No Room For Regret

"You know you're a pretty fun person to be around. Before we became friends, you came off to me as quite a rude person. I mean don't get me wrong I'm not saying you are. It's just that you used to be so closed off and stoic all the time."

Hearing him be so direct made me feel quite awkward.

"I would have never thought that we would become such great friends."

I looked away, trying to hide my awkwardness. Just then, a chill ran down my spine. I rubbed my arms absently. The nights were getting colder.

"Yeah.." I began, not really sure how to reply. I looked around and saw the tall apartments some blocks over. They were shrouded in darkness except for the ground floors, which I assume they had rented out since those were fully constructed, although they didn't really look the part.

Michael shifted from where he'd been standing and said, "Hey let's go down." He checked the time on his phone before turning back to me, "Dinner will get cold if we don't eat soon. Come on."

"Yeah I'm coming". I said, feeling a little uneasy. "You go on first".

The door shut behind him with a click. I turned away, waiting.

When I turned around again, there was a silhouette in the shadows by the corner. I didn't bother to look at it closely. I already knew what it was.

"Living well?" The voice was rough, like nails scraping on metal. "Was it easy? When you stepped all over my dreams?"

I didn't reply. It wouldn't have mattered. I crouched down, leaning against the railing behind me as I tried to imagine how he would've looked back in the day. He felt so familiar, yet also a complete stranger now. I imagined his eyes to have sunken in and that he had gotten a lot more skinny, just like me. Or had he been skinny all along?

“You taught me to wish for things,” he rasped. “You said it would matter. That it would mean something. A future where we’d matter. You knew that. You knew me. No one understood me more than you. I thought you’d be the one who stayed.”

"But no." He spat the word out. "Even you - even you left me. I couldn't reach out to anyone without you." I knew exactly what kind of expression he would've had, and I couldn't bear to face him. Not then.

Even so I understood where he was coming from. One of us had to die for the other to live. And it couldn't have been me. There had to be less of him... so that there could be more of me. Sometimes I start to wonder, if it had been him instead of me, how would've things turned out? Would he have become a better person than me? I suppose wondering is all I can really do.

Even so, given the same choice, I still would've made the same decision I made back then. I did what had to be done, and I knew I didn't get to regret it. I still don't.

I got up from where I had been crouching, the clothes hanging on the lines swaying slightly in the breeze. My steps were loud against the concrete as I made my way to the door. I looked back at him just once before I crossed the threshold, desperately wishing that he could, at the very least, continue to live on in my memory.

My own face, fogged by the memory of simpler times, stared back at me. I headed downstairs.