooked smile and requesting her backpack. She definitely doesn’t feel anything whenever Janis walks her to class. She brings Janis to all the rugby socials, but she doesn’t think about how all of her teammates think that they’re dating. She doesn’t dwell on the way that whenever she brings Janis to a social, they stick close together with their fingers linked, even if they’re not in the same conversations.
<>
Cal Poly loses to University of San Francisco in the playoffs, and Regina’s life is suddenly a lot more empty. Sure, the team plays touch on Thursday nights, but they’re not playing sevens this year, so Regina suddenly has a lot more free time. She ends up splitting time between her own dorm and Janis’s as she writes her papers and does the maths courses she doesn’t think that she needs.
Regina’s on FaceTime with Cady and Cady is trying to help her with her stats homework when Janis throws open her door and drops face first onto Regina’s bed, screaming into her pillow.
“Hey, bitch, get your outside clothes off my bed. I just washed my sheets.”
“Shut the fuck up, I just failed that chem midterm I was studying for last week.”
“Aw, is baby having a bad day? Suck it up,” Regina snaps. “Get the fuck off my bed and be miserable on the floor.”
“Damn, you really know how to treat a girl.”
Regina freezes. “I don’t treat girls, Janis.” She’s not sure what she means by that, but she’s not gay.
“Regina, I thought you were trying to be nicer,” Cady admonishes.
“Jay is being a bitch, so I can be a bitch right back at her.”
Regina pretends like she doesn’t notice Cady make a face at their interaction. There’s nothing weird going on between her and Janis. She rolls on like the whole ordeal didn’t happen, and goes back to her homework. Janis stays on her floor.
<>
All her friends think that she’s insane when she wakes up every day at 5:00 AM to run and work out in the summer. Karen is baffled when Regina declines their old tradition of their Monday evening hot girl walk because she has a sevens game to watch. Because no one else has plans, everyone ends up in the George living room watching a sport none of them know or care about. Regina’s screaming at the TV and stalking around behind the couch as Ireland is losing to England.
“Is she always like this about rugby?” Cady whispers to Janis, probably aiming to not be overheard but Regina is extremely good at pinpointing whenever someone is talking to her.
“Cady, shush. No talking during rugby—fucking hell, stop getting juked! Close the space faster you goddamn idiot!”
They don’t watch rugby with her for the rest of the summer.
<>
When preseason starts up, Regina sets a stupidly fast time on her first Bronco of the year. It’s obvious that she’s the only one who did serious conditioning over the summer.
“Fuck, Georgie, when’d you get so fast? Are you trying to make the rest of us look bad?”
“I’m not trying, it’s just happening,” Regina tells Nirina smugly.
Regina lives in the rugby house but Janis is still on campus, and they spend most of their free time in Janis’s dorm. Janis still goes to every rugby social as Regina’s plus one, even though Regina knows that she’s not the biggest fan of parties. Regina even spends most of her nights in Janis’s dorm because she’s on campus so late at night and Janis refuses to let her walk back to her house in the dark.
Janis is an RA (she says because she gets free room and board so she can pretend to be enthusiastic about hosting socials), and she has a single. Regina thinks about buying an air mattress the first time she stays over at Janis’s room and Janis sleeps on the floor so Regina won’t hurt her back any more than the shitty mattress already does, but Janis ends up curled up in bed with her when halfway through the night, she gets cold and pokes Regina until she wakes up.
“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, but I’m cold and if I steal the blanket from you, you’ll be cold. You don’t mind if we share, do you?”
“Sure, whatever, bitch,” Regina mumbles, mostly asleep but scooting over enough so that Janis can lay down.
Regina panics when she wakes up because she’s wrapped around Janis, her hand under her sleep shirt and her face tucked into the back of Janis’s neck. She can’t extricate herself from Janis’s bed because unless something has changed since middle school, Janis is an incredibly light sleeper. Their position is starting to hurt her back, and her painkillers are in her backpack, so Regina clumsily clambers out of bed because she can’t be bothered to be careful with Janis when her lower back is starting to throb.
“Ow, what the hell, Reg?”
Regina’s busy digging through her backpack for her pills when Janis speaks up. She’s going to regret taking this on an empty stomach, but it’ll be more bearable than her back aching until she finds breakfast (and Janis’s building is one of the furthest from the student union. She’s not going to eat the junk food that Janis keeps in her room for breakfast).
Sharing a bed with Janis becomes a daily activity. She stops being weird about waking up with Janis after a couple months. She’s not a lesbian and normal straight people don’t panic about waking up in the same bed as their best friend. She’s never once panicked over sharing a bed with Gretchen, Karen, or Cady. She doesn’t know why she gets so weird over Janis. Maybe because it’s Janis and their relationship has never been normal.
Regina’s roommate in the rugby house quips about how she’s never in the house because she’s always with Janis after practice and she lashes out. Janis is waiting at the gate of the field and hears the remark. She’s quick to grab Regina’s wrist and spin her away from the one teammate that didn’t seem to know to not joke about Regina and Janis.
“Reg, breathe. You’re not allowed to ruin any lives and you’re sure as hell not allowed to yell at your own teammate. Are you trying to get sanctioned?”
