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Shane
“I have to tell you something.”
Shane stops playing aggressive air guitar in the passenger seat of Regina’s car along to an Olivia Rodrigo song and looks at her. “What’s up?”
Well, that seems to be about all the words that her brain is willing to produce. “I, um,” she says, gripping the steering wheel so tight her hands start to ache.
“Did you see the tornado movie without me?” Shane asks, sounding a little hurt.
“The what?”
“You know. That new movie about tornadoes. Twisters.”
“Huh? No. I don’t even want to see that movie,” Regina says.
“You don’t? But—”
“Shane!” she snaps, and he goes quiet. “Sorry,” she says, more gently. She didn’t want to start like this, but she’s feeling not unlike there’s a tornado blowing through her stomach. “It’s not about the tornado movie.”
“Okay,” Shane says. “Then what is it?”
“I’m…” Regina takes a breath. “Gay.”
“Oh,” Shane says, like Regina just told him that she prefers Coke to Pepsi. “Hell yeah.”
Regina glances at him. He grins at her and raises his hand in a high-five, which she begrudgingly returns. She waits for him to say something else, but he doesn’t.
“Okay,” Regina finally says. That wasn’t so bad. No big deal, almost.
“For Cady, right?” Shane asks.
Regina almost swerves off the road. “What?!”
“Whoa!” Shane dramatically grabs the handle above his seat. “Bro, don’t kill us. I’m too hot to die young.”
“What did you just say?” Regina asks through gritted teeth.
“You like Cady, right?” Shane says.
“Why are you asking me that?” Regina demands. Her hands are starting to shake, all of her earlier nerves rushing back. She signals and pulls into the first parking lot she sees, pulling into a space in front of a bank.
Shane looks bewildered. “Do you not?”
“I—” Regina doesn’t know what to say. She’s not sure how Shane somehow knows her deepest, darkest secret, the one she’s never told anyone, hasn’t even written down in a diary. She presses her fingers to her temples. “Well… yeah.”
“Nice!” Shane seems genuinely thrilled. “She seems cool. And she’s hot.”
Regina glares at him. “How did you know?”
Shane shrugs. “You’re always, like, staring at her, and talking about her, and looking at her Instagram. And you licked her on the head at spring fling last year.”
Regina feels her face getting red. She had no idea she was so apparently transparent. Who else has noticed?
“Please don’t tell anyone,” Regina says, hating the desperate tone in her voice.
“Of course not,” Shane assures her. “But you should. Tell her, I mean.”
Regina snorts. “Not going to happen.”
Shane frowns. “Why not? She’s, like, obsessed with you.”
“No, she isn’t,” Regina says.
“Yeah, she is. Did we go to the same school last year?”
“Cady hated me last year,” Regina reminds him with a painful twist in her chest.
“Nah. You don’t obsess over someone you hate for a full year, then keep hanging around them.” Shane shrugs. “I hate Jason Weems. You’ll notice we don’t hang out.”
This is all starting to feel like too much, the way her heart is beating getting a little too close to hope.
“Can we drop it?” Regina asks tiredly.
“Okay,” Shane says, and Regina restarts the car, pulling out of the lot.
“And please don’t tell anyone,” Regina repeats.
Shane resumes his air guitar. “I’m tweeting it to my millions of followers as we speak.”
Briefly, Regina considers kicking him out of her car and leaving him by the side of the road.
Karen and Gretchen
Regina is drunk, drunker than she has been in a long time. But for once, it’s not because she doesn’t want to be here, or is trying to numb some feeling.
Regina feels a pleasant buzz in her chest as Gretchen doubles over laughing at a story Karen is telling about a recent hookup, nearly spilling her drink as she tries to catch her breath. It’s been awhile since they had a sleepover together, just the three of them. It feels like old times, minus the ever-present feeling that there is another shoe about to drop at any moment.
It’s nice. It makes Regina happy.
“And now I know to always lock the door,” Karen finishes. “And I’m banned from her house.”
“What’s it like?” Regina asks, tracing abstract patterns on the carpet. Her head feels pleasantly cloudy, her body light.
“What’s what like?” Karen cocks her head to the side.
“Kissing a girl,” Regina clarifies. Distantly, she knows that if she were sober, she probably wouldn’t be asking, but that’s a problem for tomorrow Regina.
Gretchen goes still, but Karen hums as she thinks for a moment.
