Stories That Never Get Told

Those With Regrets

When I first entering college, I once had a professor ask the class if there was anything that we regretted. Something that sometimes kept us up at night with an ache in our bones that could never be soothed. Some had silly answers like they regret not having that hot pocket for breakfast, and there were ones that hit hard, like when the girl two rows ahead of me spoke of how she regretted that she didn't answer the phone call from her brother. She didn't know that it was going to be his last, and she said she was permanently living  in the thought that maybe if she had answered that maybe he wouldn't have gotten into that car.

Each student got a chance to speak, but when eyes landed on me, I couldn't think of a single thing to say. I couldn't think of a thing that I regretted with such an ache that it left me staring at the ceiling for hours. Had I known what I know now, I probably would have said something but I had just shook my head.

That was nearly five years ago and time waits for no one. That scared freshman from all those years ago has been replaced with hardened stone, a victim of circumstance. I have plenty of regrets now that I wished I didn't. I regret the prank war of sophomore year that got my best friend's arm in a cast. I regret the tears that streamed down my face as my mother and I screamed at each other over the phone about something that now seems silly. I regret that moment during senior year where I told my brother that I no longer had time for him, and I regret the sound of the door as you slammed it on your way out.

I ran into that professor the other day, and I don't think he recognized me when I pulled him aside. I didn't bother to introduce myself, but I told him that now I have those regrets that keep me awake at night. That now I'm haunted by the things that I cannot change.