I regret a lot of things in life.

Bowling without the slide at my fourth birthday party.

Jumping to get a ball I was never going to be able to hit back three months ago. 

But this one, this one has a way of tenaciously gripping on to me as if its life depends on being a parasite to mine—even 12 years after the incident.

I don’t remember the water fountains erupting out of the cracked, deformed roads. I don’t remember the world tilted 45 degrees. I don’t remember my great-grandma’s voice, refusing to leave her house of more than 80 years, 100 meters from the Pacific Ocean shore. I don’t remember any of it. I was peacefully sleeping in the back seat, head leaning on the window, slightly drooling, dreaming of the heavenly graduation cake I was about to devour that night.