“You know that feeling you get in your tummy when you go down a roller coaster?” Karen asks. “It’s like that, but also it smells really nice.”
Regina nods. She thinks about how Cady always smells like the sweet, fruity body spray she gets from Bath & Body Works.
“Why are you asking?” Gretchen asks curiously. She’s looking at Regina kind of strangely, the way Cady looks at a math problem.
God. She needs to stop thinking about Cady before she says something she doesn’t want to.
“Oh,” Regina says. “Um, because I’m gay.”
Gretchen nearly falls off the couch.
“Since when?” Gretchen says, a little breathlessly as she rights herself.
“Since last year at least,” Regina replies. For some reason, the whole situation is kind of hilarious to her, and she starts giggling.
Karen laughs, too. “I thought you were asking because you knew Gretchen and I have kissed.”
“Karen!” Gretchen hisses, and Karen looks at her, eyes wide and confused.
“Was that a secret?” Karen whispers, way too loudly.
“That’s nice,” Regina says, and she sincerely means it.
“You’ve never kissed a girl?” Gretchen asks, and Regina suspects she’s deflecting.
“Not since sixth grade, and I don’t think that really counted,” Regina says. “No offense,” she adds, although Janis isn’t here.
Karen looks thoughtful for a moment. “You should kiss Cady.”
Gretchen’s eyes get comically wide, like Karen has just divulged a classified government secret.
Regina feels the alcohol in her stomach churn uncomfortably. “Why?” she asks suspiciously.
“Because you like her,” Karen says matter-of-factly, and Jesus, does everyone know?
Regina presses her face into the carpet to hide her blush. “No, I don’t,” she denies.
Gretchen snorts, and Karen laughs. God, Regina is so fucked.
Gretchen scoots down off the couch to pat Regina’s shoulder. “For real, I will never tell anyone what you said.”
“I’ve heard that one before,” Regina grumbles, then instantly feels bad when Gretchen stiffens. “Um, sorry. Bad joke.”
“Cady is a good kisser,” Karen muses, and Regina sits up so fast her neck hurts.
“Excuse me?” Regina says. Has Karen been talking to Aaron or something?
Karen shrugs. “You’d think she wouldn’t be, since she, like, lived in a tree her whole life, but she was good.”
Regina’s eyes dart from the panicked look on Gretchen’s face back to Karen. “You kissed Cady? When?”
“Oh, it was at a party over the summer last year,” Karen says. “You were in Italy.”
Regina actually does start to feel a little sick, and it must show on her face, because Karen rushes to explain. “It was for spin the bottle.”
Regina is torn between needing to know every detail and not wanting to hear another word of this.
“Don’t be sad,” Karen says, patting Regina’s arm. “We can play again!”
“Yeah, great idea,” Regina says sarcastically. “Let’s invite Janis, too.”
Karen ponders this. “She is hot.”
Regina drops her head into her hands. She needs another drink.
Damian
Perhaps the biggest surprise of Regina’s post-bus life is the fact that she has become genuine friends with Damian. He’s an excellent shopping partner, and he’s smart and funny, and he calls her out on her shit, which is actually a nice change. She needs the reminder to unlearn her past behavior, or whatever it is her therapist told her.
Prom is just around the corner, and they’re on their fourth store of the day. Regina has lost count of how many dresses she’s tried on, and she’s starting to get sick of seeing herself in the mirror, but she just hasn’t found the one.
Regina cracks open the dressing room door. “Zip me up?” she asks Damian, and turns around.
“I got you,” Damian says, sliding the zipper up Regina’s back, pulling the satin material together. He looks over Regina’s shoulder at her reflection in the mirror, holding the dressing room door open with his body.
Regina tilts her head and runs her hand down the light blue fabric. It’s pretty, very similar to the style she’s envisioning, but she doesn’t love the way it sits around her hips—and besides, it’s too close in color to Cady’s dress, which Regina helped her pick out last weekend.
Regina meets Damian’s eyes in the mirror and shakes her head, and he dutifully unzips her and steps back to let the door close.
“Who are you going with to prom, anyway?” Damian asks her as she shimmies out of the dress. “I heard Mike Thurman asked you, but you turned him down.”
“That’s true,” Regina says. She scrutinizes the dresses she hasn’t tried on yet and selects a red one that caught her eye as soon as they entered the store. “Frankly, I was insulted he thought I would understand his Harry Potter reference.”
