Chapter Text
Janis woke up from a nightmare, but it wasn’t a nightmare; it was real. She heard Regina get hit by the bus — screeching of brakes and the loud thud of impact. Then, she saw Regina’s mangled body on the road — blood everywhere, limbs twisted at unnatural angles and blood pooling around her like a macabre halo. Dark crimson stains littered the pavement, stark against the dull grey of the asphalt. The stench of coppery blood filled the air, making her stomach churn.
She remembered not breathing, fear taking over her. She doesn’t remember running over to see if she was okay; she doesn’t remember screaming her name or yelling for someone to call 911.
Cady was on the other side of Regina’s lifeless body — both with tears in their eyes. Later, Janis would note the irony that the two people who were the most at odds with Regina were the two people trying to help her. They didn’t know what to do. They didn’t move her; they knew at least not to do that. But, they both were touching her, each with their own thoughts — Janis just kept thinking “don’t be dead” over and over again.
The paramedics arrived, and she and Cady moved away and just watched, enveloped in fear and sadness. That’s where Janis’ memories fade; she doesn’t remember Regina being put in the ambulance. Later, when she found out that Regina died for 15 seconds, she almost threw up. Right now, this morning, she was thankful for therapy today — a habit that she started in sixth grade after Regina outed her and began to bully her for whatever reason.
As she worked on that trauma over the years, she came to realize that, now, she was a stronger person, but it still bugged her that she never knew why Regina did it. And, maybe she didn’t want to cross that bridge, scared for what she might find on the other side.
She and Regina had been inseparable from first grade onward. The jarring separation just left her confused. Today, in therapy, as she had been for the last few weeks, she was talking about her new trauma: Regina’s accident. Why the fuck was Regina at the center of the two biggest traumatic events of her life? That has to mean something, right? She needed to ask her therapist…or maybe talk about that recurring nightmare first.
“I had the nigthmare-memory thing again,” Janis tells her therapist, Dr. Andi Phillips.
“Was it the whole thing again or just parts?”
Janis sat forward in her usual armchair; she rested her arms on her legs, her fingers tracing the faded floral pattern etched into the fabric. “I remember waking up just after looking at my hands covered in her blood.” She stared down at her hands as if the blood was still there.
“The visceral nature of that must be difficult.”
“It’s like I can’t wash it off. I feel like Lady Macbeth,” Janis sighed, still staring hands, palms up like she was holding pools of blood there, forever stained by the memory.
Dr. Phillips laughed quietly at the reference. “Do you feel guilty?”
This caused Janis to sit more upright; she made intense eye contact with the woman across from her. “Yeah, I feel guilty for not being able to help, for feeling, at one point, like this bitch deserved it. And, I’m so confused: why did I go help her after everything she’s done to me? Why did — do — I care? Why did I want to ruin her life? Am I really such a vengeful bitch? Why did she occupy so much space in my brain that I wanted to ruin her life?”
“Let’s unpack that,” Dr. Phillips responded. Janis rolled her eyes, which did not go unnoticed by her therapist who simply smiled at Janis’ reaction. “You two were so close at one point, and you cared about each other very much. Those feelings, especially during such a critical time of your development, don’t go away, and the hurt, well that takes time.”
“Yeah, but it’s been five years. Shouldn’t it…”
Dr. Phillips interjected, “Hurt from someone you trusted, someone you loved. The pain, not vengeance, drove you to push Cady to target Regina, to manipulate Regina’s insecurities. You’re still hurting, so now with this accident, of course you feel guilty and angry and hurt and scared and grief. You experienced a significant loss, Janis, when your friendship with Regina ended. And now, the grief has resurfaced because Regina almost actually died.”
“Grief,” the word escaped her lips in a gust of breath, as if it had been trapped inside her chest for an eternity, begging to be released. “I thought that I had worked out the pain but clearly not given what I did to Regina. Cady wouldn’t have done that on her own, not without my pushing. I was a huge bitch.” Janis hung her head in shame, the regret oozing off of her. Her fingers are clenched tightly together in her lap, her nails digging into her skin.
“What do you want to do about that?”
“I dunno. I mean, she got hit by a fucking bus. Jesus. I feel like it’s my fault.”
“It’s not your fault, Janis; it is the bus driver’s fault.” Janis nodded knowingly at this. Yes, she knows this logically, but that didn’t change the whirlwind of emotions that she had been feeling. Dr. Phillips continued, “I know it’ll take time for this guilt to pass, but maybe there are ways to help you feel less guilty.”
“Like what? How?” Janis' voice was barely above a whisper, so soft that it was almost inaudible. It conveyed a sense of defeat and helplessness, as if she had been drained of all her strength and hope.
“Well, you could visit Regina. Apologize? Show her that you’re sorry and that you still care?”
Janis laughed immediately, with clear sadness simmering below the laughter. “I seriously doubt that she’d want to see me let alone listen to anything that I have to say.”
“You won’t know until you try,” her therapist affirmed.