short stories

attempt

"write about something you regretted."

///trigger warning///

i think many people regret many things.

my dad regrets not finishing college. my mom marrying my dad.

i never really grew to regret anything until my sophomore year.

i was the caring person. even if i was not 100%, i tried my best to be kind and accepting of others to make them feel better. i wanted everyone to feel great, even if i wasn't.

i remember hiding who i was and how i felt for the longest time. i took those "are you gay?", and "are you depressed?" online quizzes that popular platforms like buzzfeed posted. they never ended out the ways i wanted them to; i would either be 100% a fag or have severe depression and was recommend to go to the doctors right away.

over the months of questioning, i learned to push it down and live with a facade. i tried to be the straight cute happy girl, and that only worked for so long.

i remember the first time i had cut. it was sixth grade and i was inexplicably down. i cried and i cried about how unhappy i was, and how nothing had been working and i just wanted the pain to be gone. 

it was a pencil sharpener. 

i had taken scissors and broken it with that and unscrewed it with those.

about a month after that had happened, i hid the razor and tried to make my life better. of course i had slip ups but nothing could compare to September 15 and 16th.

august hadn't been my month. the beginning was good, i had just gotten my permit, packing for florida, and i was in the midst of redoing my room.

then we actually left for florida.

florida in itself was actually kind of fun. i got to hang out with my newborn cousin for really the first time. my aunt let me and my 20 year old cousin smoke with her and let me tell you, that was a time.

there were downfalls, too.

we had only been there about a day in a half. on sunday night, my grandpa who was down in florida with us started to get really bad chest pains. he's already had a heart attack before so he said he already knew how they felt and swore to himself that this wasn't one. we all thought he was doing okay.

the next day, we went to the beach. he had gotten tired so he went upstairs with my grandma to go nap. when he got to the room, he said his arm had gotten numb and that's when my grandma made the call on going to the hospital.

it turns out, he had a heart attack that sunday night and that current day, a tuesday i believe. he had to stay in that hospital and have a double bypass surgery the next day. after that, it wasn't really the best trip.

my mom and grandmother had stayed back to stay with my grandpa while my dad, sister, brother and i had drove back to missouri where we lived.

about four days later, he came back and everything was good. there were minor complications but he was good.

then, everything really turned for the worst.

my mom and dad had announced to my siblings and i that they were getting a divorce.

they gathered us in the living room, starting the conversation with "we need to talk." at first, we all thought the conversation would be about putting our eldest dog fergie down. the conversation had always been in the air but never talked about like we should.