Damian snorts. “You going with Shane, then?”
Regina opens the door and steps out, again turning her back to Damian for assistance. “No,” she says, then pauses, gathering her nerve. “I’m not going with a guy.”
“Oh,” Damian says lightly, patting Regina’s shoulder to let her know he’s done with the zipper.
Regina turns around and Damian’s eyes widen, his hand flying to his open mouth.
“Girl,” Damian gasps. “This is the one.”
Regina steps up to the full-length mirror, taking in her reflection. The material hugs her body down to her hips, where a slit reveals her leg. The plunging neckline accentuates her cleavage, and the sparkly material catches the light, making Regina look like she’s glowing.
Yes, she thinks it’s the one.
Damian is beaming at her, waving his arm back and forth as he snaps his fingers, and for some reason Regina feels a surge of confidence and blurts, “I’m gay.”
Damian blinks at her for a moment, then his face inexplicably morphs into an expression of relief. “Oh, thank god.”
Regina stares at him. “What?”
“I was wondering how much longer we would all have to pretend that you’re straight,” Damian tells her. He plucks a stray hair off of Regina’s dress. “It was starting to get exhausting.”
Regina’s mouth falls open, but she has no idea what to say. She kind of feels like Damian has just dumped a bucket of ice water over her head.
“You knew?” Regina finally says.
“Girl,” Damian says, rolling his eyes, “I have been praying every night for you to stop being so weird and just tell Cady you’re into her like a normal person. You’ve been pining after her for two years like a Jane Austen character, and I fucking hated Persuasion.”
A cold ball of dread is forming in Regina’s stomach, and suddenly the dress feels too tight.
“Does everyone know?” Regina whispers shakily.
Damian’s flippant expression quickly turns to one of concern. He grabs her hand and clasps it between his own. “Oh, sweetie, I’m sorry. I don’t think Cady knows. You could prompose to her and I don’t think she’d get it.”
Regina blows out a breath. “Okay,” she whispers.
“I do think you should prompose to her, to be clear,” Damian adds.
Regina rolls her eyes. “Shut up. That is so lame.”
Damian just smiles at her, soft and warm. It makes Regina feel better, for some reason.
“Thank you for telling me,” he tells her. “I’m proud of you.”
Regina wiggles her hand out of Damian’s grasp, uncomfortable with the direct kindness. It makes her itchy.
“Whatever,” she mutters. “Just unzip me so we can get coffee.”
“Yes, your highness,” Damian says.
Janis
Considering the seemingly endless list of people who know Regina is gay, Regina figures she should probably tell Janis sooner rather than later. She owes it to Janis, she thinks, to tell her directly.
It’s not that she and Janis are enemies, exactly, but they’re not friends, either, not really. They operate in vaguely the same social circles, overlapping especially with Damian and Cady, so they have an unspoken truce. Regina had apologized to Janis shortly after spring fling, once she wasn’t high out of her mind, and she was satisfied by the apology she got in return. Still, things can be tense.
It is kind of terrifying, having no idea how Janis will react to what Regina is about to tell her.
She texts Janis asking her to meet her at Regina’s car after school.
Janis ‘Imi’ke: why
Regina George: i want to talk to you
Janis ‘Imi’ke: you’re talking to me now
Regina George: in person
Regina George: please
Janis ‘Imi’ke: fine
Regina fidgets in the front seat of her car while she waits for Janis to appear, trying to figure out what the fuck she’s going to say, and what her escape plan is if Janis starts swinging.
A sharp rap on the passenger-side window startles Regina out of her thoughts, and she leans over to open the door. Hesitantly, Janis climbs in, looking around the car like she expects this to be some kind of trap.
“What do you want?” Janis asks, straight to the point.
“I need to tell you something,” Regina says. She digs her fingernails into the fabric of her pants to keep her hands from shaking.
“I gathered that,” Janis says dryly.
“And I think it might make you mad,” Regina adds quietly.
Janis’s eyes narrow. “What did you do? You got my mom in the trunk of this car or something?”
“Nothing!” Regina says defensively. She can feel her anxiety starting to rise. “I just want you to hear this from me, okay?”
“Well, spit it out,” Janis says. “I got things to do.”
“I…” Regina swallows, her throat suddenly dry. “I’m gay.”
