My One Regret

by Krissy V

  I remember feeling like this before I walked into the sea. All I can do is look out at the sea and remember how liberating it felt. I can feel it inviting me to come in and to say goodbye to the turmoil and weakness in my life. If I just do it, then I wouldn't feel like this anymore. My friends and family won’t have to suffer anymore.

  I hate myself for thinking this way but I can't help it. I need help, but I don't want to ask for help. I don't want to seem weaker than I already am. I can hear my phone buzzing and I see I have four texts from Jordan; two from my Mum and a missed call from each of them. I ignore Jordan because he is better off without me as a friend and I can feel the tears flowing down my face at that thought. It's for the best. Mum wants to know how I am, so I send her a message.

  “Sorry Mum. I fell asleep. Feeling good now and have been doing lots of thinking and making decisions. Will tell you about them when I've finalised everything ;-)”

  “Baby girl I was worried about you. I'm going to bed and I'll see you for dinner tomorrow around five o’clock ok”

  “Thanks Mum, you don't need to worry about me, honestly I'm fine. Just taking some me time to work a few things out.”

  I stay sitting in the chair and keep staring out of the window, even though I can’t see anything because it is so dark outside, but I can see plenty running through my mind. Why can’t I forget what happened? You hear about girls who are attacked and they forget because of the trauma, why not me? Why do I have to remember everything? Arrggh, I am so angry I throw my mobile phone across the room. I don’t know if it has smashed or not, I just don’t care.

  I sit in the chair until I fall asleep with the blanket wrapped around me. I have my recurring nightmare and I wake myself screaming. At least I manage to fall back asleep quite quickly tonight, that’s much better than last night.

  On Sunday morning I decide I have to move out of the chair, so I go to the bathroom and then make a cup of coffee. I go back to the chair and continue staring out the window. This is like a new job for me, I feel so much better when I stare out at the sea. It seems to calm me for some reason. I’m so glad Chad bought this house overlooking the sea.

  I think about Chad then, I can’t believe he’s really gone. That reminds me that I will need to ring his Mum at some stage, when I am feeling a bit more sociable. I need to see how she is, she has lost her son and as much as I am hurting, she will be hurting even more. She was like a mother to me when I was in the States, she was always there for me when I needed her. I’m not ready to contact her just yet, I don’t know if I can pretend everything is ok, when it really isn’t. What have I ever done in my life to deserve all of this? I know I don’t have the answers and I don’t want to think about it anymore.

  I must have fallen asleep because I wake a few hours later to the sound of my phone ringing. I ignore it because I don’t have the energy to talk to anyone or to move. I haven’t eaten anything since Friday and I’m too lethargic to move, the only thing I can do is think! After another couple of hours, I realise that I have to get out of the chair because I need to let Mum know that I’m not coming for dinner, so I get out of the chair and pick up my phone from the floor. I see a couple of missed calls and texts from Jordan and my Mum, I ignore Jordan’s and send Mum a message.

  “Hi Mum, sorry I’ve been busy trying to organise things, I won’t be able to make dinner. I’m meeting Bonnie instead – hope that doesn’t mess things up for you xx”

  “Hey, that’s a shame we were looking forward to seeing you, but as long as you are good that’s all that matters. I will come over in the morning and bring Joyce with me for your meeting.”

  Oh crap. I forgot I was seeing her tomorrow. What am I going to do? Maybe I might need to lie my way out of this, I hate doing this to Mum but I can only think about myself.

  “I forgot to tell you that Joyce text me on Friday night to cancel, she said she would come back to arrange another day”

  “Ok I see, well I’ll call round later on tomorrow for a cup of coffee and a chat ok?”

  “Yeah that sounds like a good idea – love you Mum, see you then xx”

  I’ll have to think of another excuse tomorrow, I really don’t want to see anyone right now.

  I make another cup of coffee and go back to my seat, I haven’t even showered or changed my clothes since Friday. I don’t see the point, there’s no point in doing anything right now. I just need to sit and think some more.

