Regrets

Prologue

Everyone has some regrets throughout their life.

Some regrets are just whispers, faint what-ifs that appear in quiet moments.

Many people regret not being braver about confessing their feelings to the love of their lives in their youth; others regret the career they chose when they weren't mature enough; and others regret not leaving a situation where they were mistreated sooner.

Those regrets sit in the corners of your mind, gentle but persistent, reminding you that life could have unfolded differently if only you had been braver, wiser, or faster, but nothing else.

They don't have a significant impact on who you are now.

They're simply ways of reminding you that you weren't bold enough once.

But then there are the other kinds of regrets. The ones that don't just whisper, they scream. The ones that mark a before and after so sharp it carves through your soul, leaving you changed forever.

They haunt you for the rest of your life as a penance you must fulfill for not acting in time.

Those are the ones I carry right now.

I was eighteen when my life split in two.

One moment, I was a girl who believed in good things, in kindness, in the certainty that if you loved someone, you would protect them.

The next, I was a stranger to myself—a coward in my own story.

I stood still when I should have fought, stayed silent when loved ones needed my voice the most. And because of that, I lost a lot.

Since then, regret has been my shadow, following me into every new chapter of my life. I am no longer the girl I was before that year. She was soft, hopeful, untouched by the weight of what-ifs. I, on the other hand, know better.

Every morning, I wake up with the same thought: If only I had done things differently. But time is merciless. It does not rewrite the past, nor does it grant second chances.

So, I carry my regrets. I let them shape me, define me, and remind me of what I failed to do. Maybe one day, I'll learn how to let them go.

But today would not be that day.