Janis just stares at her silently for what feels like an eternity, face unreadable. “You fucking hypocritical bitch,” she finally says.
Regina lets out a breath. “I know.”
“You are henceforth uninvited from my pool parties.”
“This isn’t funny,” Regina grumbles, staring at a spot on her windshield.
“Do I look like I’m laughing?” Janis snaps.
“I’m sorry,” Regina tells her quietly, and Janis sighs. “I wanted you to hear it from me.”
Janis just makes an indistinct mmph sound and crosses her arms. They sit in silence again, and Regina starts to wonder why Janis hasn’t gotten out of her car yet.
“You always were abnormally obsessed with Cady,” Janis tells her thoughtfully.
Regina presses the heels of her hands into her eyes to try to ward off the headache she feels coming on. “I don’t want to talk about this with you.”
“I actually don’t really care what you want,” Janis says, almost gleefully. “Really, I can’t believe I didn’t see it sooner.”
“Shut up.”
“She’s obsessed with you, too, if it makes you feel better.” Janis scrunches up her nose like she’s smelled something foul. “It’s pretty gross, actually.”
Regina eyes Janis warily, half-certain this is some kind of trap. “What does that mean?”
“Everything is always Regina this and Regina that.” Janis pitches her voice higher in an imitation of Cady. “Do you think Regina would like this skirt? Make sure you buy Diet Coke for Regina. Don’t add Britney Spears to the playlist; Regina hates her music.”
Regina chews on her lip and swallows against the weird feeling in her chest.
“Anyway,” Janis says, popping open the door. “Thanks for ruining my day, you giant lesbo.”
“Fuck you,” Regina says tiredly, pinching the bridge of her nose.
Janis smirks at her. “That would certainly make Cady jealous.”
Then she slams the door shut behind her.
Cady
Regina is telling Cady today, and she’s had about three panic attacks about it already.
It’s not that Regina thinks Cady will react poorly—in fact, Cady will probably receive it too well, and insist on making Regina a cake or taking her out for ice cream or something to commemorate the event. But now she has the added fear that Cady will somehow know how Regina feels about her the second Regina tells her that she’s gay.
If she doesn’t already know—it seems like every-fucking-body else does.
But Regina knows that if someone lets this slip to Cady before Regina can tell her, Cady’s feelings will be hurt. And she can’t let that happen.
Regina maybe psyches herself up a little too much, because when she tells Cady to sit down because she has something to tell her, more aggressively than is necessary, Cady looks at her with alarm.
“Is something wrong?” Cady asks, carefully taking a seat on Regina’s bed.
“No, it’s not bad,” Regina assures her, although the nervous energy running through her is probably unconvincing. “It’s just… There’s something important I want to tell you.”
“Um, okay,” Cady says, but she’s fidgeting nervously.
“I, well. Um. I just wanted to tell you that…” Why is this so hard? She told Janis, for fuck’s sake. She focuses on a spot on the wall slightly to the left of Cady’s head, which feels easier than looking her in the eye.
Regina clears her throat and tries again. “I’m… I’m gay.”
Regina hears a sharp intake of breath and shifts her eyes back to Cady’s face. Cady’s eyes are wide, mouth open in surprise.
Then Cady breathes, “Me, too.”
Wait, what?
“Wait, what?” Regina practically shouts, then lowers her voice when Cady flinches. “Sorry. But… what?” She resists the urge to snap her fingers by her ears to make sure her hearing is still working correctly.
“Um. Not gay, exactly. Well, kind of. I still like boys. But I like girls, too,” Cady says, words rushing out. She’s tapping her hand against her thigh like she does when she’s nervous.
Regina’s insides feel like she’s on a roller coaster, alternating between weightless and feeling the full force of gravity. “Since when?” she demands.
Cady gives her a deer-in-headlights look. “Somewhat… recently?”
Recently. Does that mean… there’s a girl Cady likes? Regina feels her stomach sink. Watching Cady date Aaron for a few months was painful enough when Regina thought Cady was straight and she had no chance with her. She isn’t sure she can survive Cady liking a girl.
“There’s a girl you like, then?” Regina asks, forcing a smile.
“Um… yeah,” Cady says softly. She shifts uncomfortably.
Regina swallows the sick feeling down, blinking rapidly against the pinprick feeling in her eyes. “Okay. Cool.”
“Are you upset?” Cady asks, looking at Regina with concern.
