The Rules of Regret

by Megan Squires

  “I hope you can. I don’t want you not standing me.”

  “But I like not standing.” His eyes squinted along with his smile. “I prefer not standing, actually.”

  I lifted my hand to his face and ran the pad of my finger over his cheek. It was that in between stage where the scab wasn’t quite a scab, but it wasn’t a gaping, open wound, either. I pressed at it lightly and said, “I’m so sorry, Torin.”

  “Don’t be. It wasn’t your fault. Lance had every right to punch me. I pretty much stole his girlfriend.”

  “But that’s not why he punched you. He didn’t even know that at the time.”

  “Right, but I was fighting for you. It doesn’t matter what it was over exactly—just that it was over you. I’d be gutted for you if that’s what it took to make sure you didn’t slip back into your shell again, Darby.” I lifted up to place a kiss on his damaged cheek. “Plus, this is going to leave an incredibly manly scar. In reality, I should probably even thank him for it.”

  Torin propped up with his elbow, his fingers woven through his blond hair. “Lay on your back.”

  I questioned him with a cocked eyebrow.

  “Just do it.”

  Obediently, I rolled over onto my back.

  Torin left the bed for a moment, and when he returned, he was holding something between his fingers. “Close your eyes,” he instructed. Again, I did as he said, still playing along in the game of Torin Says.

  But I wasn’t at all expecting him to straddle me. That completely caught me off guard, in a way that a car accident or a clap of thunder catches you off guard. My entire body went rigid on me and my breathing matched my new posture. It was all hyperventilate-y, the kind where you need the assistance of a paper bag to get things back under control. That or you just need Torin saying, “Calm down,” because when he did, it was like he had command over my synapses and my respiratory system. It slowed my mind and my breathing to a somewhat consistent pace.

  “Keep your eyes closed. Sometimes it’s much easier to see with your eyes closed. And I want you to see me—with all of your senses.”

  I held my eyelids together tight because if I didn’t use a significant amount of pressure, they would flutter open and that would be embarrassing because they really were very fluttery at the moment.

  I felt him first as his fingers swept my hair away from my collarbone. Then I felt the goose bumps, thousands of them, that took the place where the hair once rested. Next it was his breath that hovered over my skin as I assumed he was looking at me. But I couldn’t tell, I could only guess, could only read the cues that he chose to make known.

  Torin shimmied his weight on top of me a bit as he lifted up onto his knees. I felt his hands—both of them—bracketed around my shoulders as they pressed into the mattress. His head drew closer to mine. His mouth was at my ear. He left just one kiss there and pulled back up.

  There were several seconds of silence and my mind tried to fill it with hundreds of different possibilities as to what he was doing. But he wasn’t really doing anything. Probably just thinking, and that felt more active than any of his actual actions.

  Breaking into the silence, Torin drew in a quiet breath.

  “It called out in the distance,

  the caution silent, yet brilliantly illuminated.

  The pierce of blinding hope in the dark,

  among the turbulent ebb and flow of unstill waters.

  Her light was always on,

  though not all saw it.

  The storm cloud, the rain, the gale swept through.

  But they could not diminish what they tried to obscure.

  She was there.

  Even in the darkness, her light broke through.”

  My eyes fell open, though I saw through clouded vision as the tears filtered in. “Who wrote that, Torin?” I looked up at him in awe. “It’s beautiful.”

  “You.”

  I gulped back my emotion, but it was too hard to do. “I did not write that.”

  “You are my muse, Darby. You had every bit as much responsibility in writing that as I did.”

  I shook my head, unable to comprehend any of it, because it was so much. It didn’t make sense that he could see that in me in such a short time. I never saw that in me. “Seriously, where did you come from?”

  “I could ask the same of you,” he smiled, then picked up a pen that he’d placed on the sheets. He pulled off the cap with his teeth, and kept it there as he hovered the tip of the pen just under my collarbone. “I don’t think it matters where either of us came from,” he said around the cap still pinned between his teeth. “I think it just matters where we’re going. And I want to go wherever that is with you.”