  Sunday passes with me drifting in and out of sleep and ignoring my phone. I think at one stage I heard someone knocking on my door, but I ignored that too. I certainly don’t want anyone to see me looking like this, but I don’t have the energy to do anything about it. I feel like I’m drowning and I remember that feeling and it was so good. It helped me to forget what happened. I sleep some more and I wake again hearing the knock at the door, its Bonnie.

  “Cassie, come on open up, I know you told your Mum you were having dinner with us today, what’s happening? Please answer your phone or answer the door.” I can hear she is panicking and I hate that I’m doing that to her, but I don’t have the energy to go and open the door. She keeps banging and then she stops suddenly, she must have finally given up.

  It’s dark again now and I’m really tired, so I drift off again and once again I wake up screaming. I’m getting used to it and immediately fall back to sleep.

  “She Will Be Loved”

  Before I know it the sun is rising. I know I have to move and do something today. I have a headache and it’s really pounding, then I realise it's the door. Why won't they leave me alone?

  I can hear Mum shouting through the letterbox. "Cassie, come on I know you're in there, you need to open the door. We need to talk to you.”

  "I don't want to talk to anyone," I shout. "Just leave me alone today please. Just another couple of days." I'm sobbing and shouting at the same time.

  "Cassie, come on please. I know you lied about Joyce, why are you lying to me? Please." She's starting to cry now too.

  I can hear a scuffle and some deep voices outside talking to Mum.

  Then I hear "Babe, come on let me in, if you don't want your Mum to come in then just let me in. Let me help you, please." It's Jordan.

  I don't want him to see me like this, I really don't. "No Jordan, I don't want to see you or anyone today, please just leave me alone. I'm not worthy of anyone's love or help."

  I don't know how I can speak, I'm sobbing so much. I feel like I'm going to vomit, so I get up and run to the toilet. I just about make it in time, I hate feeling like this!!

  I'm still sitting on the toilet floor leaning over the toilet when I hear an almighty bang. What the hell is that?

  "Cassie where are you?" I hear Jordan, he sounds frantic. "Cassie?" He then spots me on the floor in the toilet. He comes in.

  I hold my hand out to stop him. “Go away. I don't want you to see me like this, please go away."

  He ignores me and gets down on the floor next to me. He pulls me close and holds me while I sob. “Cassie, don’t you know that everyone wants to help you, you don’t need to do this on your own. We all love you babe, come on, please let us help.” He’s kissing my head and rubbing my back. He stands and lifts me up into his arms and my head rests on his chest. He must be strong because he doesn’t even break a sweat when he lifts me. He lays me on the bed after carrying me through the house and up the stairs, where he lays down with me.

  He rolls onto his side and rests his head on his bent arm. “Cassie, I know you are a strong independent person and you have dealt with many issues in your life on your own. But you have got to realise that you’re not on your own, you have family and friends who want to help you. Do you see that?”

  I stop sobbing and say, “Jordan, I don’t want to be a burden to anyone, I didn’t ask for this to happen to me. My life was just starting to get back on track. I feel like everyone always has to look after me, I don’t like it.”

  My Mum must have been standing outside, because s
he comes in to sit on the bed and takes my hand. “Baby girl, you are never any trouble. Do you know how much I miss looking after you? You went off to San Francisco and didn’t come back for years. I never got the opportunity to look after you. I want that opportunity. I don’t want to smother you, but it’s my job to look after you. That’s what being a mother is all about.” She leans down and hugs me.

  I can start to feel my eyes closing and I fall into a deep sleep. When I wake up, the duvet is covering me. Everything is quiet and I realise I didn’t wake myself up screaming and I had just naturally woken up. I get out of the bed unsteadily and walk to the stairs, I hold the banister and start to walk down. After a few steps I stop, the sight below makes me want to cry, but cry tears of happiness this time. The dining room table is set ready for dinner for six people and the smell from the kitchen is unbelievable. I haven’t eaten for a few days and I didn’t realise how hungry I am.

