I regret that evening every single day. If I could turn back the clock, I would, of course I would. The look on your face when I turned away for the final time, to follow my new, cool ‘friends’ to the party is forever etched in my memory. 

The saying is that ‘time heals’, but if anything, your features grow sharper with each passing month. More disappointed, more astonished, more…hurt.

That is the worst part – remembering the pure and simple hurt of my broken promise etched in your widened, too-bright eyes and downturned mouth and your red cheeks.

I was going to call you later, I swear. You have to believe me. They took my phone away and said I needed to relax and stop being so pathetic. So I tried to relax, tried to lose myself in the vodka shots and the thumping bass and the flashing lights, but I couldn’t. I kept thinking about you, honestly I did.

If I had known that you were going to end up at the river later that night, much later than we usually went to the river, I would have obviously left the party to come and get you. I even mentioned that I was really worried you might do something stupid, but they told me you’d obviously have headed home to mummy like the – well, it doesn’t matter what they called you.

I can’t go to the river now. If I do, all I can see is the horror of the morning after. I still don’t know how someone could be so cruel. I might remember your hurt living face and cry, but I cannot recall your cold dead eyes at will, because if I do I am frozen in the moment. I can smell the stomach churning smell of your blood and I can feel the cold wind whipping at my face and my pounding head.

At night the nightmares come, though. At times they come in the day, if that even makes any sense, and I am trapped in that morning, even when doing the most simple of things. They’ve stopped telling me to move on, now. I spend most days at school alone.

Sometimes, I think about joining you. I haven’t told anybody this. I’ve told my family the rest, and yours, and I’ve told yours that I’m sorry. I actually started crying in your living room. Your mum was so nice. Told me it wasn’t my fault, that it was that monster’s fault. I didn’t deserve for her to be so nice.

I am so, so sorry. You have to believe me.

If I could take it all back, of course I would.

…

This was just a short piece / story I came up with from my own brain (no prompts haha). Hope you enjoyed it 🙂

All (constructive) comments welcome!

Thanks for stopping by.

Ro x