  “Me too,” I said in a murmur that was almost inaudible. The pen began to glide over my skin and Torin’s brows tightened while he pressed it in and out as he wrote. I tried to keep my chest from rising and falling too fast and impeding his ability to work, but there wasn’t much use in even trying. All of my nerves—all of my senses—were focused around the pinprick of the tip of the pen on my flesh.

  Torin pulled back and replaced the cap. “My Siren. My Lighthouse. My Muse.” He traced his finger over each word as he spoke. “You tempted me, you called me, you inspired me,” he added, sliding back to my side on the bed. I rolled to face him and slipped my arms around him. “Since I'm getting this manly scar, I figured you could use a little ink.”

  I pulled at his hair and drew his mouth to mine. The slower kissing from earlier was apparently just a warm up lap, because this time we definitely picked up speed. He didn’t hold back and didn’t ask permission again because I’d already granted that, and truth be told, if he honestly wanted it, I’d give him an all-access pass.

  Torin’s tongue parted my lips and stroked into my mouth, trailing along mine, a back and forth of rhythm and reciprocation. His finger ran over my collarbone, from shoulder to shoulder, pausing in the shallow slope under my neck. He dipped his head and kissed lightly there, then just above the fabric where my neckline fell.

  I let my hands wander over his chest, to his stomach and hips, feeling each muscle under my fingertips, memorizing what his body was like against my skin. I closed my eyes and he was right: I could see so much more of him, could sense so much more, with them closed. I relied solely on touch to guide me and it made me think maybe that was why it was human instinct to close your eyes when you kissed. Maybe it was the brain giving the body permission to take over the thinking. If that was the case, I really liked the things my body thought about Torin’s.

  “I want you,” I breathed. Apparently Torin wasn’t the only one with the missing sensor.

  He didn’t really answer me with a legitimate word, but more of a raspy growl that I understood the meaning of as clearly as any word in the English dictionary. Torin sucked my lips into his mouth, twisted his hands in my hair, and eliminated any gap that might have remained between our bodies as he pressed his weight fully onto me. We were all hands and sweat and racing pulses that frantically fought against our desire, keeping it at bay with just enough control to make sure we didn’t rush things. But I wanted to rush. I wanted to tear through those hesitations full force.

  Torin stopped me.

  “Ugh,” he moaned against my lips and shook his mouth free of mine. He tossed his head back and forth briskly. “We have to stop.”

  I stopped, because just like all those other times he’d commanded me, the helpless tone in his voice let me know this was the most important time to actually listen to him.

  “I’m sorry, Darby, but we have to stop.”

  “Okay.” My voice was hoarse.

  He whipped his head side to side. “Do you have any idea how hard this is?”

  I was really tempted to turn that last statement into a mildly-inappropriate innuendo, but I bit my tongue, even though I wanted him to be the one biting it.

  “Seriously, Darby. It’s like being given the winning lottery ticket, but not being allowed to
cash it in.” He smirked to himself, his green eyes twinkling. “No… more like finding a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but discovering it’s fool’s gold.”

  “That’s not nice!” I punched him in the gut and all the air held within him burst out in one forceful gush.

  “What?” His puppy dog eyes innocently questioned me and those lips of his tipped up at the corners in a totally enticing way that was all kinds of unfair given that he’d just put the kibosh on our make out session.

  “Fool’s gold?” I widened my own eyes in disbelief. “That’s like saying I’m not the real deal, Torin. You’re comparing me to some major disappointment.” The volume of my voice spiked. “I’d like to think I wouldn’t disappoint.”

  “No,” he began, laughing lightly. “I’m sure you wouldn’t disappoint at all. I, however, would be a huge disappointment if we took things any further tonight. Like those rides at Disneyland that you totally hype up in your mind, wait in line for an hour, and then what? It’s over in like 60-seconds and you hardly realize it has even started before it’s finished.” He laughed again. I was really starting to love the sound of that laugh. “I do not want to be your monumentally disappointing ride.”

