Pages from Regina's Capstone:

I grew stronger for a time after that, and so did Emma. She would thumb through my closet without my prompting, then we spent the days left of summer having picnics at the beach, under a wide, private umbrella.

"You love the water, don't you?" she asked as we squished through the sand, hand-in-hand.

THE 4TH STEP:

"It's you I love."

"Regina...please…"

"Emma, dearest, have I ever asked you to say it back?"

"You love Emelia Sparrow."

"You are Emelia Sparrow, and you are Emma Swan."

She denied it, though the walls she hid behind were breaking. She still hid in her long blonde hair, but I would catch the gleam of her white smile.

Pages from Emma's Confession:

"Maybe I will write you something."

When I said that to Regina, I didn't mean this confession.

#

There are no saviors, no Never-never Land of immortality, and there are no truly evil queens. I will never write again of that kind of black and white love, not even now that I have something to say after years of colorless silence.

There are no neat endings. Regina taught me that.

We all have to die sometime. We are bound to leave a knot or two untied.

For Regina and I, that knot turned out to be her capstone work.

My office sat vacant for the remainder of that summer she took my master class. Someone must have come in and seen her work-the wrong someone.

I have overcome the embarrassment of knowing all of the colleagues I tried to fool with my melancholy prose read what she wrote about my early days as a writer. I embrace that identity now. It's shaped me into the writer I am as I tell our love story.

I have overcome the shock of the lawyers showing up at my door the day after she died. I stepped out of the summoning circle of tissues that piled up around me to answer the incessant ringing of the doorbell. On either side of my apartment, my neighbors pounded on the walls. They didn't know it, but I wanted, needed, the void of silence far more than they.

I allowed the lawyers in without question.

"Now, we aren't saying you did anything wrong, Miss Swan," they said. "We just need to get a few facts straight. Her son, Henry, he's threatening to sue the college."

I hiccupped and muttered nonsense long enough for them to exchange glances and decide that, "Well, why don't you write everything down, Professor Swan? You do that sort of thing, right? Maybe it'd help you process."

For long hours, the too-bright white of the computer screen taunted me. I didn't want to write any of it down.

I just wanted her to come back.

Not even Mr. Meowsy, who rubbed against my calves the entire time I sat like a statue with tears streaming, could soothe me anymore.

#

A nurse called me from the hospital.

"Ms. Mills had a piece of paper in her hand. I had a dickens of a time trying to pry it loose. I guess she really wanted us to call you."

"May I see her? Is she all right?"

A thick pause. "You should come and see her. You're family, right?"

I screeched into the hospital parking lot a half hour later. I all but ran through the sterile-smelling halls, my heart one step ahead of me, a bird beating against the cage of my ribs.

Faster, faster, go faster.

"Regina."

Inside her room, a heart monitor pumped out steady beeps. An oxygen mask over her mouth and nose dispelled the silence in the room.

"Regina, please."

I knelt beside her, pulling one hand from under the rough hospital covers. She felt cold. I looked down and saw the blood pooling in her fingertips.

"Regina, no."

I stood and took her by the shoulders. Her molasses hair shimmered under the harsh lights. She still wore kohl around her eyes. I could see her scarlet lipstick smeared under the clear. plastic mask.

Desperately, I wanted to kiss her, hold her, feel her, memorize all of her.

"Regina, come back," I said. "Please, I love—"

The heart monitor flat-lined before I could finish speaking.

"—you."

Before I could move, before I could think, someone in blue pulled me away.

I saw my tears trickling down Regina's cheeks. Then, a fence of people separated us. I clawed at them, as the bird inside me clawed against my bones.

"Just let me kiss her," I screamed. "Just let me bring her back."

Regina didn't need Emma. She needed Emelia to give her a happy ending. I cursed myself for being so tired and slow.

Instead, the door swung shut on me. The nurse who'd called took my arm, then my limp body.

"It was her heart," she told me as she patted my back. "Didn't she tell you? It was weak."

And the bird in my chest pecked at my insides until my own heart bled out.

#

THE 5TH STEP:

In her capstone, Regina failed to write the last step left to take.

Maybe it was to respond to the agent and move to New York City. Maybe it was to convince me to write again about women in love.

More likely, it was to show me the person I lost sight of so many years ago. Or it was to show someone—to show me—the person she'd become.

Regina failed the master class because she turned in an incomplete capstone work—20 pages shy of the novel assignment.

Vickers denied her entrance into the MFA, post-mortem. Fucking college processes. Professor Hook was right about one thing: I am so tired of it all.

But fall classes start in a week.

#

In my car, across the street, I watch the roses wilt at Regina's cottage. A For Sale sign mars the front lawn now. Closed blinds cut off the interior from outsiders peering in.

I hold a copy of Once Upon a Fuck on my lap as I write my confession.

I can feel Regina within the pages. So maybe we writers are a bit immortal, after all. But it's not enough for me.

As for Regina's 5th Step, I suppose I will have to ask her about it when we meet again, if you believe in that sort of thing. In any case, I am…

…onto other things—

Emma (Emelia Sparrow) Swan

END