The Rules of Regret

by Megan Squires

  My own tears spilled down my face so freely—so fast—that I couldn’t sweep them away quickly enough. And I was grateful Lance’s back was to me; even more grateful that Torin’s eyes were locked with mine. That the ‘I love you’ I’d failed to speak earlier was now pouring out of me so visibly. He said it back, too, not with words, but with the understanding expression cloaking his bruised face.

  “This is ridiculous.” The comeback was weak and empty, but I realized that’s exactly what Lance was. I’d always thought he was this strong, larger than life figure. But life—I’d come to find out—was pretty damn large. It coiled and wove and spun its own story, threading together tales to create an intricate, confusing saga. We didn’t get our own book. We were all part of the same, infinite one. My story didn’t exist apart from Lance’s. His didn’t exist apart from Clara’s. And now she was a part of it all, and so on and so on. We weren’t chapters. We weren’t even sentences. My part in it was as insignificant as a letter on a page. I’d contributed to humanity, but not much. I wanted it to feel like more. I wanted my life to be worth reading.

  “This is completely ridiculous,” Lance said again.

  “Maybe, but so is trading in someone as incredible as Darby for what—a one-night stand?”

  “I didn’t trade her. I’ve never traded her. I’ve just made a lot of mistakes in my past. I’m not proud of that.” Lance ran his hand over his mouth, then ripped his fingers through his dark, gelled hair. “It wasn’t like I meant to get Clara pregnant.”

  “Of course you didn’t. But you might have. And now what? Do you honestly think you and Darby can go anywhere from here?”

  My stomach rumbled, but not because I was hungry. Just empty, like always.

  “She’s not saying it’s mine. If she really is pregnant. We have it all figured out,” Lance retaliated, like it even mattered anymore. “My parents have talked to her parents. She has a boyfriend and he’s agreed. It all works out fine. Everyone is fine with it.”

  “As in,” Torin began to clarify, “you’ve paid off her boyfriend to keep his mouth shut and say it’s his.”

  “Do you even know what this would do to my family?” Lance’s voice boomed through the hotel room. “Do you have any clue how this could tarnish everything?”

  “I think I have an idea.”

  “I don’t think you do.” Lance shook his head with a force that I could actually feel as the air whipped past me. “It would ruin us. It’s a scandal that could take down everything my family has ever worked for. And Congressman Reynold’s family. There is no choice but to do this. I have no choice.”

  “Wrong,” Torin interjected like a buzzer. “You had a choice. You chose poorly. Darby is the one that doesn’t have a choice. And now she’s supposed to what—just accept it and move on?”

  “We have to. It’s what needs to be done.”

  “To protect your family’s name.”

  They still faced each other. I still slumped onto the wall. “Everyone has a role to play in this, and I need her.”

  “You don’t need her,” Torin spit, angered by Lance’s words. “You just need her compliance. That’s completely different.”

  “I need Darby. I can’t do this without her.”

  Torin nodded and thumbed his chin in that dimple. His cheek had started to swell, and it made his right eye smaller than the other as the scarlet inflammation crept up his face. “You can’t pull off this lie without her, you’re right.”

  “We can’t live the life we’ve always dreamed about if we don’t do it this way.”

  “I don’t dream about us anymore.”

  Lance spun around so fast on his heel that he had to catch himself before he completed another rotation. I wanted to see hurt in his eyes because it would make what we had feel like it was worth something, but only anger came through.

  “I don’t dream about us anymore, Lance. I haven’t for a while now.” I was pretty certain I said the words, but they were so quiet even I had a hard time hearing them. “You are not part of my dreams.”

  “And what? Torin is?” Lance flicked a glance over his shoulder. His eyes slivered. “You’re not actually gay, are you?”

