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Gretchen Wieners met Regina George in the seventh grade. Gretchen hadn’t understood the way her stomach flip flopped like a fish out of water with every word Regina said back then, but she’d grown all too accustomed to it since. Every time Regina passed judgment, her nails would dig a little deeper into her palms, red marks imprinted into her skin.
“Gretchen. You’re leaving marks.” Regina glanced down at Gretchen’s palms.
“Sorry, Regina.”
Her apology was met with a low noise of approval.
Their little group also included two other girls, Karen and Janis. Janis was Regina’s favorite. For a reason she didn’t understand, Gretchen wanted to be Regina’s favorite, the one she called first, the one she told everything, the one Regina thought about. Karen wasn’t about to take the position as favorite, at least. She was sweet as anything, but dumb as a rock. She was secure in her position as ‘the hot one’. Regina liked to say that she was there to make herself look less slutty, even though they were only 12, but Karen took it all in stride. For that, Gretchen envied her- each insult Regina dished out to her was saved away to look over and consider and improve upon when she got home.
In eighth grade, Gretchen started to pick at her nails.
“Gretchen, stop picking at your nails. You pick them short and it makes you look like you have lesbian hands.”
Gretchen didn’t know why the word lesbian made her eyes sting more than usual.
Near the end of eighth grade, Janis told them all that she was a lesbian.
“So you’ve been, like, checking us out this whole time?” Regina’s voice was dripping with gleeful venom. “That’s really shitty of you, Janis. I don’t think we can be friends anymore.”
Gretchen swallowed, ignoring the lump in her throat as a panicked Janis tried to meet her eyes.
“I wasn’t checking you guys out! That’d be super weird. I just-”
“We don’t want dykes around. Maybe you should leave.” Regina blinked slowly, as if settling into her resolve.
Karen cleared her throat. “Um, what’s wrong with Janis staying? If she wasn’t doing anything wrong, I mean.”
“Karen, you’re not a fucking queer too, are you? Stop defending her.” Regina snapped. “Now, Janis, leave. Gretch, won’t you tell her to go?”
Gretchen’s stomach lurched as nausea threatened to climb up her throat. “Janis, um. Maybe you should go.”
Regina rewarded her with a level gaze that almost seemed to contain gratitude as Janis scrambled to grab her stuff. “See, Gretchen knows her place.”
Gretchen forced a smile.
Over the summer, the three of them talked about the boys they all wanted to date. Regina, of course, had a boyfriend in middle school but she had promptly dumped him before the summer started.
Gretchen could not find a boy she liked, so she chose Joshua Millard as he seemed nice enough. When she thought about kissing him, the only feeling that came up was mild disgust, but she made sure not to tell Regina that.
When she thought about kissing Regina, she felt something else she couldn’t place.
It scared her. Gretchen didn’t think she could handle being ousted from their group the same way Janis had been.
The flip-flopping in her stomach started getting worse when high school started. Every interaction with Regina those little sharp shards of anxiety dig deeper into her, and yet she tried so hard to be around her. She looked for ways to make herself useful, needed- when Regina asked about someone or something, she had to have the answer or else the memory of failure would ring in her ears for the rest of the week.
She wondered what was wrong with her when she started comparing herself to Aaron Samuels, the boy Regina fancied. She’d say she liked how his hair looked pushed back and Gretchen pushed her hair back, wondering if Regina liked it on her. Regina said something about how tall he was and all Gretchen could think about was her own height.
It was simply because she didn’t like to be replaced, she decided. Nothing else. There was nothing else behind it.
Once they were dubbed ‘The Plastics’, the rules started. Another stupid fucking thing to stress over, Gretchen thought, but she’d never break them if it meant she’d have to sit alone. Or sit anywhere away from Regina. Gretchen thrived off of her presence even as it crushed her inside- every look or bit of praise like a little boost, and added up they kept her just barely afloat.
And the secrets. So many secrets she stowed away and brought back to Regina, cringing as she watched how Regina weaponized them. Some got into that old Burn Book they’d made, which to Gretchen was a shameful amalgamation of her crimes against the others girls. It was funny how quickly the ‘girl code’ they all preached disappeared if someone wasn’t pretty and popular.
