The Rules of Regret

by Megan Squires

  I didn’t interrupt this time.

  “You die in a car accident. I should have stopped at that red light. You get cancer. I shouldn’t have spent all of those years smoking. Hell, you die in your sleep. I shouldn’t have gone to bed tonight. There is regret in every aspect of life, and ultimately, it seems, in death.” Torin pursed his lips tightly. His brow was taut over his eyes. “And that completely sucks, because if my one rule is to live without regret and yet I still regret the way in which my life ended, what is the point?”

  He’d abandoned his coffee drinking and joined me to lean against the wall. With clumsy inaccuracy, his fingers fumbled into mine and he dropped his head onto my shoulder.

  It was quiet for a minute and then I spoke. “Then I think the only way to follow that rule is to live each day like it was your last.”

  “Oh and I’m the plagiarist?” Torin chuckled loudly. I could feel the way his body shook with laughter at my side, his voice vibrating against my skin in a way that created a wake of goose bumps across my arms. “That’s complete cliché status right there.”

  “True. It might be overused, but what’s more overused than death? I mean, it happens to all of us. God should come up with another way to end us.”

  His head nodded against my shoulder. “I’m all for going out Elijah-style on a chariot of fire.”

  “I don’t even know what you’re talking about, but it sounds awesome. So much better than taking one last breath here and then who knows what happens next.”

  “I have a hope for what I think might happen next.” Torin pressed his head further against my shoulder, the weight of his body leaning heavy into mine. Our legs lined up hip to toe and my fingers twisted tighter in his. “I have hope,” he said again. “And that, I think, is stronger than regret.”

  ***

  “Get your shoes on.” The vision of Torin’s pint-sized mother flashed across my brain. I could see where he got his drill sergeant-like skills. Luckily, he wasn't nearly as intimidating.

  Flipping onto my back, I shielded my eyes from the wash of golden light that flooded through the hotel window as Torin ripped back the curtains in one dramatic swoop. I smacked my lips, totally embarrassed to open my mouth for fear that I might contaminate the air with my breath alone. “I think I need to get dressed before I can get to the whole shoe thing.”

  “Nope.” He shook his head with a coyness that it was entirely too early for. “Clothing optional. But we will be doing some walking, so you’ll probably want the shoes.”

  “Where are we going?” Our flight out wasn’t until tomorrow morning, and while I knew I would be here with Torin, I’d originally thought those hours would be spent with Lance. But I suppose I assumed I’d be spending even more than just a few hours with him; I’d counted on a lifetime.

  “I would completely regret it if I willingly put you on a plane headed back to California, knowing we were only eight hours from your very favorite piece of architecture in the whole world, and you didn’t get the chance to see it.”

  “We’re going to Boston?” I practically bounced on the bed with a giddiness I rarely exuded. I couldn’t believe that, one: he’d remembered, and two: he was willing to spend an entire day driving to take me there.

  “Yes indeed.” He nodded. “And I managed to get us a rental car, too. And change our flights so we fly out of Boston tonight, instead of D.C. tomorrow.”

  I wasn’t sure how he’d arranged that considering you had to be 25 in most states to legally rent a car, but I was still too excited about the possibility of seeing Boston Light that the possibility of breaking the law in order to make that happen didn’t seem all that important.

  “Get your shoes on.” Torin scooped my Chuck Taylors off the floor, tossing each one at me with a dramatic wind up and pitch. My left shoe hit me square in the chest. “Sorry!” he laughed. “You gotta work on your reflexes.”

  “You gotta work on not throwing things at your girlfriend!” I shot back. Immediately, I realized what I’d just said, and for a moment, I wished my shoe had clocked me in the head instead and knocked some sense into me. I wasn’t Torin's girlfriend. Why had I just said that?

  “Did you just say my girlfriend?” His eyes were huge, like a deer that had two headlights careening toward it. I could almost see my reflection in those big green irises.