  “No,” Torin said, “I’m not. And I’m pretty sure I’m in love with Darby. And I’m pretty certain she’s in love with me.” My head felt dizzy. My legs went all Jell-O. “And even if she isn’t, it doesn’t change things for me. Because unlike you,” Torin continued, tilting his upper half into the space between the two of them, “I’m still capable of loving her even if she’s not physically in my life. Even when she’s not around. Even if she chooses you and only becomes a memory to me.” Torin was talking to Lance, but his eyes didn’t falter from mine. “Even if that was all I had, I would love that memory of her. She taught me how to do that—to love the memory of someone like it’s a real thing.” Torin swallowed quietly; his voice became even quieter. I knew he was talking about what I’d done with Anna, and it made me feel less crazy than I probably deserved to feel. “If that’s what I was left with—with only our brief story—I would love that time when we were together with all I had. Because those memories are real and tangible to me, and if loving them was as close as I ever got to loving her again, that would be enough.”

  I shook my head in disbelief, in the disbelief that someone like Torin even existed in the world. And that somehow—by some intervention I could only consider divine—I’d been lucky enough to find him in a corner of mine.

  “If Darby ends up with you, that’s fine,” Torin continued. “I can live with that because you won’t be getting the same Darby I had. If she picks you, then she’s gone again. And I’ll know I’m the only one that ever got to really have her. And I’ll hold onto that knowledge for the rest of my life, and feel honored that I was that one person she briefly let in.” Lance didn’t say anything, but neither did I. We waited for Torin to finish, because his soliloquy had us both drawn. And I realized that out of all the words he’d ever spoken—both his own and the borrowed ones—these held the most truth for him. These held the most truth for me.

  “But if she chooses me—she chooses herself.” He shook his head and closed his eyes. “And God, I hope that she does. I hope, for once, she chooses herself over everyone else.”

  There was no use fighting back the tears anymore. No use because it was a battle I wasn’t strong enough to fight. I sniffed an ugly-cry sniff, shoving the heel of my hand against my nose to try to hold it back, but nothing worked. Every emotion I had for this boy came out of me with uncontrolled abandon.

  “There was a time when Darby needed me and I was there for her. I need her now.” Lance finally turned toward me, speaking these words to me rather than to me through Torin. “I need you, Darby.”

  Standing in front of two people that claimed to love you should make you feel, well… loved. But it didn’t. Because I only felt it from Torin, and what I felt from Lance, though existing in a separate space than those feelings from Torin, pulled down on everything. It was like my reality was crashing around me and there I was, standing among the rubble. Lance had demolished it all, and Torin was trying to build it back up.

  “I needed you once too, Lance.” I felt the sweat slipping down my back. Everything was hot. Stifling. I needed to get out of this building. I needed some air. “I honestly don’t know what I would have done if you weren’t there when everything happened with Anna.” The tears had stopped, thank goodness. Those I had under control—at least when talking to Lance. At least I had that part under control. “But I needed you because something I could have never expected—something I had no control over—happened. I needed you to help me navigate through it all.” I tossed my hand skyward. “But this? This thing with Clara? This was not out of your control. You controlled every aspect of it, but I can’t let you control me anymore. I can’t let Anna, either. I have to take control. I have to do this for me.”

  “But there are other people involved in this, Darby. My parents? Oh God, my pare
nts. Do you have any idea what this will do to them if you don’t go along?”

  Lance started to pace, not in an orderly pattern, but one that zigzagged across the room with frantic motion. His breathing picked up speed, and so did his feet.

  I caught his eyes as he strode toward me and swallowed before saying, “But do you have any idea what it will do to me if I do?”

  After that, no one said another word.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  We didn’t go to the gala, though I was pretty sure we didn’t even have an actual invitation to go anymore. We really didn’t have a reason for still being in D.C. at all. But Torin was here. To me, that felt like reason enough.

  By the time Lance had left, I’d wondered if he would even make it before the festivities were over. But that wasn’t my problem anymore. Lance needed practice in the art of truth telling. If anything, I’d given him another opportunity to perfect those very rusty skills.

