The Night I Woke Up Beside You

[SEASON 1] Chapter 10: The Other Woman, But She's Younger

It had only been two days, but it felt like it had gone on for about a week now.

Regina was still there, still trapped in her sixteen-year-old body, still riding on the passenger seat of her sister's old Toyota Prius on her way to school, still walking down the very familiar crowded hallways of Perry High in an attempt to beat the sudden rush of students at the last five-minute timestamp before the first bell rings, signaling the start of the first class and the start of another day for her as a student. 

With her tote bag slung over her shoulder and a couple of textbooks in her other arm, like how it had always been back then (back when she did not know the future yet), Regina tried to quicken her steps while gravely avoiding everyone's stare. She did her best to keep it low-key, she had not seen Daisy around yet, but she knew she'll meet her friend at class eventually. It seemed like she really had to retake the rest of her high school days that she already had finished so many years ago. Those old and boring days for when she had almost wanted to leave right away as soon as she had graduated... 

At least in the version of that reality where she lived for twenty-six years before she had terribly ended up dead after driving straight towards a curb after catching her fiancé cheating on her with another woman... and with a child.

Well, too bad. 

She really did not have to remind herself about any of the horrible memory she had before and on the very day of her tragic death. That should have been taboo. And she should be focusing more on going through her new life now. Probably better never to think about anything that would immediately make her remember that betrayal again. Not when the very ex-fiancé she just had been picturing in her mind was suddenly appearing right in front of her,--way younger this time though--as if he had been summoned immediately from her own foolish unwanted thoughts. Regina hesitated on her steps, biting hard on her lip as she felt the dread of the upcoming interlude, and she already expected him to whine.

Not even that long after she caught the sight of him, he was already zoning in on her, blocking her path with intent, wearing a glowering look on his face. He was clearly pissed about something. Probably, at her. Though, Regina did not really understand why he would even be.

She should be the one pissed at him. Clearly, their unrewarding conversation yesterday had ended up in a complete disaster but it was mostly because he was being quite an ass about it. And stupid. However, Regina knew that she cannot really be that angry for so long at Charles. It would be illogical to say that she hated him right now just as much as she hated him when he had cheated on her in that parallel future world where she might already have been long dead.

This younger Charles, however, living in this new reality that she had been trying to change for good should have been exempted from the hostility, at least. Well, not that completely exempted from everything. But it was not really fair as well, for her to focus all her anger on this very much innocent version of Charles, even when it seemed like his recent rude attitude and his violent reactions from the way he had handled their breakup was obviously a little bit too much. And aggressive.

"We need to talk," she heard him saying as he gritted his teeth. She stepped back and frowned at him for a second, not liking how he had suddenly put her in a tight spot. It felt threatening.

Regina was not really in the right, or even nearly good enough, mood to accommodate his desperate wiles or any more of his grieving episodes right now. Aside from the fact that she was just too tired from talking and talking and talking about the break-up all over again, and forcing everyone who kept asking her about it to move on right away, she also had the first class that she did not want to miss. Although she already knew pretty much how it was going to be yet another boring discussion. But she would have still preferred sitting through all that boredom with Mrs. Richards talking about theorems and postulates rather than being there, receiving the awful end of this sudden interruption.

"What?" she replied back to Charles after a short pause, sounding quite impatient. She gave him a glaring look as she stared up to meet his eyes and he scowled harder. This might really take a while. More students filled the hallways this time, passing them by, but not without sending fleeting glances at Charles and Regina as it seemed like everybody had just been wanting to at least get a good short glimpse of the unlikely post-credit scene from the most popular and disastrous breakup of the year.

"Where did you go yesterday?" Charles finally asked away, unbothered by the curious spies, as he just stared at Regina with such rigid displeasure. His gaze was just too bitter and agonizing. And Regina could not even hold back a wince as she dropped her eyes from him.

"Can we not talk about that here, please?" she tried to evade him, stepping to the side but Charles only moved to block her again. 

"Charles," she snapped this time, almost like a warning. He did not even budge. She huffed out a breath, looking extremely annoyed, flaring her nostrils as she glared back at his taller profile.

"You ran away," Charles sternly reminded her, looming and staring down, his drowning blue eyes, almost the color of the sea that had usually made her squirm and her stomach flutter inside before, was now just gleaming with fluid resentment and hurt directed on her, "Why did you run away?"

She could not say anything at the first few seconds, retracing every feature of his face, the softer version of those lines that she had remembered would soon be marked by wrinkles ten years from now. Regina felt the pang of loneliness and pain hit her right to the solar plexus, gnawing, clawing up to her chest. And for a moment, she felt like she was about to cry, but she held herself up. Fighting back against the impact of overflowing emotions swarming over her, she hardened her jaw and matched his gaze.