  “I didn’t mean it,” I quickly backpedalled and Torin pursed his lips in disappointment, saying, “You didn’t? How come?”

  “Because I’m not your girlfriend.”

  I wasn’t. I wasn’t really Lance’s anymore, that much I knew, but I wasn’t Torin’s, either. I wasn’t at all sure what this reality between us even was, or if it could be classified as a reality at all. The more I thought about it (and I’d spent quite a bit of this morning thinking about it), the more our story had the telltale makings of a rebound written all over it. He’d said before that his longest relationship had been six weeks. And here we were: week four. It killed me to think that we might only have two left.

  Striding across the room, Torin came to my bedside and slipped the neckline of my top down. His finger traced the ink on my skin he’d left there the night before. A shiver followed along that same path as the tip of his fingernail skated across my skin like the fire lit on a fuse. Everything in me started to tingle, a buzzing that registered deep in my core. Just that slow, seductive touch brought me to a place where I felt like I could explode. “So you’re not my girlfriend, huh?” he questioned, eyes snapping up to mine. “Because here it says you’re my siren, my lighthouse, and my muse.”

  The pen was still on the nightstand, but not for long. Torin yanked it from it’s position, threw the cap to the floor, and pulled the neck of my tank down dangerously low, the arc of my chest exposed. He scribbled something frantically, and then tossed the pen to the ground just before tossing me back onto the mattress. His mouth plunged down to mine, and the reservation I’d had about opening it earlier was gone. Forget minty freshness; Torin didn’t seem to care one bit, so neither did I. His tongue pulled in and out of my mouth hungrily and his body dropped onto mine in a way that definitely told me I was every bit his girlfriend. Because I was pretty sure you didn’t do stuff like this with just anyone. I at least hoped he didn’t do stuff like this with just anyone.

  “You are most definitely my girlfriend,” Torin breathed, and pulled away slightly, biting my bottom lip between his teeth. “I didn’t think I’d need to brand you to let you know that, but just so you don’t forget, I wrote it with a Sharpie.” He grinned widely. “But you should know—that whole permanent thing is totally false advertising. This will be gone in a couple of days.” He ran the pad of his thumb across the top of my chest. “And I have no plans to leave you any time soon.”

  All of the reasons why that statement—however sweet and sentimental—couldn’t be true flooded my brain in a wild current of emotion. But I didn’t say anything or let him know that hesitation. At least not with my words. Unfortunately, my expression apparently said it all.

  “I have no intention of being your rebound, Darby.”

  “You’re not—”

  “Let me finish, 'cause this is pretty good,” he said, pressing a silencing finger to my lips. “I spent all morning coming up with this, so let me at least deliver it in epic monologue form before you burst my bubble, okay?”

  “There is no bubble bursting in my plans,” I said, palming his jaw, running my fingers along the stubble that was starting to grow there. I loved the way he looked down at me, the way his disheveled hair hung around his face like it did the first time I saw him back at Quarry Summit.

  “Wait until I’m done to tell me that, because I want to do the convincing—”

  “I don’t need convincing,” I interrupted.

  “Damn it, woman, let me have my moment!”

  I bit my lips to keep back the surge of laughter that threatened to burst out, and nodded for him to go ahead.

  “Darby,” he continued, his voi
ce much more theatrical than necessary. “I have admitted my love for you.” He waved a hand into the space of air between us like he was some Shakespearian actor. “And you have done the same.” He sounded like one, too. “But I have no intention of being your rebound.” Things sort of turned serious, both on his face and in his tone. “I don’t want to be the guy that helped you get over Lance. I don’t want to be the guy that made you forget Lance. I just want me to be me and you to be you, and for us to be that way together. I want that to be enough.” He dipped his head a bit and widened his eyes, staring at me through a lock of his sandy blond hair. I didn’t feel the need to cut it at all anymore, and kind of adored the way his fell across his brow. “Because you and me becomes an us, and that’s its own entity. I want our us to be enough.”

  “It’s enough.” I stared up at him openly.