“No, but I’m not going to let some bitch get away with slandering you. I did enough of that in high school,” Regina hisses.
“I’m not the one who has a problem with it! You’re so weird about our friendship for no reason. Stop being weird because I’m gay and you say that you’re not. Now come on, you’re just going to get yourself into more trouble if I leave you here.”
Janis drags her away from the field and all the way to her dorm.
“Are you fucking insane, Regina? This is the only thing you look forward to and you look like you’re trying to fuck up your own life. Stop self sabotaging because we’re friends again and that you keep being weird about how our friendship is different from yours with the other girls in your life. You didn’t out them and make them social pariahs.”
“Fuck, I’m still so sorry about that, Jay. You’re so much more than your sexual identity and I’m sorry that I took the opportunity for you to express yourself away when I was a stupid middle schooler.”
“Stop apologising, fool. We’re past it. Tabula rasa, right?”
Janis falls asleep while Regina is working on a paper for her French literature class. She steps out of Janis’s room and calls Damian. They might not be close, but she can trust him with what she wants to talk about.
“Hey, girl! How are you?” Damian is enthusiastic as ever after the bus incident and Regina had proven that she’s not going to ruin Janis’s life again (it also helped that Janis had threatened him with blocking him on Spotify if he didn’t stop being suspicious of Regina after their freshman year of college).
“How did you know you’re gay?” Regina asks with no preamble. She doesn’t need Janis to wake up to Regina not being in her room, even though she left a note on the desk.
“Oh, okay, we’re having this conversation. Well, I think I always knew. It wasn’t like I was anti sports or dinosaurs or trucks or whatever it is that little boys stereotypically like. It was more like when in fourth grade and above when everyone started talking about their crushes, I never felt the way that the other boys felt about girls. At first, I didn’t feel anything like that for anyone, and I thought that there was something wrong with me. I couldn’t even pretend to have a crush on a girl because it just didn’t make sense to me. Like, you were always very pretty, but it wasn’t like I ever wanted to spend an extended amount of time with you. I was mostly ambivalent towards you when we were in elementary and middle school.
“There was this boy that moved to Evanston when we were in seventh grade, Tommy Moore. He was in choir with me and our friendship was so much more than I’d ever experienced with any of the other boys. I always wanted to spend time with him, sit next to him in class, eat lunch with him, everything. I was never as close with any of the other boys. Every day, I looked forward to lunch, the first time I saw him at school because he got dropped off and I took the bus and it would always arrive right before the bell rang. I’d never felt like this about a girl.
“There was also all the media I watched. I’d always look at the men first. At first I thought it was because I was jealous of their bodies because as you know, I’ve always been a little bit chubby, but as I got older I knew that I was attracted to them.”
“Shit,” Regina mumbles, seeing herself in Damian’s story.
“You know being gay isn’t a bad thing, right, Regina?”
“Thanks, Damian. I’ll get back to you on my conclusions.”
“Girl—”
Regina ends the call mid sentence. She’s trying her hardest to not panic in the laundry room because she’s not gay . She sees her relationship with Janis in Damian’s story of Tommy Moore, but that doesn't make her gay. She might play women’s rugby, but that doesn’t make her gay. She returns to Janis’s room to finish her paper.
She can’t sleep. She can’t stop thinking of how her relationship with Janis has never been the same as any of her other friendships. She lays on her back, staring at the ceiling, with Janis’s head on her shoulder and her arm is mostly asleep and tingling. Yeah, she loves Janis, but as soon as she let herself acknowledge how much Karen and Gretchen mean to her, she also started being a little more affectionate and telling her friends she loves them. But is she in love with Janis?
She can’t let herself be weird about it. She can’t let anything change or else Janis will know something is up and she’ll stop being friends with her because Regina is being weird again. She wakes up curled around Janis, again, ten minutes after her alarm’s supposed to have gone off. She has an 8 AM lecture, and she doesn’t have a change of clothes because she meant to go back to the house today. In her scramble to get out of bed, Janis wakes up.
Janis tells her to choose an outfit before she falls back asleep. Regina can’t focus in her lecture because the only thought that runs through her mind is that she’s wearing Janis’s jacket.
<>
Regina gets benched for the SJSU game for her unsportsmanlike conduct. She’s never been much of a team player, so she doesn’t show for practice the rest of the week, instead choosing to spend her evenings in the gym and punishing herself with brutal runs. She accidentally avoids Janis when she starts pulling all nighters in the library, working on three different projects. She’s drowning in assignments and her own punishments, but she doesn’t mean to ghost Janis. Regina’s found out as she’s sitting on the floor of the stacks, drafting an essay about how France’s colonial empire influenced its current global position in the world.
“Reg, why are you being weird? I thought we were in a good place again.”
“Yeah, we’re fine, Jay. I’m just really fucking busy. Sorry we haven’t been hanging out much, but this French History course is kicking my ass.”
“I don’t care that you’ve been busy, but you’re not allowed to drop off the face of the earth like that, man. I don’t really appreciate being ghosted by my best friend, Regina.”
“I’m sorry, Jay, I just haven’t been on my phone,” Regina lies (she’d been on the phone with Gretchen an hour ago panicking over Janis).