“Of course not.”
“You seem upset,” Cady pushes, her expression turning anxious. Her eyes search Regina’s face. “I’m sorry.”
“Cady, it’s fine,” Regina says, though she isn’t sure why Cady is apologizing to her. She pushes a hand through her hair and finds that it’s trembling. She jams it in her pocket.
“I can… I’ll go,” Cady whispers, and reaches for her backpack.
“What? Why?” Regina asks. She feels like she and Cady are having two different conversations. Can Cady read on her face that she’s devastated? Has Cady figured it out? Her face starts turning red.
“I’m making you uncomfortable,” Cady mumbles. “It’s fine; you don’t feel the same. Don’t worry about it.”
Now Regina has absolutely no idea what’s happening. “Cady, hang on. What the fuck are you talking about? I don’t feel the same about what?”
“About…” Cady’s voice is unsure. “Me?”
Is Cady really saying…? Regina stares at her, trying to figure out what to say without showing her cards in case she’s really misreading this.
“Are you saying—” Regina’s mouth feels dry suddenly, and she licks her lips. “Are you saying that you like me?”
Cady’s eyes dart around the room like a trapped animal. She seems to realize that she has made an error in judgment, but Regina will die before she lets this go. She’s obsessed with you, too, Janis’s voice echoes in her head.
“Well…” Cady finally says. “Uh. Yes.”
Regina opens her mouth, but no sound comes out. It doesn’t feel the way it does in her fantasies, where she and Cady immediately fall into each other’s arms and kiss, long and passionate. Instead, she kind of feels like she’s going to throw up, still high on the fight-or-flight adrenaline. A large part of her can’t believe this is real, a little afraid that this is somehow a trap, and if she tells Cady the truth, it’ll be thrown back in her face.
“Regina,” Cady says quietly, nervously. “Say something.”
“I—” Regina’s voice is doing something weird, and she clears her throat. “I like you, too. I have for a long time, actually.”
Cady’s eyes get comically wide, clear and blue. The tapping against her leg stops. “Me? Are you serious?”
Regina shifts from foot to foot, feeling her face get hot. She’s never had to tell someone that she actually likes that she likes them. It sucks, actually. She doesn’t know how other people do this.
“Yeah,” Regina admits.
A grin splits Cady’s face, and before Regina can blink, she launches herself at Regina, wrapping her in a hug. Regina takes a step back as Cady’s bodyweight hits her, enveloped in the smell of Cady’s shampoo and her perfume. She gets the same tingly feeling in her stomach that she always does whenever Cady touches her, except it’s heightened by the knowledge that Cady, for some reason, likes her.
“I can’t believe this,” Cady says, more to herself than Regina, her breath tickling Regina’s neck.
“You’re telling me,” Regina murmurs, and she feels the vibrations of Cady’s laughter.
Finally, Cady pulls back, arms still looped around Regina’s neck. She’s smiling that smile that seems to be reserved only for Regina, bright and sweet and affectionate. She’s so beautiful, and for the first time, that doesn’t hurt Regina—because somewhere along the way, Cady became hers.
“Can I kiss you?” Cady whispers breathlessly, and Regina finds that she can’t get her voice to work, so she nods.
It’s everything she ever dreamed it would be, but better, because it’s real and imperfect. Cady’s nose bumps awkwardly against Regina’s for a moment, requiring adjustment before Cady sinks into her. There’s no fireworks, just a soft, warm, tingling feeling that spreads through Regina’s entire body that has her pressing closer, kissing her harder.
Regina is breathless when they part, heart beating rapidly in her chest. Dazedly, she touches her fingers to her lips. So that’s what it feels like to kiss someone you actually like, she thinks to herself.
“Wow,” Cady says, then giggles. It makes Regina smile reflexively.
Wow, indeed.
Everyone
Overwhelming.
That’s the only way Regina can think to describe it. She imagines this is how Cady feels when she has to take a break outside when a party gets too loud, too crowded. But Cady is bouncing up and down and grinning next to her at every passing person in the parade.
There is so much rainbow everywhere. Normally, the clashing colors would make her teeth ache, but, for the first time, Regina finds it comforting.
