Chapter Text
You had managed to, for the most part, avoid Regina George your three years at North Shore High School. You transferred there your sophomore year, your mom taking full advantage of your dad's Evanston address when you got in trouble once at your public high school in the city. You didn't even actually do anything, but both your parents prioritized your future college education too much to let even a thought of bad behavior ruin it.
You made it through high school pretty unscathed. You laid low, had your small group of friends and kept to yourself.
You witnessed the rise and fall of Regina George in real time. You felt bad for her almost. Yes, she was a major bully, but the one time you overheard her dad yelling at her at a parent teacher conference kinda made some things make sense. She also didn't really target you with her bullshit.
Well, okay, someone wrote in the burn book that you were a carpet muncher and a gay slur here and there, but you've been called worse things. People in that book were certainly called worse things.
Senior year was relatively quiet after Cady Heron dismantled The Plastics.
Regina had taken up soccer, which was actually a really terrifying thought given the neck injury she sustained. She was good though. Good enough to get into University of Illinois, Chicago with a partial soccer scholarship.
But of course, her parents writing a big fat check may do that.
She didn't even need the scholarship. You don't even know how she got away with getting it.
You also were accepted to UIC. You worked harder than Regina did academically, had some of the best grades in your class, did all the volunteering and extracurriculars, and you still didn't get close to the same amount of money offered in scholarships that Regina got (and didn't need).
You were angry when you found out about her almost full ride, but it was a big school and you were almost certain once you were graduated you wouldn't even be giving Regina George ,or anyone from that high school aside from your best friend, a second thought.
Seeing her at orientation seemed like just a coincidence. Watching her get her keys to the same dorm you were staying in had to be a fluke. Passing by her room, the room that happened to be next to yours, just seemed like you were being punked.
You got yourself settled while waiting on your roommate. You had been speaking with them throughout the summer and know they're coming from Colorado and also know they wouldn't be coming until tomorrow because they texted you.
You left your door open while you got yourself unpacked, a bunch of people coming by to introduce themselves to you or stop in and talk.
There was a soft knock and you turned your head, expecting to greet another person. Instead stood Regina, leaning against your wall with her arms crossed.
"Hello." You greeted, sounded a little surprised.
"Hi, I just thought since we were going to be neighbors I would introduce myself."
She almost sounded nice? Pleasant?
She also clearly did not recognize you. Yeah you trimmed your hair a bit and dyed it slightly darker, but nothing extremely different.
But this also really helps solidify just how invisible you were to her in high school.
You had two routes. You could bring up the fact that you actually know each other and make it weird, or just introduce yourself.
"Yeah, that makes sense. I'm Y/N."
"Regina. No roommate?" She pointed to the empty side of your room with her head.
"Coming from Colorado. So long drive." You scrunched up your nose at the thought of how long that drive was and she hummed in acknowledgment.
"Are you from around here?"
"Uh, yeah. The city, northside. You?"
"Evanston, so basically from the city."
"Ahh, you're one of those people." You chuckled.
"What is that supposed to mean?" She scrunched her eyebrows up, clearly getting defensive.
"You say you're from the city but you're from the suburbs. That's all I meant." You said softly, watching her face soften when she realized you weren't actually insulting her.
"Most people don't know where Evanston is, so." She defended with a small smile.
"Unfortunately for you, I do." You smiled back at her.
"Are you going to the freshman mixer tonight?"
"I didn't even know there was one." You answered truthfully.
"Mkay, you're gonna come with me then. I'll be back at like nine?"
You pulled your phone out of your pocket and saw it was only like 11am and you quickly realized the long night you've gotten yourself into.
Or that Regina had gotten you into.
"Yeah, that sounds cool."
"Awes. See you later then." She slapped your doorframe once before leaving.
But you didn't miss the way she turned and let her eyes linger on you for just a few seconds longer than what's considered socially acceptable.
---
You spent the rest of the day unpacking and getting settled. You went off campus for lunch then took a walk to get some refreshing frozen lemonade from a popular place near by and drank it while you made your way back to your room.
Regina was still setting her dorm up to her standards. Her door was open and when you peaked in, she was standing on a wobbly chair trying to tape posters to her wall.
Of course she got a single room.
"Need help?" You took a sip of your partially melted peach lemonade and knocked on her doorframe to get her attention.
"Yes, please. That would be great." She said, sound exasperated.
You held out a hand to help her off the chair, but she ignored it. Opting to just brace herself on your shoulder instead. You scratched your head and assessed the situation. You weren't really much taller than her, but your arms were longer so that could work in your favor.