  “I’m not a rebound—I’m not replacing the part of the us that Lance took from you. The parts he’s been taking from you.”

  I nodded slowly and said, “I know that. And in all fairness, I'm not the same me, either.”

  The smallest smile broke onto Torin's face and he dropped his lips softly to mine. “I know that, too.” He pulled me up to sit with him and placed his hands onto my knees. “Do you ever stop to think how no one else in the world is experiencing what you and I are right now in this very moment? Like no one gets to feel this,” he swept his full lips across my cheek, “Or this,” he ran his fingers through my hair and tucked it behind my ear. “No one gets to know what it’s like to feel the way I do about you.” Keeping his hand at the curve of my ear, he looked me right in the eye. “Hardly seems fair. I feel like I should write a book or something just so people can get a small glimpse into what I feel for you.”

  “I wouldn’t want others reading about us. I want to keep you all to myself.”

  “You greedy little thing!” Torin flicked the tip of my nose with his finger.

  “Why would I want anyone else to fall in love with you?” I asked outright.

  “People don’t fall in love with book characters, Darby.” Torin shook his head at me like I was saying something completely ridiculous.

  “Oh, please! They do all the time!” I blurted. “Edward Cullen? Four? Christian Grey?”

  “Well,” he contemplated as he thumbed his chin. “I'm not a vampire, nor a dystopian teen with a number for a name, and I think I’m actually the complete opposite of a billionaire playboy with weird fetishes. Nothing about me is fictional. I’m just a guy that works at a camp with my mom and dad, and I happened to fall in love with an incredible girl that came to visit.”

  “That’s all you think you are?”

  He shrugged his shoulders to his ears.

  “Torin, if you were a book character, I guarantee you would have hoards of women swooning after you.”

  “Oh hardly—”

  “Let me finish, damn it, because this is epically good.” I winked as I stole his earlier words. “You are this unexpected guy that can’t help but be the savior. With your campers, with me—you have the ability to pull people out of themselves. That’s an incredible gift, Torin. Because sometimes people can get buried pretty deep.”

  “Oh.”

  “Oh, what?”

  He smirked a wicked grin. “I thought you were going to say I was so incredibly sexy that women fall all over themselves at the mere thought of me.”

  “That too.” He was such a tease.

  “Right,” he smirked again. “That too.”

  We spent a couple minutes staring at each other, and I thought maybe I should say something more, but I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t even know what to feel. It was crazy to me that things had happened the way they did between us. How, within the course of a month, everything I thought to be true about my life had been turned on its head. But now, instead of feeling like everything was upside-down, it—for once—felt like it all had fallen into place. How insane to think that I’d had it wrong all of these years, and all it took was a chance encounter with Torin to flip it around and make it right.

  “Get your shoes on.” He jumped up from the bed and headed toward the door. “We have a lighthouse to find.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “How can it be so hard to locate a freaking lighthouse?” Torin punched his finger into the GPS map on the dash. Roads and arrows wove together in a jumbled mess of street names and intersections. The robotic woman with the British accent muttered something about turning left, but Torin just shouted, “It’s a lighthouse! Its job is to be seen!”

  “It’s okay, honestly.” I pressed my hand onto his forearm. We’d been driving for ten hours, only stopping to eat at a diner where the grease in the atmosphere was a physical weight that you could feel on your skin, and to fill up on gas before continuing our venture. Torin had kept his cool until about hour nine, but the past sixty minutes had been filled with curse words and rants on the current political administration and their lack of investment in satellite technology. How it was really all the government’s fault and how they probably had some underground conspiracy in place to keep young kids in love from locating historical landmarks. As far as his thoughts went, he really was all over the map.

  “It’s seriously no big deal.”

  Torin’s grip on the steering wheel tightened and his knuckles grew white with the force of frustration. “But it is a big deal. This is a very big deal. I wanted to do this for you.”

  “I don’t need to see a lighthouse for my life to be complete or anything.”

