Realism Fan Fiction ❯ No Regrets ❯ Chapter 1

 

 

 

It's kind of funny how things sometimes turn out, isn't it? If you had told us this is how it would have been after so long of knowing each other I would have probably laughed, he would have frowned.

 

It seemed impossible back then, when we were still so young, for things to go so wrong. It was a simple ignorance, a childish stupidity, an immature denial. We were so happy together; everyday seemed to be greater than the last. I felt like I could glow. I'm sure he did too, he used to smile a lot when he was around me though he was usually serious with everyone else. Looking back now I can't exactly recall how long we dated, the days we spent together seemed to blur together into a happy-filled decade. Maybe it was. I was almost out of high school, he was a freshman in college. I didn't know what to do with my life, he wanted to be a doctor.

 

We were going to get married, we both knew this like we knew our own names; it was like an unspoken agreement that had grown inside of us since long before. My mom accepted my decision easily, she adored him almost as much as I did, but it was a different story with father. He wanted more for me, I suppose, the best. But I only had eyes for Jay and my father grew resentful; like a kid that did not get his way. On my graduation day my mom came to see me but father was nowhere in sight, and to my surprise, neither was Jay.

 

The ceremony ended faster than it seemed possible and almost instantly I felt the new feeling of something great ending but something even bigger, greater, beginning. I took pictures with all of my friends, promising to keep in touch, and smiled with relief when I saw Jay's red Toyota pull up. He drove us to the park, a routine that I had grown accustomed to since I had met him, just in time to watch the sunset. I felt like my heart could burst with happiness from just having him beside me and when he took my hands and turned to look at me I smiled brightly.

 

Then fate took a twisted turn, and my heart felt it painfully when Jay, the love of my life, my sanity, my anchor, my best friend, dropped my hand and said it was over. Forever. I was too shocked to speak as he continued to say how he was moving far away, and that he never wanted to see my deceitful face again. Then he stood and walked away.

 

With every step he took I felt my heart break and with every thud his foot made as it met the grassy ground the shattered pieces of my heart fell. When I went home that night I cried so much I could hardly see clearly afterwards, though my mom tried her best to offer words of comfort at my distress. That night my father came home drunk, rambling something about celebrating for a new beginning, and I could hardly take it. My new beginning had shattered the moment Jay had walked away, and now I only felt the dull empty feeling of everything coming to and end.

 

Later on I would find out the truth, and my already shattered heart would finally completely break at hearing that my father was behind everything. He had actually hired someone to dress up and look like me, then he'd called Jay, telling him to meet me in the park. Once he'd gotten there, were I was supposedly waiting for him, he came upon the sight of me making out with another guy. But it hadn't been me, it was the woman my father had hired, I had been at school, waiting for the ceremony to begin. Waiting for him. But Jay didn't know that. No one but father did.

 

When my mom had found out the truth she'd gotten into a big argument with father, and he had simply slapped her and walked away. I never saw him again. Somehow, through all the pain and turmoil in my life, I managed to keep going and my mother and I helped each other out. Where we once had had nothing in common we now had everything and staying together was probably the only thing that kept us stable enough to walk again.

 

Now I work as a nurse in the local hospital, and my mom has long since gotten a divorce with my father. Every day at work reminds me of Jay, of the future we could have had, of everything we lost, of every day. But I no longer feel that old, overwhelming pain that I had at the beginning but instead a reluctant acceptance. I sometimes stare at the big picture album I had just for us, or read the notes we use to pass back and forth when we were in school together, or recall special memories we made.

 

And though it seems like I've gotten over him and stopped thinking of what could have been, I sometimes stay up a little bit more than usual at night and stare out my window. Watching the stars. And sometimes I wonder if when he died in that car accident a year ago, when his life flashed before his eyes, and he saw the memories that we had made together, if he felt regret.

 

I don't.