  “Oh, come on,” I said, but it sounded more like a beg than a tease. Torin rolled onto his back and ripped his hands through his hair. I could see his chest rising and falling out of the corner of my eye, his breathing gradually steadying. “Some of those rides are completely worth it.” I stared back up at the ceiling. “Splash Mountain? That ride has like three pretty awesome dips in it before you get to the big one at the end. It’s like four rides in one. Totally worth it.”

  “Oh my God!” Torin threw his hands into the air. “You expect me to go that many times? Was Lance some kind of superhuman sex-machine?”

  “That’s not what I meant!” I shouted, utterly mortified at the totally inappropriate comparisons that were being made between Disneyland rides and sexual encounters. “I just meant that the ride is worth the wait!” My cheeks had never been this hot in my entire life. “I swear that’s all I meant.”

  “Oh dear God, I hope so, woman!” Torin’s voice cracked.

  “I swear!” I said again, but this time the laughter that fell behind the words pushed through and I became nothing but a hysterical mess of uncontrolled giggles. “Seriously… I don’t expect that much… honestly,” I managed to get out through unreasonably loud fits of laughter.

  “What?! You don’t expect that much?” Torin dropped his hands to cover his eyes, mock shame cloaking his face. He turned his head toward me and grinned playfully. “Oh, I promise you, Darby, you can expect the ride of your life.”

  I was going to spontaneously combust.

  “This is too much.” I couldn’t stop laughing. It was all kinds of laughter mixed together: nervous, giddy, excited, terrified. All the different ways one was capable of laughing wrapped into one irrepressible, giggling bundle.

  “I know, right?” Torin snorted right along with me, matching my laughter note for note. “You need to stop comparing my sexual capabilities to amusement park rides.”

  I rotated over to curl my body into Torin’s side. He tucked me into the space under his arm and slid the covers up over us. “But it’s the happiest place on earth,” I defended coyly.

  “No.” Torin smoothed my hair with his hand and placed a feather light kiss on my brow. “This is the happiest place on earth.”

  I pinched back a snort. “You mean the cheesiest place on earth.”

  “That was pretty cheesy, wasn’t it?”

  “Um, yes. I hate to admit it, but it really was.”

  Torin’s frame straightened. “Speaking of. Where is that mac and cheese of ours?”

  “Oh my goodness, you’re all over the place!” I could hardly keep up with the conversation. “You’re crazy!”

  Torin rubbed his bare stomach in circles with the palm of his hand. “I’m hungry, which is probably close to the same thing.” He dropped another kiss on my forehead like it was a totally routine gesture. I really hoped it would become one. “And I honestly can’t be held responsible for anything I say when I’m hungry.”

  “Is that so?” I tipped the corner of my mouth up to challenge him.

  “Yes, because I could say things like how I’ve wanted to kiss you since the first time I saw you—when you sat next to me at orientation back at camp.” He pressed his cheek against my hair and breathed deep, almost like he was inhaling me. “And I might admit to things like actually sneaking a peek at you when you changed into your swimsuit in the river during our overnighter.” With the hand wrapped around me, he skated his fingers up and down my arm. “I might also admit to really wanting to have sex with you just now, but being totally freaked out because you would be my first.” His fingers stopped. “I might say things like that. You know… because I’m hungry.”

  “I completely get that.” I snuggled closer to his side. “ ‘Cause I’m hungry too.”

  “So we’re speaking the same language, then?” He nodded, half with that confident exterior I was used to, and half with an unexpected insecurity that caught me slightly off guard.

  “Yes,” I confirmed. Because we were. For once, someone was speaking my language. Fluently.

  And I really liked the sound of it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The smell of coffee wasn’t what usually woke me up in the morning.

  At 4:30 a.m.

  I tossed off my covers and fumbled in the dark toward the door separating our suite. We’d gone to bed hours ago, which was probably a good thing, because Torin all but admitted to wanting to have sex, and my body all but would have let him.