  “Maybe not,” he said, turning down the radio like it was Taylor Swift’s fault that we weren’t on the right path. “But this was a dream of yours, and I have every intention of making those dreams come true for you.” The light ahead morphed from green to yellow to red unusually quickly, and Torin rammed his foot to the floorboards in an effort to keep the vehicle from blazing into the intersection. “Gah!” he screamed. “This totally sucks!”

  “Make a legal U-turn,” GPS-woman chimed into the angry air of the car.

  “I’ll show you a legal U-turn,” he growled through his teeth, his lips tightening.

  “Good one, Torin.” I adjusted my sunglasses and flipped the visor to shield the glare reflecting from the car in front of us. It was a hot, sunny, clear day, one in which—I supposed—you would not even need the aid of a lighthouse had you been a sailor near the shore. We really didn’t have to do this.

  “It’s the best I’ve got right now. All of my creative comebacks are on hold until I get to our destination. I have to focus all of my efforts on the task at hand. No multitasking.”

  “I don’t need to see the lighthouse.”

  “But you love architecture!”

  “I love you more, and quite honestly, I’m worried that you are going to have an irrational meltdown of grandiose proportions if we don’t scrap this whole plan soon.”

  Torin flicked the turn signal and guided the car to the edge of the road, the tires settling into the ruts on the shoulder. He took a breath, pulling it in dramatically so that his chest puffed up, and then he slowly exhaled. “I think you’re right,” he resigned. “If we don’t start heading toward the airport now, we’ll never make our flight.”

  I nodded, a little relieved that our wild goose chase was over. Yes, I’d wanted to see Boston Light, but when it came down to it, just the fact that Torin tried to do all of this for me was enough. The lighthouse was just the path, not the destination.

  “Before we do that, though. There is something I have to do.” He pressed a finger to the GPS pad and our British guide began reciting, “The route guidance will begin...”

  “Route guidance, my ass!” Torin megaphoned his mouth and shouted into the touch screen. “You couldn’t punch your way out of a wet paper bag!” He started in on the idioms full force, and I bent over in laughter so hard my seatbelt locked up on me. Once he was done with his tirade of comebacks, he turned to look at me, rotating his body in his seat. But I couldn’t see hi
m. All of the tears filling my eyes made it incredibly hard to even make out his shape. Everything hurt from laughing: my face, my stomach, my head.

  “Sorry you had to witness that.”

  “It’s fine,” I giggled, covering my mouth as another laugh escaped. “I told you I was ready for an irrational outburst of grandiose proportions.”

  “Well,” he looked over his shoulder and coasted back onto the highway. “I’m glad I didn’t disappoint.” He changed lanes and picked up speed until we were right there along with the other traffic that sailed down the interstate. “You’re not at all disappointed that we didn’t make it to the lighthouse?”

  “Not even a little bit.”

  Torin turned to smile at me, and he held his gaze longer than was probably safe to do while operating heavy machinery, but I didn’t mind. I loved the way his eyes were so vulnerable and so telling, how he must have felt safe with me to expose his emotions so freely. I hoped that I was able to do the same for him.

  “How come you’re an architectural design major?” he said, swinging his head back to stare out the front windshield. “That’s a pretty specific field.”

  “I like buildings.” I bit on the jagged edge of my thumbnail and said, “I like that there are these structures that get to hold so much life within them. And that people get to create them.” My own eyes remained fixed on the stretch of highway out my passenger side window, the whirling landscape blended together like the brush strokes on a painting. “I like the idea that I can create something, and that someone gets to fill it up with their own memories and experiences. Like I can make the outside shell, and they can breathe the life into it.” I began feeling too lost in thought, and insecurity swept through when I realized I was actually verbalizing all that I was thinking. “It’s weird, I know.”

  “It’s not weird.” He looked at me again. The vehicles blurred past our periphery at 70 miles per hour, but it was just us. In this rental car, in this moment, it was just us. “It’s beautiful.”