  It was late, the time indicated that to be the case, but the three-hour difference made it feel weird to be going to bed so early. Nine o’clock was really our six o’clock and that was more like dinner time than bed time. Even still, I slipped out of my clothes and into a spaghetti-strapped tank and flannel pants while Torin brushed his teeth in the adjoining bathroom.

  I listened to the rhythm of the bristles scraping his teeth, the back and forth of a sound that felt intimate on some level. Because doing commonplace, routine things with someone held a certain sense of intimacy that wasn’t at all sexual or sensual, just intimate. There was a difference. To know someone intimately was to experience these little, daily consistencies with them. And for as insignificant as tooth brushing could be, it felt entirely significant.

  “Ahhhh,” he proclaimed as he propped open the door. He didn’t have a shirt on; his pajama plants were slung low on his hips. “Minty fresh.” His dimples pulled at his cheeks, though the one on the left was harder to see under the swollen flesh. “Want a taste?”

  Yeah, I really did, but instead I just laughed it off, thinking it might be a joke, but realizing (and hoping) it probably wasn’t.

  “I’m starved.” He yanked the room service binder off the nightstand and crashed down onto my bed. I really liked the sight of him on my bed, and liked what it did to my stomach. Instead of the hollow growl, a swarm of butterflies and a nest full of wasps filled the typically vacant space. “Let’s order in, shall we?”

  We talked over our options, noting room service practically cost the equivalent of our plane tickets home, and both of us settled on sharing a side of mac and cheese and bottled water. We had twenty minutes until our “meal” was scheduled to arrive. Torin flicked on the television, but neither of us actually watched it. That wasn’t really the plan.

  “I don’t think that stellar tooth brushing of mine should go to waste,” he blurted during a commercial break of Jeopardy. I’d been tucked under the cover of the sheet while he rested on top, so when he turned to face me he’d inadvertently pulled the fabric underneath him.

  “Argh,” I growled as the sheets tourniqueted me.

  “I’m sorry!” Torin laughed, and tossed off the covers to join me. It felt like the sleep sack again, but more intentional, because in this moment, he knew I was there with him. “Is that better?” He slipped down next to me, tugging the duvet up to our ears. I wasn’t really cold, but being under the comforter with him made me understand why it was named that: comforter. Because that was the exact sensation I experienced. Overwhelming comfort with the boy that I’d just discovered I more than likely loved.

  “My mouth really does taste amazing right now, Darby.” He pulled at the fabric draped over us. I slid toward him an inch, and our legs pressed closer together. Fabric on fabric, with even more cloaked over us. “You should taste it for yourself.”

  “Oh yeah?” I teased, and he moved forward. Our arms tangled. Skin on skin. Not much, but enough to change the way my heart thrummed inside my chest.

  “Yes. And really, to get the full sensation, you’re gonna have to use your tongue. It seriously is all Double Mint Gum status fresh up in here.” Torin waved a hand over his mouth and smiled so widely I worried for a moment that the newly formed scab on his face would burst.

  “This is how you want our first kiss to happen?” I asked, hesitant because it didn’t feel romantic or spontaneous the way first kisses should. Though in reality, I supposed it wasn’t a first kiss at all. A third, but the first one that we’d both intentionally desired. And the first one that was okay for us to have together. For all intents and purposes, we were about to have our first kiss. I started to freak out.

  “This is how I want everything about you. Like this. Making the mundane monumental.” He scooted closer. “Seriously. Everything you touch turns to gold, Darby.”

  “Ah, there it is,” I said, nodding, poking at him beneath the covers.

  “What?”

  “Your plagiarizing. It’s been a while, but I see you’re back at it.”

  Torin shrugged indifferently. “So what? I like quotes.”

  “I like your originality,” I countered, because I did. I liked when Torin was just Torin; when I knew the things he said came from somewhere deep inside him, not from some surface level of past memorization.

  “It is as though a thousand little garden gnomes chewed up mint-flavored crystals and then blew them into my mouth. In Antarctica.” I burst into laughter so loud I thought the neighbor on the other side of the adjoining wall might report me to the front desk. “That was a Torin original. You like?”

