Brown Is The Warmest Colour (SwanQueen)

1

Regina slammed the car door shut and walked towards the house door. It flung open. She kicked off her shoes and ran straight upstairs to her room.
"Regina!"
"Stop, mother." She pushed the door shut and locked the door.
"Regina Mills, you open your door this instant, or else." Her mother demanded.
"Or else what?" She asked, unlocking her phone and proceeding to sit on her bed.
"Regina, I am your mother. You will open this door."
"Mom, I don't want to talk, okay?"
Her mother waved her hand over the lock and it clicked open. She flicked her hand towards the door and it flew open. She walked in.
"You are in so much trouble, young lady."
"Mother!! You know I hate it when you use magic! You can't just invade my personal space like this!" She quickly jumped up and threw her phone onto the floor.
"I don't care. I'm your mother."
"Can't you ever just leave me alone?"
"We are going to talk about this. Now."
"I'm not in the mood."
"Are you ever 'in the mood'?"
Regina shrugged.
"Exactly."
"Can't you ever just leave me alone?" Regina stormed off into the bathroom and locked herself in.

She later came out and looked around. No sign of her mother.
"Thank god," She thought to herself.
She ran into her room, picked up her phone and took out her headphones. She sighed, turning on her music and checking her Twitter. Trash, mostly, rumors about teachers and shit like that she couldn't care less about. She switched over to Instagram and took a selfie to post. Nope, that one wasn't good enough. She tried again, holding the phone in front of her face and flicking her short brown hair behind her shoulders, but pulling it back over the sides so you could see her bangs. Perfect. Now if she could just take it at the right time... she pressed the button. She thought about a caption, but decided to leave it. Being the most popular girl in school was a little annoying. Everyone was constantly begging for her attention, her phone would have gone insane with notifications if she hadn't have turned them off. But she liked the attention she had.

"Regina? Open the door, it's your father." Regina heard a faint voice through her headphones and pulled them out. She dropped the phone and ran towards the door where her father stood.
"Daddy!" She instantly hugged him. "I missed you. Please don't tell me you're going on another business trip?"
"No. But actually, Regina, I'm taking your mother away soon for our anniversary." He told her.
"Oh." She sighed.
"I'm sorry sweetie. But I want to treat her." He looked around and whispered. "Besides, you know what happened last year."
"She wouldn't speak to you for a month!" Regina giggled.
"Yes, you know what your mother is like."
"And what exactly is that, Henry?"
"Oh shit," he whispered to himself. "Nothing, Cora."
"Nothing is right. Your daughter hasn't told you anything?" Cora asked him. Regina rolled her eyes. There was no way she was getting out of this one.
"Told me what?" He asked.
"What is there to tell?" Regina shrugged.
"Oh, maybe your grades?" Her mother told her. Regina fell silent.
"How... did you..."
"Well, I got a phone call from your principal earlier. He told me everything."
"Crap."
"So, Regina, what are you going to do about it? You've already been kept back a year. They aren't going to do it again. Plus, it looks bad."
"I don't care."
"Is that so?"
"Mom, just stop."
"Cora, leave her."
"Fine. It's your problem now, Henry. If she doesn't graduate this year," She turned to Regina and grabbed her chin. "I'm going to make your life a living hell."
"Don't you already do that?" Regina said, as she grabbed her mother's wrist and pushed it.
"Ungrateful little bitch." Her mother muttered as she turned away and left. Regina hugged her father.
"Regina, sweetie, we really need to do something about this English grade. Come on, you have potential. You're doing great in everything. You don't want an F to bring it all down, do you?" He asked.
"I guess not." She sighed. "But it's not like there's anything we can do about it. Not like Mother will just wave her magic hand and I'll suddenly be great at it."
"How about a tutor?" He suggested.
"A tutor?" She pulled away from the hug. "You're joking."
"Am I?" He looked at her. She fell silent for a while and eventually shook her head slowly. "So?.."
"I... I don't know. I have better stuff to do."
"Like?"
"Daddy, I can't have a tutor. It will kill my school rep."
"How?"
"You really think people want the most popular girl in school to have a tutor? You're asking me to sacrifice everything."
"Not everything, a reputation shouldn't come first- your grades should."
Regina sighed. "I just don't think..."
Her father turned and left.

She sighed once again, closed the door and sat behind it. She checked her phone again. 1k likes on her recent Instagram post within an hour. Wow. She just couldn't decide whether she wanted to sacrifice her popularity for school.

-

Emma held the paper against the tree and placed the staple gun at the top. She squeezed it until she heard the click and removed the gun. That would do it. With all the flyers she had placed around the city, she was bound to get a job.
Hopefully.

She walked home; she couldn't afford a bus ticket nor a car. But it was good exercise.
She unlocked the door to her apartment and turned the light on inside. It was dark inside, and she never was very fond of the darkness.
8pm, nothing to do. She realised she hadn't eaten at the sound of her stomach grumbling.
'Pizza is always a good idea,' She thought. She hunted through the drawers in her small kitchen for one of those flyers and coupons they always drop through the mail. One of them was bound to have an offer still valid.
At last, she found one and dialed the number. As she waited for them to pick up, she scanned the menu for a pizza. She eventually decided.
"Peter Pan's Pizza. What would you like?"
"I'll take a 10" pepperoni please. With stuffed crust."
She finished giving her details, and then she waited.
Eventually her pizza arrived. She paid the delivery guy and put the box in the kitchen. She found a plate and placed a slice of pizza on it before sitting down in front of her fairly small TV. She decided to relax for an hour before going to sleep; she needed an early night so she could get up for her lecture the next morning.
One more flyer lay on her desk, the draft copy.
"Oh, Emma," She said to herself. "You better find some jobs, fast. There's no other way you're going to get through this." She cupped her hands around her face and sighed.

There was, one other thing she wanted to do that night. She logged onto her computer and went into her documents. She opened a file called "Document 1" from her "Works" folder. It began with a blank page, she hadn't worked out a title, yet. Yet. She scrolled through pages of words until she reached the place where it stopped.
She quickly read through the last small section, just to remind her of the details. She sat up, got her hands ready, and typed.
She hoped to be great, someday. Maybe the next J.K. Rowling, but more like Stephenie Meyer, or Veronica Roth- more oriented towards the teen market. She wished. But if there was one thing special about Emma Swan, it was that she never gave up, nor did she want to.
She looked down to the bottom right corner for the time. 11pm. She'd spent about an hour writing, and she felt pretty proud about what she'd written so far, and so decided to turn in for the night, and she'd reward herself with a nice cappuccino the next day, and maybe even write a little more, who knew.

It's not like she could write the future.