There was only one secret she had never told Regina (aside from her own secrets) and that was Karen’s. Poor, sweet, trusting Karem who really was more emotionally intelligent than she let on- who liked girls and guys and had hooked up with Natalie Suekrat over the summer. When Karen told her that, the void Grethcen balanced over opened a bit wider. The truth she was avoiding came a little bit closer because Karen had admitted her own truth.
In the summer between Grade 10 and 11, Gretchen’s life went to shit.
It all started at a summer party at Regina’s, the boys splashing around with their beer cans sitting around the edge of the pool while the girls tanned, sipping from their cocktails. The air was warm and buzzing with the chatter of slightly-drunk adolescents.
“Gretch, tell me about her.” Regina’s gaze landed on a senior lounging across from them with another girl next to her.
“Oh, that’s Zoey Urs. She’s goalie for the girl’s hockey team. Rumor has it most of said hockey team are hooking up.” Grechten supplied fervently. “Apparently she’s like, really smart though.”
“Wow. You really are good at just knowing things, hm?” Regina stretched languidly and smiled. Gretchen glanced away from her body as her heart thumped pathetically fast. “Makes me glad you’re on my side.” A pointed glance punctuated her last statement.
“Of course, Regina.” Gretchen looked away, trying to hide the blush that colored her cheeks.
Later, the party moved inside, getting louder and louder as more alcohol was introduced. Somehow Regina and Gretchen had ended up sitting on the couch too close together, legs crossed together in a floppy knot of teenage limbs. Regina was pressed close to Gretchen’s chest, one arm around her waist as the other rested on her thigh.
Gretchen was all too aware of the contact. Her heartbeat was audible, thumping in her ears. Regina’s thumb rubbed slow circles on her leg that felt like sparks being showered across her.
“Gretchen.” A drunken slur accompanied the word. “Let’s go upstairs. Too loud.”
A shaky nod was the only response Gretchen trusted herself to give in her drunken, lovesick (although she denied it to herself) state. Slowly she extracted her limbs from Regina’s, pulling herself off the couch with a stretch. The stairs didn’t creak - they never did, the house was too well renovated - as they padded up together, fingers interlocked.
Gretchen couldn’t remember the last time she felt this comfortable around Regina. It wasn’t saying much, but her sharp tongue seemed to have been dulled by the alcohol.
And then her thoughts quieted as Regina moved closer, breath that smelt of shitty vodka hitting her neck as she leaned her head against Gretchen’s shoulder. “Gretchen, would you kiss me?”
Sadly, alcohol made Gretchen truthful. “Y-yeah. Probably.”
She was surprised as Regina’s lips hit hers, teeth scratching her bottom lip. Her mouth was surprisingly deft for someone so inebriated, her tongue brushing against Gretchen’s as their breath mingled. A manicured hand reached up the back of her head, gripping her hair. A delightful noise exited Gretchen’s throat as Regina yanked her head back, kissing her neck and siding her free hand under her shirt.
“Regina- what are you… why are we?” Gretchen choked out through her confusing mess of feelings. She was immensely attracted to Regina- it was hard to deny when they were making out pressed all too close together- but it didn’t make sense for Regina to be attracted to her.
“Hush.’ There was a sultry rasp to Regina’s voice as she spoke. “You talk too much.”
Gretchen was even more confused when she woke up in Regina’s bed naked the next morning with a pounding headache and swollen lips.
“Regina…?” Shards of memory floated up. Regina’s hand in her hair, her perfume, the way she had traced her lips down Gretchen’s side.
Bleary ice blue eyes gaze over at her. “Gretchen.” Her voice sounded strangely tight. “Get dressed. Now.”
Gretchen scrambled out of bed, searching for her underwear and bra in the poor morning light. Anxiety hummed in her mind, familiar beats of self loathing at her stupidity to do something like this with fucking Regina George of all people. But mixed with that was hope. Hope that maybe Regina liked her.
Hope that maybe it would happen again.
When Regina spoke again, once Gretchen was dressed, her voice was cold steel. “Listen to me closely. That never happened. If you ever breathe a word of last night to someone I will destroy you in ways that you cannot imagine.”
Tears pricked at the corners of Gretchen’s eyes. “Yes, Regina.”
“And I’m not a fucking lesbian, ok?”
“Yes, Regina.”
She and Regina never spoke about that drunken night- it was as though it had never happened. But Gretchen would never forget the way Regina had tasted and the way her hands felt against her skin.