She’s always been a little bit in awe of Damian and—yes—Janis who have no qualms about advertising who they are to anyone who cares to look, judgment be damned. And now there’s a whole parade of them—people dancing and waving rainbow flags on top of buses blasting music, dancers doing choreography down the street, women on motorcycles revving their engines. And Cady, dressed in pink and purple and blue and whooping like she’s at the Super Bowl.
Regina had spent hours agonizing over her own outfit, feeling apprehensive about slapping her identity on her sleeve. But she doesn’t want to hide anymore. She had spent so long hating herself, hurting people along the way, trying to suppress who she really was. She was certain disaster would follow if she ever told anyone.
Instead, she’s here at Chicago Pride in this mosh pit of people covered in glitter, with Cady Heron—her girlfriend—wearing a white top over pink shorts, a lesbian flag painted on her cheek courtesy of Janis.
It’s crazy how fast things can change.
“You okay?” Cady asks, touching her arm.
Regina nods, but she’s feeling a little claustrophobic. “Can we take a walk?”
“Of course.” Cady grabs her hand, leading Regina away from the parade and down a shaded side street. It feels about ten degrees cooler.
They manage to find a bench, the metal hot under Regina’s thighs.
“You okay?” Cady asks. She’s still holding Regina’s hand.
“Yeah, yeah,” Regina says. “I just needed a break.”
“Okay,” Cady says brightly. She rests her head gently on Regina’s shoulder, soft hair tickling Regina’s cheek. Regina is a little self-conscious about how sweaty she is right now, but she doesn’t move away. “We can sit as long as you need.”
A couple of women pass by them, one of them wearing a t-shirt that only says the word DYKE on it. It makes Regina feel unsettled, thinking about all the times she’d heard people call Janis that. While she never called Janis that word herself, she opened the door for it. She’s hit with a wave of guilt, wondering how many people here had to deal with people like Regina growing up.
“Whoa, hey,” Cady says, sitting up. “What’s wrong?”
Regina realizes that her breathing has become uneven, her body tense. She doesn’t know what to say; she doesn’t want to remind Cady of all the years she spent being a terrible fucking person.
Cady seems to sense the gist of what’s upsetting her; Regina had been apprehensive to come here in the first place, feeling like she didn’t deserve to celebrate herself when she spent so long making others ashamed of who they were.
“Hey, if you’re not having fun, we can go,” Cady tells her, reaching a hand up to gently cup Regina’s cheek. “But you deserve to be here, too.”
Regina takes a deep breath. She repeats Cady’s words in her head like a mantra and reminds herself that Janis had seemed genuinely amused that Regina was coming here, had offered to paint her face without Regina even asking.
“Okay,” Regina says, standing and reaching for Cady’s hand. “We can go back now.”
Cady jumps up and grins at her, pressing a quick kiss to Regina’s lips. “I want to collect all the free things.”
Regina rolls her eyes. “I know. How have you lived without a rainbow lanyard from a major bank?”
Cady trails behind her as they move through the crowd back in the direction of the parade, waiting to cross the street when Regina feels a hand on her arm. She turns to see a girl maybe a little older than she is, with long brown hair and an eyebrow piercing.
“Hey, I just wanted to say that you are, like, so incredibly beautiful,” the girl says. “Sorry for being forward, but are you single?”
Regina opens her mouth but nothing comes out. She is entirely unused to girls hitting on her.
Cady wiggles her small frame in between Regina and the girl, hands on her hips. “She isn’t,” she says forcefully.
The girl’s eyes widen. “Oh, my bad. Sorry to bother you. Enjoy your day.”
“No worries,” Regina manages as the girl turns to walk away. Cady glares after her, and it makes Regina laugh.
“What’s funny?” Cady asks, hands still on her hips.
“Nothing,” Regina says, biting her lip. “You’re just cute.”
Cary frowns. “Was I not scary?”
Regina leans forward and kisses her briefly. “Not even a little bit, babe.”
“Well.” Cady huffs. “People can’t just… flirt with you.”
“I guess you’ll have to come with me everywhere to tell them off.”
Cady scrunches up her nose. “I guess I will.”
“Good,” Regina says. “Now come on, I need an iced coffee.”
“Wait,” Cady says, grabbing her hand. “There’s something I have to do first.”
Regina pauses. “What?”
In response, Cady just leans up on her toes and kisses her, sweet and soft and completely perfect.
“Happy pride,” Cady whispers against her lips, and for the first time, Regina feels like those words do apply to her.
“Happy pride, loser.”