Troubled Souls // 5SOS

VIII ∞ Regret

• Jade •

I'm a few minutes late for therapy today. In an ironic turn of events, I slept through my alarm. I didn't even get a chance to change out of the shirt that I fell asleep in, but I'm gonna keep that little fact to myself.

The presence of an empty chair is very evident and gives the room an uneasy air. Only I know the reason why.

"Jade, do you have any idea where Ashton is?" Sophie asks me.

"He just had chemo yesterday and the pain's pretty bad," I reply. I pull out my phone. "He sent me a text. 'Hey, chemo was hell yesterday and everything hurts so I can't get out of bed, much less come to therapy today. Tell everyone I say hey and that I'm sorry I can't be there. I'll hopefully be back next week.'"

There's a "Love you xx" addressed to me at the end, but I decide to leave that out. I had told my mum that I'm going to walk over to Ashton's after the meeting since his apartment complex isn't too far from the hospital.

"Alright," Sophie says, clapping her hands together. "Regret. It's a painful emotion that affects everyone, no matter who we are. We're usually introduced to regret pretty quickly in our lives when our parents scold us after we've done something wrong and the reasons for our regrets become bigger and stronger as we get older. This is broad and hard-to-talk-about topic, so if you don't feel like reading your paragraph out loud, please just hand it in to me."

We all look around the room in an uncomfortable silence; none of us want to be the first to go. No one goes to hand in their paper, not even Luke, but I assume it's just because he didn't do the assignment once again. I am, unfortunately, right next to Sophie, so I have to go first. I sigh a little, reaching into the pocket of my shorts and pulling out my folded up paper.

"I'm not going to lie, I had a difficult time writing this essay. I'm not really all that exciting and I don't take risks unless I think it's absolutely worth it. I don't regret most of my choices because I know I made them for the right reasons. I had to go back a while to find my biggest regret. When I first got to high school, I had a boyfriend within the first few weeks. I thought I needed him to be secure in myself and to be comfortable in my new environment, but I don't think I ever really loved him the way he loved me in the beginning. Eventually, I started taking him for granted and he cheated on me with one of my friends. I was sad and angry about it at first, but I realized pretty soon that I could've avoided it by being a better girlfriend. Your first relationship and your first kiss are important milestones in your life and I regret wasting them on someone who I never truly cared about."

I fold my paper back up, placing it back in my pocket and lacing my fingers together in my lap.

"Thank you for sharing, Jade," Sophie says. That response is really getting old, but I guess there's not much else she can say.

It's Calum's turn next. "One of my biggest regrets is probably not standing up for myself. When I was younger, I got teased a lot by the other kids at school. They made me feel self-conscious about my appearance and that was one of the prominent causes of my anorexia. I let their opinions of me get into my head and affect my life and what I thought of myself. I could have stood up for myself or even just ignored them and I really regret that I never did because it might have actually prevented my disorder from happening."

Sophie gives the same canned response and I zone out a little bit, staring across the room at the empty seat between Beth and Luke where Ashton should be. I keep thinking of little things he would say if he were here. He'd be next to me and he'd be holding my hand against his knee, bouncing it up and down rhythmically the way he does when he's too restless to sit still. I'm sure he would've given my hand a reassuring squeeze after I read my paragraph the way he always does when he thinks I look sad. I wish there were a clock in this room because I don't want to pull out my phone to check the time in the middle of our session.