  I rapped a knuckle on the door.

  Within seconds, a bleary-eyed Torin flung it open and locked my gaze. “Did I wake you?” He looked equally apologetic and excited, like maybe he was actually trying to rouse me from my slumber with his middle of the night barista skills. “I tried to be quiet.”

  “I’m not sure what woke me,” I replied. I wasn’t—maybe it was the smell of the coffee, maybe it was the unfamiliar hotel setting, or maybe it was the realization that Lance and I were actually finished and some other girl may or may not have his child growing inside of her that startled me from my sleep. Out of those options, number three was most likely the winner.

  “Want some? It’s decaf.”

  I shook my head. “Then what’s the point?”

  Torin had a mug tucked into his hands, his fingers curled around the handle. He made his way to his couch/makeshift bed and sat down, flicking his head in a nod for me to come join him.

  “Don’t most people drink coffee for the caffeine?” I lowered down to the edge of his bed.

  “Probably.”

  It was too late—or early. I never really knew how to classify those midnight hours that fell in between yesterday and today. “I should go back to bed.” I twisted my upper half toward the door, readying to go, realizing sleep was probably what we both really needed.

  “How do you sleep?” Torin asked. “Because I don’t. I don’t sleep.”

  Folding my legs up into a crisscross, I wrapped my hands over my ankles and held them there. “I don’t sleep either. At least not well,” I admitted. “At least not well on my own.”

  Which was probably the number one reason why I’d stayed with Lance. Through the cheating. Through the lies. The thought of being alone—alone with my thoughts, my nightmares—was what kept me clinging to his side, both day and night. But thinking about it now, and looking at Torin, I felt that tight grip on Lance start to slip. I almost wanted to shake it completely free.

  “I’m up every night,” Torin continued without pause, maybe not even hearing my reply. I guessed he wasn’t really looking for one. “I wake up every night. That jerking, falling sensation.” He stared at the painting on the wall that I’d tried to crawl into earlier this afternoon. “I would love to, for once, wake up peacefully. Not with the image Randy left me.”


  “That was awful what he did to your family, Torin.”

  I wanted to punch Randy, which I realized was completely absurd because hanging oneself from the rafters was significantly worse than being punched by a nineteen-year-old girl with absolutely no fighting abilities or actual muscle to speak of. But I really wanted to. I wanted to punch him. Not to hurt him necessarily, because it appeared as though Randy had more hurt than I could ever comprehend, to the point of numbness, because you’d have to be numb to do something like that. But I wanted to punch him to make myself feel better. And that was stupid. Here I was, thinking about how much I wanted to deck a dead guy. I needed some caffeine.

  “Do you think he regrets it?” Torin continued. It was starting to feel like he was having his own conversation, some internal struggle that I got to witness.

  “Do I think Randy regrets killing himself?” I sunk my head against the wall since there was no headboard. The back ridge of the couch dug into the middle of my spine and I shoved a pillow in the gap to make myself more comfortable. “I’m not sure he’s even capable of thinking anything. I don’t know if we think after death.”

  “That would be awful.” Torin’s face fell. “That would be awful to not be able to think anymore.” He deposited his coffee cup onto the nightstand, which was really an end table. He shook his head and again said, “Awful.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “It would be.”

  “But I think it would be even more awful to be able to think and to have regret, you know?” He spoke quietly, but not because he didn’t want his words to be heard. The opposite, in fact. It was like he spoke so that I had to really work to hear. “I have one rule in my life: to live without regret.” He lifted his head slightly, tilting his chin up in contemplation. “So how much would that suck if I ended up regretting my own death?”

  “It would completely suck.”

  “But here’s the thing.” Torin was on a road to somewhere with these thoughts of his, and my simple interjections didn’t feel like they belonged. But I still said them—still joined in—because it seemed like it was a road he shouldn’t travel down alone. “I think there is always some amount of regret involved in death.”