Chapter Twenty-One

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"Regina, darling, it's almost ten. Why are you still asleep?"

Cora's voice shook the brunette from her dreams and she jolted upright in her spot, staring at the intruder. Regina closed her eyes, her heart beating heavily in her chest and her breathing labored. She was thankful to be woken from that dream, from that nightmare that had haunted her, but it was her mother's face that nearly had the brunette teacher flying off the bed and hiding in the nearest closet.

Her mother's arrival seemed to have provoked the nightmares that she hadn't had in years. They were memories, images of her childhood flashing in frightening movies as they played in her mind almost on repeat. Every terrifying moment that she spent running from her mother or the panicked moments when she was under her mother's hand with nothing but unadulterated fear coursing through her veins.

The last image she saw in her mind before she was ripped from her dream world was that of her mother, hovering over her with a malicious grin as her hands squeezed her slender neck.

And that was the picture she was left with when she opened her eyes and found her mother's sweet smile reflected down at her, the question hanging thick in the air.

"Mother!" She pushed herself away from the edge of the bed, pillow falling on the floor as the blanket pooled around her waist.

"Why are you still asleep? You should be up, darling. It's Christmas, after all." The older woman swiftly moved to the side of Regina's bed, a smile on her lips as she leaned in. "You should go see what Santa had left you under the tree."

"Mother, you know I don't believe in that man." Regina flipped the covers back and slid out of bed. "And you should definitely know since you had told me that he was nonsense and that your hard earned money went into the gifts for my selfish ass."

"Don't use such crass language, dear." Cora chastised, linking her arm with her daughter's as she led her out of the room and down the hall. Regina didn't protest and sighed.

All of the childhood fantastical icons were nothing to Regina. Cora had never told her of them, the brunette had to learn as a small child through school. When she had inquired her mother of who the Easter Bunny was, or the Tooth Fairy, or Santa Claus and why they gave children gifts on special occasions and why they never seemed to visit her, her mother had explained that they were nothing but childish fantasies that parents deployed to spoil their children. She had said that Regina didn't deserve to be spoiled as such and shouldn't believe in such nonsense for she would only be devastated to learn that they weren't real and it was the parents planting money under their pillows or marking gifts set under the tree at Christmas as Santa.

Regina hadn't necessarily been devastated over this fact nor did she care. She was rather curious why parents would lie to their children about fantasy people like this when they were the ones going through the work of giving their children wonderful holidays. Cora, of course, had fed some of these ideas into her mind as she went into further explanation. She had said that she didn't want to lie to Regina at all and that she was a good mother, unlike those other parents who lied to their children.

Cora had warped Regina's mind enough to believe that and left it alone. Her mother was right after all. She was not to be questioned. But why was she now joking of Santa leaving her a gift under the tree? She knew that it was childish and often times refused to indulge in such things, even if it were to be a joke.

Whatever her reasoning, Regina didn't care. She wanted her mother out of her house before she ripped her own hair from her scalp. That woman was already destroying her life, picking brick by brick out of the foundation that she had built for herself. If she pulled out one brick too many, Regina's mind would fall apart and everything that she had tried so hard to hide would come tumbling forth from the mountain of deceit. The brunette had to guard what pieces her mother removed, and that special brick that would no doubt force her to her knees; Emma.

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