  I silently walk down another couple of stairs, I don’t want to be seen or heard. There is a drill in the background and from the sounds I think they must be fixing the front door where Jordan burst his way through. I hear Dad saying “No one is going to be able to get through that door with the added security you’ve put in there, son!” It brings tears to my eyes that firstly, Jordan broke through the door to get to me, and secondly Dad called him Son.

  I continue moving down the stairs and I hear Bonnie and Jezza in the kitchen talking to Mum. “She will be fine Jean, she has us to help her. She is the closest thing I have to a sister and I will make sure she knows it,” Bonnie says, then I hear Jezza, “I’ve always looked out for Cassie, I love her like a sister too and have done since we were at school. I don’t like bad things happening to her, she doesn’t deserve any of it. We will be here for her and we will take care of her. She just needs to understand that we all love her and want to help her.”

  I get to the bottom of the stairs and everyone stops what they are doing and stare at me. Mum is the first one to come over to me. “Baby, did you have a good sleep? You look so much better than you did earlier. We are going to be having dinner in about half hour, the lads should be finished by then,” she says looking at Dad and Jordan.

  I turn to them and smile and then walk over to Mum and give her a hug. “I love you Mum don’t ever forget that.” Then I go over to Bonnie and Jezza, I hug them and say “you guys are the best and I’m sorry if I keep putting you through these pains. I promise I won’t do it again, ok.” I’m crying. “You are both family to me and I love you both.”

  I walk over to the front door and give Dad a hug. “Love you Dad.” That’s all I need to say, he gives me a kiss and then I go over to Jordan. I give him a hug and whisper in his ear, “thank you for coming to get me, I won’t forget it.”

  He looks at me and says, “Always baby, always.”

  Mum says, “Right, come on help me bring the dinner out and let’s sit down.” We all go into the kitchen and bring a dish out to the table. We sit down and Jordan comes and sits next to me. We spend dinner talking about just general stuff until we start talking about Bonnie and Jezza’s wedding. We sit at the table for three hours. Wow, where did the time go. I realise that I have been smiling for three hours and it feels so good. Is this what normal feels like? I haven’t felt normal in so long. We take the dishes out to the kitchen and Mum starts loading the dishwasher. We put the kettle on to make coffee and then we all go and sit on the veranda, I bring out the blankets and we all wrap ourselves up. We just chat about anything, the weather, the beach, the town and after another hour or so Mum says they have to go home.

  This is when I start to panic a bit, because I realise they are all going to leave me on my own again, but I try to hide it, I don’t want them to be worried about me anymore. I go to the door to say goodbye and Mum says “Night baby girl. I’ll talk to you in the morning. Jordan is going to stay with you for a few days, instead of staying with Bonnie.”

  I can’t believe my ears. “What? No! Why?”

  Jordan is stood behind me and gently touches my shoulders. “Because I want to, that’s why.”

  I turn to look at him and then back to Mum and I see it makes her happy to know someone is going to be staying with me. I smile. “Ok Mum, I’ll see you tomorrow.” I give her and Dad a kiss on the cheek.

  While I’m standing at the door, Bonnie and Jezza come over. “Cassie, do you think you’ll be up to going to see a venue tomorrow? We can have lunch there and see what it’s like, but only if you’re up to it.” I can feel the panic start to rise into my throat at the thought of having to go outside and try to pretend to be normal.

  “Bonnie, I’d love that,” I say and she kisses me on the cheek.

  “See you tomorrow then,” she says and flounces out the door.

  “Look after her,” Jezza says to Jordan.

  “I’ll always look after her,” Jordan replies.

  I watch them all walk down the path and then I slowly close the door. “Is the door fixed Jordan?” I ask.

  He laughs and says, “Yeah me and your Dad bonded over that door today.” He goes to put his arm around me then stops himself and puts his hand in his pocket instead. “Come on let’s get this place tidied up, then we need to talk,” he says. We quickly tidy everything away and go back out to the veranda and lean against the balcony looking out to the dark sky and sea.