You looked around for somewhere to set your drink before she took it from you to hold. You stepped on to the death trap of a chair and did your best to hang the poster. It was of an artist you had never heard of, but you wouldn't be opposed to new music if she was any good.
You pressed the corners of the poster against the wall and moved out the way. Regina thought for a few seconds before asking you if it was possible to 'pretty please' move the right side up like a quarter of an inch.
You did your best to gauge a quarter of an inch, and your best was thankfully good enough because Regina was satisfied with your efforts pretty fast.
She reached her empty hand up to help you off the chair and you hesitated at first, but took it. She stiffened her arm and gave you a firm platform to put your weight so you had support when hopping down.
Did part of you kind of expect her to let you fall? A little yeah.
"So, what are my chances of getting you to build something for me, too?" She asked sweetly while she handed you back your drink and you took a sip, your dry throat feeling relieved already.
"It depends what it is."
"It's a stupid metal shelf thing." She stepped aside and over the metal parts scattered across her floor.
There was an attempt made, so you at least know she tried before asking.
"Yeah, that looks easy to me. Do you have the instructions?" You handed your drink back to her and kneeled on the floor, rifling through all the pieces.
She set your drink down on the desk and handed you the instructions, sitting down on the floor next to you with her legs crossed.
This shelf wasn't too difficult to build, but it was definitely frustrating. The pieces were in the right spot but they just weren't fitting. Regina complained about how her parents bought her such cheap stuff and didn't even stick around to help her build it. It wasn't like they had a long drive home ahead of them.
She kept apologizing for asking you to help her with stuff or for the shelf being too difficult. She said many times that if you couldn't get it she would just throw the shelf away and not to worry about it if it didn't work out.
You reassured her that it was really okay and you were happy to help. That there was no need to throw out a perfectly good shelf. After a few pinches to your skin, a few scrapes from jagged edges, and a lot of swearing later, you managed to get it built for her.
You didn't expect her to be as involved as she was. She was handing you pieces, going over the directions with you.
You stood up and picked up the shelf, turning it up right so it was standing correctly. She stood up after you, eyeing the shelf with her hands on her hips and nodding.
"That looks perfect. Thank you so much, really."
"You're so good, happy I can help." You picked up your now melted lemonade and took a sip, trying not to be visibly upset over the fact it was no longer frozen.
"Did you get that on campus?"
"No, it's a few minutes away. Really close by. You didn't know that, city girl?" You teased and bit back a smile when you noticed the small blush to her cheeks.
"I was going to offer to buy you a new one, but since you want to be mean I'm taking that offer of the table." She crossed her arms with a small pout and the overwhelming urge to kiss it away scared you.
"No, no. I wouldn't accept anyway. It was like halfway gone. No biggie, honestly." There was an awkward pause between the two of you. "Um, was there anything else you needed help with? Or should I go?"
"You can go now." She said in a tone that felt like a war flashback or something. "I'll swing by your room to pick you up at like 8:45."
"Do you still want me to go?" You asked, because honestly her tone was suggesting otherwise.
"I wouldn't have asked you if I didn't." She defended, her eyebrows furrowed.
"Okay. I'll see you later then."
---
9:15pm and you were sitting at your desk dressed and feeling stupid. Because of course Regina was still going to very much so still be Regina.
There was a knock at your door and you waited a second before answering it.
When you opened the door, you keep your face neutral and unimpressed. Which was actually extremely difficult to do because Regina looked breathtaking.
"Yeah, I know. I'm late. Also, you look hot." She commented and it immediately made you feel self conscious because you couldn't gauge if it was genuine or not.
You thought you looked good, but Regina had been notorious for giving out fake compliments.
"Thanks."
"So you agree? You think you're hot?"
Jeez, talk about a war flashback.
"I do." You answered without missing a beat, but your insecurities were threatening to crawl their way out of your mouth at any second.
Regina pursed her lips and nodded in approval at your response and you slowly let out the breath you had been holding.
"Let's go then."
---
Regina abandoned you the second you guys got to the mixer. Which you half expected. You quickly realized that this was not an official university organized event, though the 9pm start time should've made that clear ages ago.
Another indicator being that they were at a frat house.
Alcohol was flowing, students from all different grade levels were mingling.
You grabbed a cup of whatever alcoholic beverage was concocted and got to mingling.
You talked with a few people that you found out you would be sharing classes with, which was cool.
After about an hour of mingling and drinking, you found your way to the front porch and parked yourself on their porch swing and just did a bunch of people watching.
A cat with a collar came and sat next to you, purring and nuzzling against you. You had no idea if it belonged to the frat house or if it was a stray that just frequented the area. The collar said her name was Roach which really made you thing she belonged to the frat boys, but an off campus address on the back put those fears to rest.