"I had to, Charles. And you know why I ran away," Regina explained with a heavy voice, feeling a little too pushed now as he pinned her with those accusing eyes that seemed to pierce her right through the chest, "I knew it wasn't going to be that easy with you. You told me you'd return the phone, but you still tried to take it back out of spite. What am I supposed to do? Beg you? We're over. It's final, Charles. There's nothing else you could have done now to get us back together. I thought we could be civil about this. But if you want to talk it out right here in the middle of the hallway, then fine. We'll do it, but I'm not going to keep repeating myself and be late for my first class, just to make you understand it already. I don't think it would be all that much worth it with the limited time we have now. So, please, can you just let me go? And once your temper finally dwindles down and you could finally think this all through again with a sane mind, maybe, by then, we'll finally talk."

She exhaled. That was quite a long statement, but he really gave her no other choice. She had to talk. She could not take any more of this unnecessary attention that they just kept gathering whenever they had to confront each other this way. It was really hard to be with Charles... All eyes would always follow him around. Every time, everywhere, like a magnet. Like a centered gravity, attention and words would just instantly drift his way. And he did not even have to do anything. It was just nature. And it was not even his fault that he was like that, it was just how it had always been.

He was like the sun, too bright, too big, too welcoming, yet too hot and too untouchable. He's the big star in the center of the galaxy pulling people like planets to orbit aimlessly around him, over and over, until he could no longer get away from them. Like her. 

Regina had once been a planet orbiting around him... The one who used to be the closest to him. The one who had been burnt the worst.

And now, Regina was just so done with it all. And even when she had been given the chance to return back in this time, she knew that she can never change this side of him anymore. He would never get away from it. Just like how he had never been able to even after he grew older. And she had seen it all happen ten years from now.

It was mentally exhausting. Too bad for him. Regina can only think that way with sympathy and unspoken pity. She had witnessed enough to understand how difficult and dismantling it was to be someone like him. 

Famous. Perfect in the eyes of everyone. Golden and flawless. Pure. Ideal. Unbreakable. Un-leave-able. 

She was not even Charles, but she could feel the weight of it all. Even more, now that she had already become the ex-girlfriend... Emphasis on the "ex". And everybody must have already thought of her as someone who was so vile, like a villain who had ruthlessly broken the dashing hero of this story.

He never deserved her. Just as much as how she had never deserved to die after getting her heartbroken and shattered apart into very small pieces.

"Let's talk sometime later, okay?" Regina uttered after a while, finally calming down through her sad thoughts, trying to coax him because he looked so torn and deflated and she understood that feeling. She could sympathize very well. And seeing the same pain in his eyes made her feel guilty for pushing him away like this. There was really no point in fighting more about the break-up. And the only way to make this all better now was to try and accept and talk... more soundly. 

She just needed to be more mature now. She'd been twenty-six years old, for Pete's sake. She should be the bigger person now. So with an intent to comfort him out of familial affection, Regina put a hand over his shoulder, more like a reassuring gesture because she was still concerned about him. He was still her friend, after all, even way before they had become lovers and before they ended up here, breaking up, they used to be friends.

Charles let out a long sigh, almost as if he was trying to calm himself down now. And maybe he should. Maybe anger was not the right emotion to let this out. He needed to clear the blurry lines of his pain. He glanced down at the soft little hand that Regina had put over his shoulder. It felt warm... but not warm enough. He needed more. But he knew he can't really demand more. It would only make this worse. He should try to keep a sane mind.

And as he finally seemed to consider her words, he decided to give up. Just for a while. And he looked at her again. Into those eyes, and he felt the pain rushing in once more. And this time, his gaze had turned into a burning and searing longing. She could see the reflection of his deepest emotions through those blue orbs. Charles pressed his lips together, trying to hold back the words that were daring to come out of his mouth.

Love me again. 

Get back together with me. 

But, no. He can't say that. Not now. Not yet. He kept his eyes on her and he could immediately tell that she had been very too eager to leave now. She was fidgeting, looking smaller than she ever did. Then after a long moment of just staring at each other, Charles finally let her go... in the meantime.

"We'll talk," he said, like a reminder, because he wanted to confirm that she really meant it when she said they would talk. He wanted her to promise those words as he held onto it like a lifeline, and it felt too necessary. It was the only hope for him to be sure that she won't ignore and leave him without turning back. And Regina saw it too clearly, everything had been shown in his eyes. The begging sea of blueness that mirrored his desperation, the fear of losing her, the emptiness that she left.

She nodded back. "Yes. We'll talk."