  I can feel he wants to say something, but doesn’t know how to start. “Ok Cassie, I need to talk to you and I want you to listen. I’m not going to tell you what to do because I can’t do that, but we need to talk about what’s going on and how we can all help you.”

  He’s very nervous, so I turn to him and I put my hand on his cheek. “Jordan, I wanted to try this on my own, but I know that I don’t have to, I have people around me who love me and want to help me.”

  He puts his hand over mine on his face. “Yeah, we all love you Cassie and we all want to help you put this behind you so that you can start living again, you have so much to give.” He takes my hand and kisses my palm. He doesn’t let go of my hand and he pulls me into the house then he locks the door.

  “Take a seat,” he says pointing at the couch. So I sit down. “The first thing is that I will be staying here for a while until I know you are going to be ok.”

  I go to interrupt him and he puts his finger to my lips. “No, I’m not finished yet.” I smile a little and he continues. “Now I want you to take your sleeping tablets for the next couple of nights because you need to rest so that you can start to recuperate.”

  I know he’s right, so I don’t say anything. “Tomorrow after breakfast we will talk some more about counselling and then you can start getting your life together. Ok?” I can see he’s nervous, because he doesn’t really have the right to tell me what to do. But actually, maybe as a friend he does!

  I stand up and hold out my hand for him to take, he takes it. I link my arm in his arm and say, “Ok you’re right, but I’m tired and I want to go to bed.”

  He smiles and then he moves away from me. “You need to take your tablet first.” He goes into the kitchen and gets me a glass of water to take my tablet with. “Come on then, let’s get you to bed.”

  I follow him up the stairs and into my bedroom, he puts the glass on the bedside table and starts to walk out the room. “I’ll leave you to get ready for bed, I’ll be back in a minute,” he says and then he’s gone out of the room. I stand there for a couple of minutes not knowing what to think. Then it hits me that he will see me in my pj’s so I rush in the bathroom and do my teeth and then I jump into my pj’s and rush to get under the covers, I don’t want him to see me with my shorts on.

  He comes strolling back in a few minutes later with a pair of shorts and an old t-shirt on. “I see you’re tucked up safely in bed, do you mind if I sit on the bed and just talk for a while?” he says making his way over to the bed.

  “No I don’t mind Jordan, it’s fine.” I say, but I can’t stop looking at him. He looks like he did when we we
re going out together and I gasp as the memories start coming back. I can feel tears in my eyes for what I gave up. Then I remember that I should never regret any decisions I have made in my life. They were made for the right reason at that time.

  He sits down on the bed next to me. “Did you take your tablet?” I nod at him. “Good, you’ll start to drift away soon. I’m looking forward to Jezza’s wedding, you know he’s my best friend right? He’s kept me updated as to where you were and what you were doing in life. I don’t know what I would have done if I didn’t know how you were.” He brushes one of his fingers across my cheek.

  “I’m so happy for him that he finally asked Bonnie to marry him, it took them so long. It won’t take me that long, when you really love someone - you just know.”

  He looks at me and I snuggle down into my pillow, “yeah I know what you mean,” I say smiling at him. I can feel my eyes getting heavy. “Jordan, I’m getting sleepy. Thank you for, well just for being you. I’m very lucky to have you back in my life,” he looks at me and then smiles at me.

  “No, I’m the lucky one babe,” my eyelids close and I drift off with happy thoughts in my head for a change.

  I don’t have any nightmares and I don’t dream of David, instead I dream of Jordan and the fun we used to have at Pebbles Café with Mr. Stanley. When I wake up I feel really warm and I can’t move. I start to feel panicky. I open my eyes and I see an arm wrapped around me, I slowly turn around and I am looking straight into Jordan’s face. He must have fallen asleep on my bed last night. Instead of feeling panicky and scared I feel safe, and I snuggle back into his arms.

  A few minutes later I hear, “I know you’re awake Cassie. Sorry for staying in here last night, but I wanted to be close if you needed me. If I was next door then I might not have heard you.” He’s pulling me back closer to him.