Ever After ~ {Editing}

Chapter 16

Sighing, she slowly climbed the stairs. Henry had never acted quite like this before. Sure, there was the time for about a year where he hated her, even travelled to Boston by himself to bring back his birth mother. But that was different. That was a little boy yearning for attention, for love. This was something new. He’d never copped an attitude with her, not like he had last night. He’d never deliberately ignored her or Robin. Typically, he made an effort to finish his homework quickly and spend time with his family; he was often very talkative at dinner time, too. His behavior as of late was very abnormal, and Regina had practically worried herself senseless every night.

She didn’t even bother to knock on the door; she knew he wouldn’t answer. She cracked it open and peeked her head inside to find her son sitting on his bed, a frown torn across his young face.

She hated seeing him so upset. Henry was like Regina in many ways, one of them being that he was fairly stubborn and would stand his ground. Regina hoped she’d be able to get by his stubbornness and get to the bottom of his odd behavior.

“Henry?” She asked quietly.

He barely even glanced up from his phone. This irritated Regina a bit; she was his mother. She deserved some sort of acknowledgment.

She let herself further into his room and pulled his desk chair in front of his bed, sitting down on it.

“Henry. Look at me.”

He sighed and did as she said, but not without rolling his eyes.

“Okay, lose the attitude. We’re going to have a civil conversation in which you will tell me what’s wrong. Alright?”

“Whatever,” he muttered.

“What’s going on? Why are you so upset? Is it something with Grace or one of your friends from school?” Regina asked, concern masking her face and voice.

“No. You know, why do you even care anyway? It’s not like you’re my real mom. All you did was adopt me. You probably don’t even really love me. It was Emma that broke my sleeping curse anyway, not you. You know why? Because you didn’t love me then, and you obviously don’t love me now,” he said, finally meeting her eye.

That cut her deep. She tried to keep her cool, telling herself it was no big deal; he was just hurting (for some unknown reason) and this was his way of dealing with it.

“You know I love you more than life itself. You know I would die for you, Henry. What on earth makes you think otherwise?” She asked, trying desperately to keep her voice steady and quiet.

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe the fact that you haven’t paid me any attention at all since Robin got you pregnant! Once that happened, it was “Baby this, baby that. Oh look, we have daughters. Let’s go find them! Oh, I miscarried, let’s all be sad for weeks. Look, guys, Snow gave me my job back! Now I’m even busier than before! Hey look, it’s our daughters! Let’s spend every second of every day with them and completely ignore Henry because he doesn’t matter.” In case you hadn’t noticed, I’ve been very neglected. By you, and Robin, and Grandma and Grandpa, and even Emma and Killian. Even Grace hasn’t been able to spend time with me lately. Because you know what? Everyone is too busy with things that are more important than me. If you really cared about me, if you were really my mother, you would pay attention to me. Obviously you aren’t, since you haven’t even asked me how my day at school was for weeks,” Henry said, not quite yelling, but not being quiet either.

Regina’s heart broke.

“Henry, I’m sorry. We haven’t meant to ignore you at all. I didn’t realize you felt this way. I’m so sorry,” Regina said.