“Don’t lie, Reg. I know you were talking to Gretchen, She asked if you were okay because you’re being really weird on the phone.”
“Is our friendship, like, weirdly gay? Like, we share a bed most nights, we eat almost every meal together, and you’re like my only friend on campus,” Regina can’t help herself as she tries to start a fight with Janis. She’s not even sure if it’ll work because since middle school, Janis has grown so much more comfortable with her identity than Regina. But maybe, just maybe, if she starts hinting about eighth grade, Janis will blow up just a little bit.
“Do you want it to be weirdly gay? Because I’m fine with it being how it is.”
Regina hates that Janis matured and she’s stuck in this stupid phase of being uncomfortable with how she presents herself (at least in high school she was the queen bee. She knew who she was. Now, she just exists. She goes to class, goes to rugby, goes to Janis’s room. Rinse and repeat. There’s nothing defining about who she is now and she can’t handle it. Maybe if she lets go of the impossible standards that she set for herself in eighth grade when she couldn’t show weakness then she'll have some sort of identity rather than just another rich white girl).
“Please don’t be difficult, Janis, I’m having an identity crisis.”
Janis, all 63 inches of her, looms over Regina on the floor as she tries to find the courage to tell Janis about her problems with her identity. Not to mention the rising questions about her sexuality that have swirling in her head since her chat with Damian.
“How did you know you were gay?” Regina asks instead of explaining her own actions. She’s not exactly dying to know; she’s pretty sure that she has a crush on Janis. She’s not gay, it’s just Janis. Janis is different.
Regina does the thing she learned in high school about not listening while still looking like she’s listening because she already knows the story. She was right there when it was happening. If anyone’s going to be Regina’s “gay awakening” it’s Janis. Janis is different.
<>
Regina’s struck by the fact that she misses Janis when she’s on a bus to Santa Clara for their last game of the season. She’s only going to be gone for a day. She takes her anger and frustration over missing Janis and her weird friendship on Santa Clara’s backline and scores three tries. Her tackles feel immaculate and she even completes a poach when their defensive line is slow to get to the ruck.
They social at Santa Clara’s rugby house and it’s much better than the shitty Cal Poly socials that she’s used to. They set up Rage Cage early in the afternoon with those shitty Costco seltzers, and Regina talks to their outside centre while they play. Regina’s not known for her skills in drinking games, and she ends up with the bitch cup.
The outside centre breaks into song when Regina picks up the solo cup and drops to one knee.
“Why are we waiting, we should be masturbating! So drink motherfucker, drink motherfucker, drink motherfucker drink!”
She doesn’t gag on the weird combination of tequila, seltzer, and beer. Santa Clara’s vets set up a game of flip cup, but Regina doesn’t play. She sits on the ground and texts Janis instead. Eventually, the forwards captain gets up on the table and yells, “This is a repeat after me song!”
Knowing what this means, Regina scrambles up, grabs the screwdriver she never finished, and stands in the back of the crowd as the captain starts with days of the week. Regina doesn’t repeat what happens on Wednesday.
(“Today is Wednesday!’
“Today is Wednesday!’
“Wednesday’s an ahhh,” she shouts, her fingers in a V shape and her tongue between them.
“Wednesday’s an ahhh,” everyone shouts back, repeating the gesture.
“Tuesday’s a wanking day!”
“Tuesday’s a wanking day!”
“Monday’s a working day!”
“Monday’s a working day!”
“Is everybody happy?”
“You bet your ass we’re happy! Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da!” everyone else says, their drink above their heads as they spin around.)
Regina ends up talking with Santa Clara’s inside centre and flyhalf between songs. Their inside centre says, “We should do marrying kind,” mid conversation, and people all end up gathered next to the table as she starts singing.
“If I was the marrying kind, and thank the lord I’m not sir, the kind of rugger I would be, would be a rugby—”
“Outside centre, sir,” their inside centre says.
“Outside centre sir, why’s that sir?”
“‘Cause I’d pass it out.”
“And you’d pass it out, we’d all pass it out together! We’d be alright in the middle of the night, passing it out together!”
Regina doesn’t know this one and she’s not sure she wants to because everything is so fucking gay, but their inside goes around to the rookies and people that aren’t participating that much to ask if they want to do a verse. When Regina agrees, she gets told to say a rulebook and the reason is that she’d get violated. She holds her drink above her head and when the next verse rolls around, it’s her turn.
“If I was the marrying kind, and thank the lord I’m not sir, the kind of rugger I would be, would be a rugby—”
“Rulebook, sir,” she giggles, hoping that no one is filming.
“Rulebook sir, why’s that sir?”
“‘Cause I'd get violated.”
“And you’d get violated, we’d all get violated together! We’d be alright in the middle of the night, getting violated together!”
Why’s she thinking of Janis when she says this? Janis doesn’t violate her. And she doesn’t violate Janis (anymore).
<>
Cal Poly loses to USF in the playoffs again. Regina’s going to kill herself because she fucking missed the tackle that led to the game winning try. She turns her phone off for a week and leaves the rugby house for only classes so she doesn’t fuck things up with Janis. Janis thinks that she’s insane for this and practically follows her around when she can, talking at Regina about how silly she’s being.
