Living With Regret Read Free

it,” I cry, “I was on my way to class.”
    She shakes her head, sympathetic eyes narrowing in on me. “No, you got home from school that afternoon. The police mentioned that you were on your way home from a party when it happened.”
    There’s so much I’m missing. So much I don’t remember. Closing my eyes, I try, but there’s nothing.
    “How long?” I whisper, swallowing hard.
    “How long what?”
    “Have I been here?”
    “Seventeen Days.”
    The darkness was a much better place. Sometimes it’s better not to know … I want to fall back into naivety, but it’s too late. What’s done can’t be undone.

SINCE MY MOM LEFT TO shower a few minutes ago, my eyes have been locked on the door. I thought that, after a while, I’d wake up and find out this has all been a bad dream … the worst kind of nightmare that digs itself deep into the skin until the line between reality and imagination is blurred.
    I’m shut inside an empty, sterile room, devoid of any soul. There are floors of rooms in this hospital that look exactly like this. It’s a place where people are left to heal their wounded or weakened bodies, but the atmosphere is doing little for my mangled, torn heart. The machines I’m hooked up to ensure that it’s beating, but it can’t detect the large, hollow hole that’s now in the center.
    This isn’t my life. This isn’t what I had planned. Cory and I had been together since we were freshmen in high school. We were supposed to get married after college and move back to our small town to live happily ever after. He was my future … all I could see when I opened my eyes every morning. All I could think about when I closed my eyes every night.
    Now, all I have are memories. He’ll never be here smiling down at me. I will never be able to wrap my arms around him or press my lips to his again. Never again will he grab my hand in his or whisper things that shouldn’t be said out loud in my ear.
    As much as I hate it, this is my new life. A sick, twisted version of hell that no one really deserves.
    I think back to the day Cory first asked me out. He was that guy … the one who girls have in mind when they get dressed for school in the morning. The one you can’t help but smile at when you walk past, but you tuck your hair behind your ear casually, hoping he doesn’t notice that you’re staring.
    I’d gone to the first high school party with my friend, Madison. It was a night I’d never forget.
    “Will you quit pulling at your skirt already? It’s supposed to be that short,” Madison says, pushing my hand from the hem I’d been tugging at since we walked into the packed house.
    “I can’t believe you made me wear this.”
    She rolls her eyes. “You shouldn’t hide your body … especially those legs.”
    Shaking my head, I follow behind her as we weave our way through the crowd. The good thing about growing up in a small town is I pretty much know everyone here, but it’s still a who’s who of our high school. I don’t think we should even be here.
    I spot Sam, my next-door neighbor across the room and start toward him. “Where are you going?” Madison asks, wrapping her hand around my forearm.
    “I’m going to go talk to Sam.”
    “Seriously, Rachel. You shouldn’t be hanging around him.”
    “Why?” I ask, waving in his direction.
    “You don’t want to be the girl who’s seen with him. People will talk. They’ll make assumptions.”
    Sam’s quiet and has an aura of darkness that follows him wherever he goes. It might be the black leather jacket he wears or the classic car he drives. Whatever it is, most of the girls in our high school find it irresistible, and while some have had their shot with him, it never goes beyond a night in the backseat of his Camaro. I asked him about it once, and he told me life’s simpler if you don’t let yourself get too attached to anyone. It seemed honest because I’m the only person he’s really ever attached himself to.
    People