#good evening rejanis nation i have finally completed all my cadina week stuff

[erikahenningsen]

10. regina/janis

10. “I won’t let you.”

This is so not Janis's scene. Which is a weird thing to say, considering she's in Damian's house. But things have changed a lot in the last few months.

When Janis decided to forgive Cady at spring fling, she didn't realize she would be inheriting all of Cady's friends, too—people Janis previously found to be profoundly annoying, but most of whom turned out to be okay.

Still, she really has to ask herself how she ended up here, at a rager thrown by Damian, who has somehow become close with Shane Oman, with three-quarters of the North Shore basketball team, the mathletes, Gretchen Wieners, Karen Shetty, and Regina fucking George.

Janis enjoys a good party, but the combination of the jocks chanting chug, chug, chug and Damian and his theater friends belting out showtunes is giving her a headache.

She's looking for her jacket, ready to head home, when she sees Regina, stumbling a little as she tries to jam her foot into her shoe.

"Untying it first might help," Janis tells her, finally locating her jacket thrown over the banister, buried by three other jackets.

Regina makes an annoyed huff, but she does untie her shoe before finally sliding it in and re-lacing it. When she rights herself, the first thing Janis notices is how she sways a little where she stands, face flushed the way it gets sometimes when she's had too much to drink. (How Janis somehow knows this is beyond her.)

The second is that her car keys are in her hand.

"You're not driving yourself home, are you?" Janis asks cautiously.

"What? Yeah, I am," Regina says, rolling her eyes a little as she reaches for the front door.

Janis maneuvers herself so she's blocking Regina's path. "Slow down there, Justin Timberlake. You're drunk. You can't drive."

"I'm fine," Regina insists, irritation starting to color her voice. "Move."

"No."

"Janis! Get out of my way. I'm leaving," Regina says, drawing out the last word, like Janis is stupid.

Janis shakes her head. "I won't let you."

Regina's eyebrows rise. "You won't let me?"

"Nope," Janis tells her. "You know what it's like to get hit by a reckless driver. You want someone else to experience that?"

This seems to give Regina pause. Janis waits as the gears in her brain turn, slowed by alcohol.

"Ugh, fine," Regina grumbles. Then she pulls out her phone and starts clumsily tapping at the screen.

"What are you doing?" Janis asks.

"Calling an Uber, officer," Regina says.

Janis has no idea what possesses her to say, "I'll drive you home."

Regina blinks at her once, twice. "What?"

"I can drive you," Janis tells her. "I'm heading out anyway, and you're on the way, so..."

It's not that she and Regina aren't friends, but they're not exactly friends, either. They're still figuring out how to navigate that awkward space between being everything and nothing to each other. But this shouldn't be weird, right?

Right.

"Okay," Regina says after a moment. "Don't kill me."

Janis rolls her eyes and opens the front door. "Right. You're more of a do-it-yourself kind of girl."

Janis walks slowly to her car, Regina stumbling after her, walking gingerly on the frozen grass, breath curling like smoke in the winter air.

Janis turns on the car and blasts the heat once they're inside, slowly backing out of the driveway, maneuvering between the cars parked at the curb.

"It's cold in here," Regina complains like a petulant child.

"It'll warm up," Janis replies through gritted teeth. She contemplates making a joke about Regina being a frigid bitch, but decides against it.

"My car has heated seats."

"You can take off a star when you write your review."

Regina tilts her head back against the headrest and sighs. "Are you still seeing Grace?"

The question catches Janis completely off guard. "What?"

"Are you still seeing—"

"I heard you," Janis says. "Um, no, not anymore."

"Hmm," Regina hums contemplatively. "Well, there are lots of other girls out there. You'll find someone."

"You sound like my grandmother."

Regina huffs irritably. "I'm trying to be supportive."

"Yeah, and it's freaking me out, honestly," Janis tells her. If someone had told her even half an hour ago that she'd be talking to Regina about girls in her car, she would have laughed.

"Well, fine," Regina says, crossing her arms. She actually sounds a little hurt. And for some crazy reason, Janis doesn't want to hurt Regina's feelings.

"But, um, thanks," Janis says. "It just didn't work out."

Regina rests her head against the window, breath fogging the glass as she speaks. "You're hot and smart. You'll be okay."

Janis is grateful that she's pulling into Regina's driveway, because her instinct is to slam on the brakes. "What?"

Regina looks at her. She looks exhausted. "What?"

"What did you just say?" Janis needs to hear it again, for some reason.

Regina pauses to think. "You'll be okay."

"No, before—you know what? Never mind." Janis cuts the ignition. "Here you are, Cinderella."

Regina frowns. "Does that make you the pumpkin?"

Janis ignores the question. "Good night."

But Regina doesn't get out. She looks down at her hands, twisted in her lap. "Thanks for driving me home."

"Well, I didn't want to be an accessory to vehicular homicide. I'm applying to colleges, and that would look bad."

"Right," Regina says. She looks at Janis again, searching her face for something.

Janis isn't sure why the air in the car suddenly feels so charged, and it occurs to her that this is the longest she's been alone with Regina since middle school. She has the crazy thought that she's missed Regina, actually.

Finally, Regina pops open her door. "Well, thank you," she says quietly. "Good night."

"Night," Janis echoes, watching Regina disappear into her house.

Janis sits for a few minutes in her car in the driveway, trying to untangle the strange feeling in her stomach. Finally, she turns on her car, resolving to tuck this weird night in the file in the back of her brain labeled times Regina seemed human.