She ends her silence by asking Janis to go to the rugby spring formal with her. Janis asks ten times if she’s sure that she wants Janis to come. Regina insists that she’s sure, and that Janis should stop worrying.
Janis picks Regina up at the rugby house in a flattering suit that leaves Regina unable to stop looking at her (she’s not staring. Or ogling. She’s admiring, completely aesthetically, right? Because she’s not sure that she could pull off a suit that well, right?). The first thing that Regina notices is that it’s not a tux. It’s so far away from the suit that Janis wore to Spring Fling. She’s not wearing a shirt. Janis is wearing a sexy red blazer and pants combo that gives Regina an absolute eyeful of her cleavage. For once in her life, Regina feels underdressed in her absurdly tits-out dress that she bought the other week. It’s black satin with a corset top that emphasises her tits better than her Spring Fling dress, and she feels hot as fuck with the heels that match (and that are definitely going to hurt her feet and back at the end of the evening. She brings a pair of sneakers to stow in the car for after).
Since Regina doesn’t have her car in San Luis Obispo but Janis does, Janis drives to The Library in downtown SLO. Regina nearly loses her breath watching Janis drive. She has her dad’s Miata that when they were little, they pretended that they were on a great road trip in that car when he was still fixing it up. Janis has her right hand on the gear shift and her left on top of the wheel, and Regina doesn’t know why she can’t stop staring at Janis’s hands. She doesn’t know if Janis notices.
Janis is very chivalrous and opens Regina’s door when they get to the club, takes her by the elbow as they walk in, even though Regina and her heels tower over Janis, even in platform boots. She gets her drinks and socialises politely with Regina’s teammates while she stays close, their fingers or elbows interlocked. Regina doesn’t drink that much, wanting to enjoy her night with Janis.
She’s mostly sober when they leave the venue to go back to Janis’s dorm. Once again, she can’t stop staring at Janis’s hands. She’s never paid attention to Aaron or Shane’s hands, and maybe that’s because none of their hands were as interesting as Janis’s.
(Aaron’s were dry. He played soccer so they weren’t calloused and rough, but they were not the most pleasant to hold. Shane’s were quick, rushed, and made her skin crawl when they hooked up in the janitor’s closet. They never held hands because they never really dated, but her stomach rolls with the memory of bad sex with Shane that was marginally better than bad sex with Aaron.)
Regina wonders if Janis’s hands are calloused from her years of wielding art supplies and playing the guitar. She knows that they’re soft, but she wasn’t paying attention when Janis laced their fingers together tonight, too busy focusing on the fact that Janis had initiated contact. She wonders what they would feel like if they gripped her waist and skated their way up her ribcage. Janis, Regina knows, likes to have something tangible in front of her. She doesn’t do well in physics or maths because she can’t visualise concepts. Janis would keep her hands steady, probably hold tighter than Shane ever had, and let her nails dig into Regina’s skin.
She doesn’t realise that they’ve pulled into the parking lot until Janis pulls the handbrake up and shuts the car off.
“Hey, Jay,” Regina says, pulling Janis’s attention onto her.
“Hmm?”
Regina very slowly brings her hand up to Janis’s cheek and leans in. She’s deliberate and obvious in her movements, needing Janis to understand that this is not a drunken mistake. She kisses Janis, slow and careful, trying to tell her about how different she is to Regina. Initially, Janis pulls her in, one hand on Regina’s neck and the other resting on the centre console, before pushing her away gently.
“Reg, wait. You freaked out, like, last week over our friendship being weirdly gay, now this?”
“I’m just—I’m not gay. You’re just—fuck. Janis, you’re—god fucking damnit, why can’t I do this?” Regina hisses to herself. She’s been thrown in the deep end and she doesn’t know how to swim. She does something she’s really good at: runs. Regina throws open the door, unbuckles her seatbelt, hops out of the car, and sprints in the direction of her house.
Regina knows that she’s fast. She knows that she is explosive and has the stamina to get most of the way to her house. Janis might have her car, but Regina’s an athlete and she can totally get all the way back to her house.
Janis catches her as she’s jogging the last block.
“For fuck’s sake, Regina. Get back in the car.”
Fuck, she needs to run more. She needs to build up more stamina. Her Bronco time needs to be sub 5:30. Maybe she should eat less junk and more protein and nutrients, drink less, spend less time in Janis’s dorm. For as much time as she spends in Janis’s room, Regina’s yet to bring any of her protein bars or her fresh fruit.
(She’s terrified of committing to Janis. She can’t bet everything on Janis because Janis has every tool to break her. She’s done it before. She’s not being absurd, she tells herself, because Janis did more physical damage than she did in high school. Regina threw herself into maths so she could count her own calories and not rely on anyone else. She gained too much weight while she was in the corrective collar and she’s still trying to work it off. She’s still bad at handling help. When Janis started taking her bag and helping her up and down the stairs, Regina fought at first. She’d stormed off even though Janis had her backpack, she’d skipped lunch, and then she’d sobbed in the bathroom when Janis had her backpack and her painkillers.)