"You found a cat!" Regina slurred, stepping out of the house loudly. Her heeled boots clicked against the floor of the porch and she slammed the door behind her, completely shutting out the thumping noise of the party.
"Yeah! Well, more so she found me. Her name is Roach."
"Ew." She hiccuped and made her way over to you, sitting next to Roach. She angled her body and rested her head on your shoulder. "I have to tell you something." She slurred again, reaching down to let the cat sniff her hand before petting her between the ears.
"Sure, what's up?"
"I remembered you and I pretended like I didn't." She lifted her head up to look at you. "But you're a sneaky bitch too because you did the same thing." She poked your cheek with her index finger until you turned your head away from it.
"You talked to me first. I wasn't going to bother you." You admitted, getting a little frustrated.
"Why? You didn't want to talk to me?" She asked, sounding almost disappointed?
"I didn't think you'd want me to. Then I thought it would be really embarrassing if I said I remembered you and you introduced yourself to me. So I just didn't say anything."
"I didn't want you to tell anyone about who I was in high school." She rested her head against your shoulder again. "I just wanted to start over."
"I'm not going to say anything." You said quietly, a little disappointed that the only reason she tried befriending you was to do damage control.
"I feel bad about it."
"About what?"
"How I treated people." She sniffled, clearing her nose. "I'm sorry about what I wrote about you."
"It is what it is." You shrugged. "It's not like I hid my sexuality or anything."
"You didn't. It made me jealous."
Your ears perked up at this admission. You didn't know whether or not to press on or drop the subject. Whatever amount of alcohol she drank was giving her loose lips and you aren't actually sure how much of this information she actually wants anyone to know.
"You don't want to talk about this sober?" She shook her head against your shoulder.
"Talking about it sober is hard."
"Your parents not accepting or...?"
"My mom? Maybe. Probably. My dad? Absolutely fucking not." She took your drink from your hand and downed the rest of it.
"We don't have to talk about this anymore." You offered while she was downing your drink.
"I'm gonna get another drink." She began to get up, but you pulled her back down"
"Hey, no. Come on. Just stay here with me and Roach." You motioned to the purring cat between you both. "I don't want to lose track of you or the cat. So just stay."
Regina sighed and leaned back against the back of the porch swing. She bit her bottom lip and looked up at you.
"What if we brought the cat inside with us while I got a drink." She offered, giving you a silly little smirk that made your heart somersault.
"I think it's too loud for her in there." Roach let out small meow. "See, she agrees." You scratched under her chin, trying to ignore the way Regina was staring at you right now.
"You were always so nice to us."
"What are you talking about?"
"When I let Gretchen drive my car one time to get us lunch and she got a flat tire in the school lot and you helped her change it so I wouldn't get mad at her. You talked her out of a panic attack because she was so afraid of me."
"Oh, yeah. I forgot about that." You lied.
"Or when Karen was upset after the Christmas show junior year because I was just so cruel to her about her body count. Which wasn't even high. I saw you bringing her that stupid red and green caramel popcorn that the cafeteria was selling for the show."
"I saw her crying, I thought it would cheer her up."
"You also gave me ice when they dropped me on my face and you tried taking care of me."
"I was working backstage and nobody else wanted to help you. Though, I do recall being called a shitty name or two when I did that." You teased.
"I know. I'm sorry. Like really fucking sorry. I was just...projecting."
"I know." You reassured.
You sat in silence for a few minutes, watching people come in and out of the house. Regina adjusted next to you and you put a protective had on Roach and scooted her closer so Regina had more space to move.
You could feel her staring at you. It made you anxious because who knows what she was thinking about.
Regina shift again and before you can even register her movements, her lips were pressed softly against the sensitive skin of your neck.
"I always thought you were so hot." She mumbled against your skin, her tongue poking out slightly to taste you and her right hand coming up to cup your neck.
You froze for a few seconds, getting lost in the sensation of her lips on your skin, before your rational thoughts kicked in.
"Regina, hey." You said calmly, pulling her hand on your neck. "You're drunk." You laced for fingers with hers and rested your joined hands on your lap.
You watched her stare at your hands, fully expecting her to go off on you or to say something cruel in her drunken state.
Instead, she swiped her thumb over your knuckles and hummed a small approval to herself.
Then a cluster of rowdy frat boys came fumbling out of the house and she let go of your hand faster than anything you had ever witnessed before.
She wiped her hands on her pants and stood up with such ease that it made you question if she was ever even that drunk to begin with.
"I'm gonna get another drink. I'll find you when I'm ready to go."