Regina Spring

I was ten when it first hit me how badly I wanted to hold the hand of this one red-head girl in my class. It felt wrong but I felt something more. It felt good. I felt scared and I got up, asked the teacher if I could go to the bathroom and stood there in one of the stalls crying, thinking what was wrong with me?

Wasn't I meant to feel this towards a boy?

At least that's what happened in the movies mom and I watched on Saturday evenings.

Something was wrong with me.

Nothing was wrong with me, though it didn't turn out to be good and I ended up in a doctor's office with my panicked mother because she thought I was sick or something.

Fifteen and I walked a fragile line, lying to my mother that I was alright and in love with Nate, my best friend and everything was terribly wrong because all the time I was wishing it was a girl.

It was a Tuesday night when Nate and I had sneaked into a party and I happened to run into Mia and tell her that her own party was 'stupid'. She could've killed me but we ended up kissing.

It was wonderstruck and timeless to have her with me. 'Forever and always', we always said until one summer evening she told me she was moving to Chicago.

"Regina, you're the kind of girl I'd live for, remember that when you get famous and I sit in a small town, watching you on the screen!" Mia had said before getting into the car, before she called me from Chicago telling me she missed me, before she met someone.

Once she told me she wished she was me.

When she fell in love she told her mother and danced around the kitchen. When she fell in love her mother baked her cookies for her girlfriend. When she got her heart broken she didn't disappear into her room and cried all alone. When she met me, her mother liked me. When she liked me she wasn't scared. When she was stepping in the car to leave for Chicago she didn't hide with me from her mother to tell me how much she loved me. When she fell in love, she was who she wanted to be.

Sometimes I wished I was her.

We'd been walking for 10 minutes after we sneaked out from our cabin and I couldn't tell if this was a good idea to 'look around' when we could barely see anything without the flashlights.

I looked at Kai walking next to me, trembling while Miles and Sydney ran around, looking at the trees, the stars, the sky, like little kids. The leaves beneath our feet rustled as we walked, talking and giggling and getting chased by Kai (he wasn't buying the fact that we called him a 'baby').

I checked my cheap plastic watch I won at a music competition back in seventh grade. It was always 7 minutes slow but I couldn't get rid of it because it still worked. And also because I had gotten used to reading the time and doing the math. It was ten o five.

"What the-" Miles screamed and we all looked in his direction to see him freaking out over a little black spider.

"I have to ask, is this a childhood nightmare growing back on you? Or the fact that you're a scaredy cat? Because I can't decide which one's more embarrassing." Kai laughed and Miles growled out a curse.

"That's so not good of you!" Kai argued.

"I'm sorry, honey! I left my manners back at home!" Miles said bluntly and shot him a grin.

"Still, you're horrible!"

What would we do if they found us out right now? I thought.

"This is the last time I'm sneaking out with them," Sydney laughed and lit up a cigarette. I noticed her crimson-bruised knuckles and I couldn't stop myself from thinking why she looked so not okay. Why was she so quiet? Was something wrong?

"Sydney, why do you smoke so goddamn much?" I whispered softly, my fingers straightening my black hair.

"I just do. I don't know why but I do," she said, staring down at her feet and something in her voice felt like she didn't even think about it once. She just did. Or maybe she didn't want to tell me. Or maybe-

"I heard the lake was haunted," Sydney said excitedly and I rolled my eyes at her.

"What?" She looked at me. "Emily and I looked the place up on the internet."

"This is stupid," Kai scoffed, shaking his head and then screamed, "Miles! Why'd you hit me?"

"I didn't do anything. I promise!" Miles said, innocently.

"I think we should head back to the cabin before something happens," Sydney whispered and that's when I saw someone.

"Is that-" I was still staring at the 'someone' when Miles whisper-shouted 'run' and so we did. We stumbled back to the cabin,breathing heavily.

"It was so goddamn fun!" Miles exclaimed and I giggled.

"Illegal. It was freaking illegal," Kai said between breaths. He was still recovering from all the running and panicking.

"I like to enjoy my life. Why don't you?"

"I like to follow the rules. Why don't you?"

"Okay, we're not starting again with the fight, are we?" Sydney said, stepping between the boys.

"Maybe not." Miles looked at her and got in his bed.

The rest of the night passed quickly enough. Even though we got back to the cabin at 2 AM, we didn't sleep. The cabin seemed to be lurking in the darkness and we could hear the cicadas singing in the screaming silence, the tree leaves rustling and I opened my eyes, staring into the darkness, because I could feel something was wrong. I was breathing heavily and my heart was still racing after everything that had happened. Breathe in and breathe out, I whispered to myself.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Breathe in and breathe out.

Breathe in and breathe out, Regina.

I couldn't breathe.

I couldn't stop thinking.

Stop thinking Regina! I whispered to myself.

Chances were I'd talk myself to sleep again and lose myself to these voices telling me to stop thinking.

And it really wasn't helping that I'm a goddamn insomniac.

I wondered if Mia could sleep or she was an insomniac, still not over me too. I wondered if Mia missed me too. I wondered if she was still in Chicago. I wondered if she'd forgotten me and it was just me who remembered it all.

Just one time, if I could see her, I'd feel like this haunted town inside me would lit up. I'd light up. Just one time.