“Regina, please,” Janis repeats as Regina picks up her knees, lengthening her stride, ignoring the burn in her lungs. “I can’t chase after you trying to satisfy my own curiosity. Can you get in the car so I don’t have to shout out the window to you about my feelings?”
She gets in the car.
“I’m kind of in love with you and I think I always have been, since we were kids, Jay,” Regina says before Janis can say anything. “I like that we’re weirdly gay together, even though I’m not, but I hate how I feel whenever we are weirdly gay.”
“I’ll spare you the ‘sexuality is fluid’ lecture because we can just be weirdly gay together. Reg, you’re it for me. I’ll carry your heavy ass backpack, help you up and down the stairs, anything, because it’s always been you. I feel so pathetic because you literally ruined my life and we’re so fucked up, but I can’t help myself.”
“God, we’re so fucked up, Jay. Fuck it, let’s be weirdly gay together,” Regina says, grinning.
“Only Regina George could turn ‘weirdly gay’ into a good thing.”
<>
Janis doesn’t hate living with Regina. Yes, she’s incredibly good at leaving her textbooks and other class material around until she gets fed up with not being able to find the source she needs to reference and tidies up, but Janis is just as bad with her art supplies. Yes, Regina still doesn’t define their relationship as anything more than ‘weirdly gay’ but she calls Janis her girlfriend in public.
Regina is obsessive about what she eats. She always balances her protein and carbs, she counts every calorie that she eats, she meal plans like she’ll die if she doesn’t. Their fridge is filled with glass containers of the most bland looking food that it actually hurts Janis. She was raised on native Hawaiian cuisine thanks to her mom and she’s used to vibrant spices and flavour that she always feels bad when she cooks dinner and Regina eats her precooked chicken and rice. Rugby isn’t this important, is it? Regina doesn’t need to be micromanaging her fitness for a club sport.
Janis doesn’t like the notion of rugby. For the past two years, Janis has seen Regina covered in bruises and ice packs and she hates it. She’s the only one who’s allowed to hurt Regina. Regina keeps trying to reassure Janis that rugby is completely safe and that it’s a great environment (now that Regina’s comfortable with being “weirdly gay” with Janis), but Janis still doesn’t like how Regina sometimes just has to walk around, bruised and battered.
Janis’s least favourite part of rugby days is when she is waiting for Regina to come home from practice. She always waits in the middle of the tiny living room, usually working on homework, terrified that Regina’s going to come into the apartment with an injury. There’s a number of nights that she comes back with bruises already forming and a slight limp, but Regina always insists that she’s fine. But after nearly two years of being in a “weirdly gay” friendship, Janis can tell when Regina’s in pain. Janis is terrified that something is going to happen to her back again and everything that the two of them have built will crumble.
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After two years of driving her friends around in high school, Regina became Janis’s passenger princess once she learned that Janis knew how to drive. Regina volunteers Janis to drive up the coast to Santa Cruz to the beloved tournament at UCSC, Slugfest. Janis ends up driving three rookies to Santa Cruz with Regina in the passenger seat of her Mazda Miata and in control of the music. Janis doesn’t know enough about rugby to understand what they’re talking about. Regina is apparently the backs’ captain, and while Janis doesn’t exactly know what that means, she’s proud of Regina for it.
They’re going up the 101, indie pop playing softly from her bass-boosted speakers (she’s a little bit of a music snob since she learned how to play guitar in high school), windows cracked to let in the salty ocean air, as the rookies ask Regina about rugby and school. Janis can tell she’s in her element. She never thought she’d see the day when Regina George became a sports person.
She has to keep her eyes on the road but she can’t help herself from glancing at Regina in her black Nike Pros that are absurdly short, Janis’s custom Regina George rugby hoodie (she’d bought and painted a hoodie that had the Cal Poly Women’s Rugby crest on the front and ‘George 12’ on the back that Regian stole and wore as often as it went with her outfit), and her hair already in braids after she’d begged Janis to braid her hair before they left. She knows that Regina is constantly catching her glances when Regina drops her hand on Janis’s thigh.
Janis definitely doesn’t get lost trying to get to the parking lot. And she’s definitely happy to spend the day in Santa Cruz, walking up a giant hill to get to the field, and then another giant hill to get to the bathroom. Janis is basically part of the team thanks to Regina’s insistence that she goes to every social and home game, so she sits on the sideline with the team. The rookies initially try to ask her questions, but she probably knows less than them, so she’s no help. Regina gets subbed out at halftime, but she can’t just sit down and relax with Janis because she’s so intense about this sport. Janis doesn’t know what’s going on but she does know that Regina’s insane about rugby. There’s grass stains all over her shorts and shirt, her hair coming out of her left braid, and blood on her thigh that Janis is pretty sure isn’t hers.
In sophomore year, Janis got really into photography. She still adores creating with her hands, but she loves the idea of capturing a moment in time. The first time that Regina asks her to go to a rugby game, Janis accidentally becomes the team photographer. She’s not a sports photographer, and every single rugby player only makes funny faces when they play, so her photos are never fantastic. But the players love it.
