You were always supportive of Regina. You even came to all of her lacrosse matches. Now, it was her turn to support you. Regina hadn’t been back to Northshore since graduation. She high tailed it out of there faster than a hurricane on the coastline.

You later found out that it was because Regina, while having setbacks, was trying to distance herself from the mean girl she once was in high school. Shortly after you all started college, Regina had come out as a lesbian. (And she got very popular very fast the girls on campus during that time.) In fact, between the sorority and Regina being so popular due to her lacrosse skills, you often worried if history was just repeating itself, and you were hesitant to trust her in the beginning. But Regina really was making strides. Janis ranted on the phone to you one night about how Regina sent her a text apologizing for what she did to her now that she accepted her own identity. You started to view Regina differently.

Now, you had been dating for a little over a year. Regina had, reluctantly, agreed to return to Northshore to spend Christmas and New Year’s with you and your family. (She’d be damned if she spent another holiday with her mother and her loose morals, or her little sister Kylie and her inability to shut up, or her absent father who never knew what to say.) Being back in Northshore, seeing familiar faces, raised one question: had Regina really changed?

But you weren’t worried about that right now. You were standing outside your home with gifts, and Regina looked adorable in the Santa hat you had forced her to wear. “Are you sure they’ll like me?”, Regina asked nervously. Regina? Nervous?