  “I love,” I giggled, instinctively covering my mouth with my hand.

  Torin stretched over and pulled it back, coiling his hand around mine, his warm knuckles squeezing between my fingers. “I told you not to cover that up. Plus, it makes it a little hard to do this when you do.”

  His lips pressed to mine first, then our chests. Skin on skin again, but more intense than earlier. Because, it turned out, there were definitely specific patches of skin that held more sensitivity than others, and when those met, your body responded in a much different way. There were parts that made other parts feel certain things. When our arms touched, the hairs on them stood on end. But now, when his shoulder pushed against mine and the swell of my chest depressed against the muscle of his chest, I felt it in parts of my body that usually didn’t feel anything. Which, I realized, was insane because I’d felt all of Lance’s body on all of mine before, countless times. Skin on skin with no barriers between us. But there always had been a barrier, one made of emotion and not fabric. And that, it turned out, was a thicker barrier than anything else.

  The commitment to our kiss lessened when Torin pulled back slightly to say, “Is this okay?” His eyes searched mine for confirmation, flickering over them. “Is it okay if I kiss you, Darby?”

  “Yes,” I said, nodding quickly. “It’s more than okay.”

  And it was, because for all of the things that felt so wrong lately, this felt so unbelievably right.

  He moved in.

  So did I.

  He shifted closer, bunching the sheet beneath us, pressing the entire length of his body to mine. From our chests to our toes, everything lined up.

  I waited for it—waited for him to lessen the gap between our mouths, because at that point, those were the only things not touching—but he paused.

  “This is not a dream,” he said, locking eyes with me, referencing our first kiss. “This is not a distraction. This is me saying I love you, in this way. I’ve said it with my words, and there are hundreds of other ways I want to say it to you, but right now, this is how I’m telling you.”

  And he did. So clearly, Torin told me he loved me.

  Slowly, but not hesitantly, he pressed in. I felt his breath against my lips and it was warm and admittedly, very minty. When his bottom lip actually did make contact with mine, it was also slow, deliberate. Like he was savoring every part of this experience. Like he didn’t want to rush it at all, but take it a
ll in via one-second increments.

  Then his upper lip touched mine. Both of our lips on the other; our mouths completely connected. I don’t think I moved them at all, partly because I was stunned by the way something so small could make my entire body feel the way it did, but also partly because I was waiting for him—waiting on Torin’s next move.

  Again, he moved with caution.

  With pressure that didn’t really feel like pressure at all, he traced his lips over mine, guiding them in a way that made me mimic each movement. Some game of Simon Says where our lips were the players and everything he did caused me to instinctively do the same. He pulled my bottom lip into his mouth; I pulled his upper into mine. He coaxed my lips apart and slid his tongue in; I waited until he withdrew his and trailed my own into his mouth.

  It amazed me, but he was completely right. His movements were his ‘I love you,’ and my reciprocation was the ‘I love you’ back. And it wasn’t all lust-filled or frantic or even too entirely sexual. But it was an exchanging of our unspoken words with our bodies in this way, for this moment. Maybe later it would be in another way, but this was how we chose to speak to one another now. I loved this language.

  Torin pulled apart to gather air, and when he drew his head back, his chest pressed even further to mine. The heartbeats ticking under his skin were fast and fluttering. For as controlled as our kiss was, Torin’s heart rate was entirely uncontrolled, bordering on tachycardic.

  “This is what you do to me, Darby.” Scooping up my free hand, he placed the flat palm of it onto his chest. “That kiss may have been my ‘I love you,’ but this is my, ‘Holy crap, if that was just a kiss, sex might kill me.’”

  A laugh shot out of me so fast that it sounded like a snort, which should have made me utterly unattractive, but Torin’s mouth on mine again proved otherwise.

  “You are too damn cute. I can hardly stand it.” He dropped a kiss onto my nose.