Cal Poly A team wins and the B team has a game right after. Regina wants Janis to one: show her the pictures and two: rebraid her hair, but Janis refuses to only shoot the A team because her girlfriend is on it. Janis doesn’t notice Regina getting her shoulder taped by the UCSC trainer (Regina is grateful because she knows that Janis will freak out just a little).
Between the B team game and the second A team game, Janis fixes Regina’s hair and wipes the blood and mud off her legs. Regina buys her a sandwich from the Ike’s pop up tent and pulls Janis onto her lap while she waits for warm ups. The sun is warm, Regina is soft, and Janis almost falls asleep. Janis lays on her stomach and watches Regina go through her warmups. She watches with wonder as the backs run their plays, she’s fine with the notion of hitting bags, but when they do some one-on-one drills, Janis flinches with every single tackle made.
Janis takes photos (mostly of Regina) and sketches when she gets bored of her camera. It’s hard to make Regina look good when sweat is dripping down her face, her black mouthguard is peeking out from between her lips, and she’s pissed (Regina is unfairly attractive, even mid rugby game when there’s a smear of dirt on her forehead). There’s a look of determination that Janis has never seen on her face before sports, and Janis falls a little bit harder for jock Regina, and she tries her best to capture the way that she glares at the UCSC backline, the ball tucked under her arm, and she’s hauling ass to get through someone trying to tackle her.
Regina plays the whole game and comes out with a swollen hand because she’d gotten stepped on and bruises already forming on her thighs (Janis doesn’t know what’s up with her shoulder. Regina prefers to keep it that way to stop Janis from worrying too much). Regina refuses Janis’s offer to help when she struggles to take off her jersey because of her shoulder. The KT tape on her shoulder doesn’t make Janis very happy, and she forces Regina to get ice packs for her hand and shoulder.
The rookies fall asleep on the drive back to SLO, and Janis frets the whole way back. The hand that Regina drops onto Janis’s thigh is freezing cold thanks to the ice pack, but it soothes Janis’s worry just a little when Regina can move her fingers. They drop the rookies off at their dorms and then drive to their apartment. Regina complains of her back starting to hurt again, and protests when Janis opens her door, helps her out of the car, takes her backpack, and offers her arm as they walk to their apartment. Janis knows that Regina hates to be seen as weak, but Janis would rather see her weak than see her suffer. Regina is already stiff and sore, and she takes probably the longest hot shower of her life, so Janis prepares dinner and demands that Regina eats. Regina demands to know the recipe so she can manage her self-mandated nutrition plan, which Janis hands over because she knows that bitchy Regina is not one she wants to deal with. Regina refuses to eat, arguing with Janis about how it’s too many calories. This is one that Janis will argue on.
“One meal isn’t going to kill you, Reg. You played two games today, you need to refuel and recover. Your shitty, unseasoned chicken isn’t going to help you at all.”
“‘One meal’ is the gateway to eating whatever the hell I crave, Jay, and I need to stay in shape.”
“Reg, babe, you’re literally the most fit person on that team. Do it for me, please. You never eat what I cook. Please, Reg?” Janis doesn’t want to pull the guilt trip, but she knows that Regina can’t refuse when she does.
“Fine. Just this once, though, Jay.”
Janis beams. She puts a plate in front of Regina, and she’s delighted when Regina dives in without poking and prodding at the food.
“Fuck, I forgot how good you are at cooking, Jay. If you cut some calories out of your recipes I’d eat everything you made.”
“You do know that your body is perfect as it is, right?”
“I’m never getting back to the weight I was pre-bus.”
They’ve had this conversation too many times, and every single time, nothing changes, so Janis doesn’t even engage with this one.
Regina groans, trying to stand up. When she stretches, a strip of her abs is revealed from under one of Janis’s crewneck sweaters that is slightly too small for her. Janis doesn’t even care about her shameless staring and Regina’s smiling when she finally drags her eyes away from the skin that’s long been covered.
“Unfortunately, Jay, I’m not fucking you tonight or else I think I’m not going to be able to move tomorrow.”
“You don’t have to do anything,” Janis says, slyly.
“I’m not being your pillow princess, babe.”
Janis cackles as she ushers Regina towards their bedroom.
“Go brush your teeth and get ready for bed. I’ll join you after I’ve cleaned up the kitchen. And I’ll bring you a hot water bottle.”
“You’re a goddess. Love you,” Regina calls, disappearing into their bedroom. Janis waits until she can’t hear Regina’s footsteps before panicking. She always thought that she’d be the first to say it, mostly because she’s been hurtling towards that conclusion since she was about 12 years old (and also because if not dealing with your emotions was an Olympic sport, Regina would be a three time gold medalist).
Janis doesn’t know what to do with herself after Regina’s said that she loves her, so she puts the kettle on and starts gathering dishes at the sink. She’s not sure that she does a good job cleaning up, in a hurry to see Regina again (it’s been about ten minutes), but she finds Regina flat on her back and mostly asleep, probably having already taken her painkiller. Janis falls asleep curled into Regina’s side as she lays on a heating pad and the hot water bottle under her shoulder.