And he drew a deep breath of relief. It felt comforting. He needed that. So he finally let go, much calmer this time because he knew she still loves him, although it might never be the same as how he was feeling for her right now. He just knew...

She could never really leave him completely. Then he moved to walk in the opposite direction, but not before he leaned down so suddenly that she never had time to react at it when he had boldly planted a very chaste kiss, too feathery, too light, just a short brush of his lips, barely touching her on the cheekbone, just on the very spot beneath her eyes where he had used to kiss her all the time when they were together... Those sweet fleeting kisses from the past.

It was nostalgic, incredibly familiar, yet silently heart-aching, that Regina held her breath for a few seconds. Even when she knew he was already long gone, she still stood there in the middle of the hallway, with the curious eyes glancing at her, passing by her, ignoring her, while she remained frozen right there on the same spot where he had left her... Clueless, breathless, anxious, and paranoid.

It was romantic, it was sweet, but it hurt. 

Because that was their memory... Memories that she had shared with him for most of her life. But it was also the same memories that had led her to total despair, making her irreparably broken, and sending her to death in an instant... All because she had loved him so foolishly.

And almost like a jolt of wake, a total recap of reality, she was suddenly brought back to where she was, realizing that she had been so lost in her own thoughts again. And the first sound of the blaring bell got her back. Students rushed from all directions, she felt the wind breezing past her. She was going to be late for class. But she still had not moved yet. There was no use now... she'll just miss attendance anyway.

What could be worse?

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By the start of the third period, Regina was already feeling so sleepy in her chair. She could no longer keep up with the rest of the class. Even when she had been here before, took the same classes before, she was still so surprised to find out that she could not really remember most of their lessons. And that she was actually even way more lost and clueless than most of her classmates in terms of the topics that they were studying right now. She even embarrassed herself in class so many times that she already lost count. Even way more than she had ever embarrassed herself when she had been taking a business major course in college for four long years.

That was more depressing to admit. But she can't ever really deny that.

She was drained out as she waited for the next class to start again and rested her head over her desk, wishing she could just finally go home as soon as possible. But then, there were still the afternoon classes, and that made her day even more unbearable now as she realized. The thought of skipping all of it was starting to sound quite tempting the longer she tried to consider it. Maybe she could just do it today and to hell with it tomorrow. Since she never really had done it before... Not even once. The experience might even teach her a thing or two. It will never really hurt to try, maybe she could really do it. She just had to be confident enough to pull it off.

At least for once in her life, let herself be bad for one day.

But the bell suddenly rang again, jerking Regina on her seat, as she failed to continue with her plan, realizing it was too late to be brazen now. So she sat up straight and rubbed a palm over her face, evidently displeased. And just as the rest of the class shuffled back to their seats, the teacher walked in from the doorway. She uttered a clipped greeting, unemotional and cold, while Regina felt even way more bored and impatient to finally get through the entire day. And just midway through the roll call, someone suddenly showed up in the doorway again.

The loud rustling of things stuffed in the bag and the way the shoes had squeaked against the newly waxed floor, had everyone in the room turned their attention to the one who had made all of those noises. It was a girl, a student, someone who was apparently very, very, late in class. And she was even completely aware of it, yet she still dared to show up with a confident straight face.

And right away, Regina realized that it was a really familiar face. Not just to Ms. Wilson who was now peering through her eyeglasses as she squinted her eyes at the sudden intruder and pursed her lips in utter disappointment. Regina recognized the late attendee immediately. She was so sure of who it was. Who she was. Because how could she ever really forget that face?

Even if she had looked younger, skinnier, and edgier, Regina would still be able to know her at first glance. From the very first second when she had appeared with those flashy eyes right there by the door, goosebumps quickly ran across Regina's bare arms, up to her neck, and down to her spine. She was startled for a moment and soon found herself biting the inside of her cheek, hard that she could almost taste blood. She was reeling inside... But she had to control herself.

It was her... It was that woman. Ten years from now.

The woman whom Charles had cheated with behind Regina's back. The woman she had seen kissing the love of her life. Regina knew her pretty well because they had met and known each other way before. Way, way, way before, from the time, that she had been a classmate like what she was right now, to the time when she had been a friend, a permanent guest during birthdays, on social gatherings, and weekend dinners. Those times when she would always visit Regina at her flat to bake cakes and pies with her every Sunday.

She's Eleanor Gomez. The other woman. But this time, she was not the same person that Regina knew yet. She was much younger, oblivious, unaware of the future ahead of them. Unaware of how she would hurt Regina in the end. 

This was her before she had become the woman who would steal the man Regina had loved for most of her life. And there she was, standing just a few steps away, almost as if mocking her with the gods above them saying, "And here you meet the one who would cause you your future heartache".

It was a moment to remember.

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