Picture the scene: it was a warm and rainy day and, though it wasn’t raining at the moment, I could feel the humidity on my bare arms. Half the school was hurriedly half-walking, half-running to the station. The friends I’d been walking with weren’t going to the station, so we parted ways. I’d barely taken two steps when my legendary luck stepped in. The guy I liked (or rather loved) walked up from behind me and quickly side-stepped me without even acknowledging me at all. Of course, the torture didn’t stop there; I had to follow him just a few steps behind him since we walked at the same pace. Finally, just as I was starting to truly agonize, I managed to pass him. You’d think I’d be happy then, right? Well I wasn’t. I didn’t feel relief, I didn’t feel joy; no, I felt regret. I regretted not having said anything to him when he had walked by me earlier or when I had passed him just now. Clearly, he was not the one to be blamed here; I was.
Since the beginning, I had only been able to make bad choices, choices that left me miserable and depressed; choices that left me feeling hopeless and regretful. Especially since that fateful night when he had accidentally learned that I was in love with him. Before that, it was just like every time I’d had a crush on a guy. I would secretly admire him and become his friend. I would get my hopes up, just to get them crushed later. But then, he had figured it out, and my whole world had come crashing down.
Of course (and you can thank my widely known luck again for this) it had happened at a dance. So there I was, feeling miserable because he’d asked a friend of mine to dance to a slow song, when I felt a light tap on my shoulder. Before I even started turning around, I knew it was him from the way his touch sent sparks up my body. This time, he wasn’t there to know where my friend was, but because he wanted to dance. If the situation had been happening to someone on TV, I probably would’ve laughed though I would have felt sorry for the girl. Unfortunately, it was happening to me and I couldn’t really say no. I had been waiting for this moment for ages, but now that it was here, all I could think was that the only reason he was standing there was pity.
We didn’t really talk until I murmured weakly to him that he didn’t have to do it, that he didn’t have to pity me. He told me he didn’t mind. The he asked me if I loved him. I wanted to scream that yes, yes I loved him more than I’d ever loved anyone, more than I would ever love anyone and that I had for three whole months now, and that when I was somewhere he wasn’t, all I could think about was him… But that would have taken a lot of guts, and, as you might have figured out by now, I don’t have any. So I let out a barely audible yes, which, to this day, I’m not even sure he heard. All we heard during the rest of our dance was Adele’s soulful voice singing “Someone Like You”, a song I would learn to hate passionately because of that moment. That night I went to bed feeling like life wasn’t worth living any more. How could it be that someone I loved with all my heart, all my soul; only felt pity for me? But I didn’t cry. And soon, the only thing I was feeling wasn’t sadness, it was regret.
Needless to say, this kind of put a damp on our friendship. Our bus-ride conversations used to be lively and full of laughter, free of awkward blanks. Now, it seemed like that was the main part of our discussions. Regret was now a part of my daily life. I regretted so many things having to do with him that I didn’t count anymore. Every time I saw him, my regret grew. Hours grew into days, days grew into weeks, and weeks grew into months… And yet nothing changed, I still felt more regretful than I thought humanly possible.
By the time I got to the episode I describe at the beginning, I was trying to forget him as hard as I could… and was epically failing. The regret inside me now weighed a ton and was pulling me down deep into a pit of despair. The next day, I found out that he had suffered a heart attack and passed away. I still didn’t cry. But this time, the regret crushed me. I hadn’t gotten to say good-bye and the love of my life was gone. Forever. A few hours after I had discovered the death of my beloved, my parents found my broken, lifeless body lying face down on the well-kept, green grass just below my window, a lonely tear finally trickling down my cold cheek, a regretful expression stuck forever on my face. At my funeral, they played the song “Someone Like You”. I had killed myself to escape from my regret, but I realized too late that it wasn’t something you can run from.