Janis can’t stop saying “I love you” after Regina’s admission. When either of them leave for class, whenever Regina has to go to practice, when either of them come back to the apartment, as often as possible. Regina doesn’t say it often, but Janis gets it. She’s always been more vocal about her feelings while Regina is deliberate in her actions. Regina prefers to show her affection by eating the food Janis eats without visibly worrying about the number of calories, not fighting about Janis carrying her bags, doing her best to not be an ass whenever she’s in a bad mood.
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Janis goes to every single home game. Janis would go to all the away games, but she can’t afford gas to drive halfway across the state for every away game. She’s always waiting in the apartment with warm food and as many tools for Regina’s recovery as she can. She bought Regina a massage gun for Christmas, even though Regina could have bought one herself.
The bruises on Regina’s thighs appear, fade, and return. She almost always has something on her body taped, usually the ankle that she sprained over the summer. Turf sticks to every shirt and pair of shorts that she wears to practise. Their apartment has a very distinct scent of a bad attempt to mask the smell of Regina’s cleats with anti smell spray and air freshener. Janis doesn’t pick a fight over it because she knows that Regina can’t do anything about it short of quitting rugby.
There’s permanently turf tracked all over the apartment. Janis is probably hiking up the electricity bill with how often she vacuums, but she hates how much turf is all over the apartment. Regina walks into the apartment in a skirt and sweater, returning from one of her upper division literature classes, her hair framing her face and her purse slung over her shoulder.
“Hey, baby,” Regina says, putting her bag on the table. “Will you come to the Sigma Tau Delta formal? We’re having an alumni dinner and networking event, and formal wear is one of your best looks.”
Regina told her that she wasn’t going to rush Greek life, but she didn’t say anything about honours societies. She applied for Sigma Tau Delta in the spring of her sophomore year and was initiated at the end of the year, and Janis applied for the Kappa Pi, the art honours society in the fall and was initiated in November. Janis also has plans to apply to Phi Beta Kappa, the most prestigious honours societies in America.
“As long as you pay for a new suit because I’m a little bit low on funds right now.”
“I can cover rent, you know. And of course, my sugar baby, I’ll buy you a cute little outfit.”
“For the love of God, Reg, stop calling me your sugar baby. But thank you, babe.”
“Let’s go shopping!”
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Janis ends up in a pink pantsuit that shows enough cleavage that the centre of her kakau is on display. She let her hair grow out a little longer than in high school and has an undercut now (she got in on an impulse when Regina was at San Jose State), and she braids her hair into two Dutch plaits. Regina also buys her a new pair of platform Docs and she puts some charms on the laces. She doesn’t exactly love the pink, but Janis is willing to do almost anything for Regina George, including wearing the colour she despised for four years.
Regina spends half the afternoon covering bruises on her legs. There’s only so much that she can do for the turf burn. Janis paints in the living room, using only the colours of Regina’s current bruises. It’s a swirling mess of colours and words and she’s not exactly sure what the aim was, but it looks pretty cool. When Regina’s finally satisfied with her concealer, Janis does her makeup (which is considerably toned down from her high school looks but just as colourful) and puts on her jewellery, stacking silver rings and mismatching her earrings artfully.
Regina demands that they take mirror selfies in the full length mirror in their bedroom, to which Janis dutifully complies. Regina is taller by at least five inches, even between her heels and Janis’s boots. Janis’s favourite picture they take is one where Regina is half behind her, one leg through the slit in her gown and pressed against Janis’s as she puts it forward, both arms wrapped around Janis’s shoulders (and she’s definitely flexing, at least just a little, which is just enough to give her arms definition), and one hand playing with the lapel of the blazer that’s held on by boob tape and hope that Janis doesn’t flash anyone. One of Janis’s hands rests on Regina’s thigh, the other pulling down her bottom lip to expose her lip tattoo. She’s in what she likes to call a power stance, her feet a little bit more than shoulder width apart. They're both making stupid faces, Regina baring her teeth as if she’d just bit the air, and Janis is mid eye roll. Her second favourite one is the one where Regina is leaning down to press a kiss into Janis’s cheek, one hand holding the other cheek and Janis just smiles and captures the photo. It’s a live photo and it was just supposed to be a nice, normal mirror selfie, but Janis loves how she can see Regina impulsively bend down and kiss Janis like it’s her job. And the surprise on her own face makes her giggle.
They’re fashionably late, as Regina needs to be, and Janis spends her evening listening to Regina talk to other rich white kids that can afford to get an English degree (to be fair, Janis is double majoring in linguistics and fine arts, so she really has no place to judge). Janis is a couple feet away from Regina, talking to an alumni about how the English language has evolved over time and how that affects modern author’s word choices and how the rise of technology has changed how stories are told because of social media and that specific evolution of language when Regina appears behind her, a hand on her waist. Regina dives into their conversation, bringing up how social media is also changing the narrative structure and format of stories, and Janis can’t help but be impressed. This version of Regina George, the one she’s ‘weirdly gay’ with (because Regina still hasn’t defined if they’re dating, even though they live together, have not seen anyone else other than each other, call each other their girlfriend, and basically everyone knows that they’re together, even their friends from home), is unfairly attractive and Janis thinks she knows that (Regina does, in fact, know of Janis’s competency kink).
Janis is in the middle of an argument with another white geezer about language when Regina wants to leave. Janis can see on her face how her back is starting to ache. She collects their coats as Regina makes her final rounds to the board to say her goodbyes. She’s pulled her car up to the curb outside the venue and has the passenger door open and ready to help Regina into the car. She knows Regina doesn’t always like how low her car is, but the Miata is one of her prized possessions.
(Janis’s dad left her the Miata when he died during winter quarter of Janis’s freshman year. He’d had a heart attack and Janis couldn’t afford to fly back to Chicago and she refused to let Regina pay for a plane ticket. She drove halfway across the country in the Miata with Regina for spring break, even though Regina can’t sit for so long because of her back. She’d cried herself to sleep too often during the week because her dad was the one who had gotten her into art and she’s never wanted to quit art more than that week.)
Regina switches her heels to the Adidas slides that Janis keeps in her car just for her. Janis helps her out of the car, taking her clutch and heels. Regina is practically using Janis as a crutch to relieve some of the pressure on her lower back as they wait for the elevator.
Janis doesn’t love the fact that she has to take care of Regina, but she would do anything for her. She doesn’t love the fact that she’s partly the reason her back hurts (Janis hasn’t forgiven herself even though Regina once grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her, also yelling “It’s not your fault!” but Janis is pretty sure it’s because Regina was also both sleep deprived and trying to stay awake after taking a painkiller). It’s been so long since she’s seen Regina not be indestructible. Almost as long as she can remember, Regina has never been weak. Even when they were kids, Regina was never weak. But watching her struggle to walk? Janis hates it. She doesn’t hate the act of taking care of Regina.
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They don’t go back to Evanston for the summer. Regina only talks to her sister and Janis’s mom moved back to Hawai’i to take care of Janis’s grandmother, so there’s no real reason to go back to Illinois. Damian’s in New York working, Karen and Gretchen go on vacation to Europe, and Cady is doing classes over the summer to get an accelerated master’s degree.
Regina trains obsessively over the summer, as she always does. They go to the beach and parks, and Janis spends her time sketching strangers, landscapes, and Regina when she’s not working (she teaches art at a local youth art school and works for the housing department on campus).
Regina’s actually the president of Cal Poly Women’s Rugby, as well as the backs captain. Janis still doesn’t know what a backs captain is, even though Regina has tried to explain rugby to her so many times, and she’s not really inclined to learn (she thinks that it’s hilarious that her girlfriend is so insanely rugby and all she knows is that she has to throw a ball and run).
Senior year goes like this: classes, being dragged by Regina to rugby functions, homework, art, work, and taking care of Regina after games. She’s also become very good at taping Regina’s ankle, along with wrapping Regina in clingfilm so her ice packs will stay on her body when they leave the pitch. She’s also really good at being Regina’s body pillow whenever she’s so sore that she doesn’t want to move out of bed on Sundays. She was already really good at waiting on Regina, hand and foot, because she’ll do anything for Regina George (it’s been that way since seventh grade, even though she took a four year break).
Cal Poly beats USF in the playoffs for the first time in four years (how they drew USF in the playoffs four years in a row is a horrible coincidence), but they lose to University of Nevada, Reno at home. Regina doesn’t let anyone see her cry until they get back to their apartment. There’s other girls in the huddle with teary eyes. Janis takes photos of the team in the huddle as Regina gives them the talk of her life, saying how proud she is of each and every one of them for their performance. She’s not crying yet, but everyone can actually hear the emotion in her voice. Janis pulls her into a hug as soon as she can. Regina wipes her eyes on Janis’s jacket before kissing her softly.
“Fuck, I didn’t think I cared this much.”
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The last rugby event of the year is the formal. Regina doesn’t even have to ask, and she buys Janis a navy suit to match her dress. She leaves the top two buttons of her white button up undone to show off a silver chain that Regina had bought for her birthday around her neck. She also lets Regina choose her earrings and rings, but leaves her normal septum piercing in. Regina wears a navy gown with her hair in a plaited updo that she let Janis spend an hour doing, along with Janis’s touch on her makeup.
Early on in the night, Regina gets cold in the outdoor venue, even though it’s a California evening in May, but Janis hands off her blazer. She rolls her sleeves up—not because she’s hot—because she knows that Regina stares at her forearms whenever she does (and because she feels stupid with her sleeves rolled down without a blazer on).
Regina is awarded with a gift as a senior and is named the MVP. She’s bashful when she accepts, but Janis knows that her smug smirk is sitting just under the surface. Janis gets a gift for all the photos that she took over the years (damn, she loves getting recognition for her art).
No one bats an eye when Regina doesn’t let go of Janis for the rest of the night. Everyone on the rugby team knows exactly how obsessed Janis is with Regina. Janis loves how comfortable Regina is with this knowledge. In freshman year, Regina would have flipped out. In fact, she did in sophomore year. But now? Whenever someone comments on it, all Regina does is smile and say, “Yeah.” If Janis is within arm’s reach, she’ll pull Janis into her and press a kiss to the top of her head before saying anything. Maybe they’re not “weirdly gay” anymore and just “gay.”