Before You Were Mine: the breathtaking USA Today Bestseller. Em Muslin
kissed it, and lodged it into the box. Eli leaned down and pushed it under one floorboard and tucked her journal under another. She pulled off her cornflower dress, folded it neatly and laid it on top. Eli settled the floorboards into place, replaced the rug, left the spare room and threw on another dress.
She had got to the bottom of the stairs, when the unmistakable roar of her brothers’ voices approached the front door. Without so much as a knock, her family tumbled in.
Regret is such a dirty word. Say it. Go on. Rrrrreeeeeeggggrrrreeeettt. You see. You don’t say it with a smile. I regret, you regret, we regret. However dirty, however sad, I regret to announce we all have regrets. Nonetheless, some of us have more than others.
I could feel the blood trickling down my hand. The warm turning cold, soft claret fluid clung to my skin. As I inhaled the unmistakable stench of iron, I regretted so much. So much. I could hear only the pounding of my heart swimming in my ears, deafening me, despite my now shallow breaths. Gasping at the thick air, I found it hard to swallow. Regret chafed my dry throat, making me wince. I choked on regret.
The doctors regret to announce she died choking on her own regret. Wishing for that moment – that suffocating, dark, painful moment – whilst the blood that had once been pumping through my veins now slowly crept against my skin, the skin that had been ingrained with lines of regret. I wished that I could take it all back. No matter how much I pushed the taste of cold metal to the back of my damaged mind, I knew this was something. Something I’d regret.
I regret not kissing Kitty Entwistle after assembly in second grade so I knew what it was like to kiss another girl’s lips. I regret not travelling and trying black ink squid whilst looking over Sausalito in San Francisco. I regret not learning to play the piano, not trying out for the volleyball team, not learning another language, other than that of regret. Most of all, I regret leaving you. Not loving you. Leaving you.
Once you’ve done something, ticked the box, nodded your head, raised your hand, picked something up, it’s impossible to turn back the clock. Sure you can lower your hand, cross out the mark you had made, put something down, but for ever the smudged mark would remain, your prints all over the moment. If only you had had more time to think, less time to regret. Regret. Regret. Even saying the word makes you shake your head and look down to your scuffed shoes in pity, sorrow resting in the creases on your brow, like crows on the roof ready to swoop.
Every action, every thought, leads to the next. Like a snowball rolling over and over collecting more snow, so it is true of life. Who would imagine that forgetting the pickles would lead to this? In fact who would have thought spring-cleaning would remind me I forgot the pickles, which led to this? No, strike that. Let’s start again. Who’d have thought that dropping the toast that morning, leading me to pull out the oven to retrieve it, would’ve led me to spring-clean, to remember the forgotten pickles that led me to you? You see? A snowball. A snowball led me to you.
Often I’d lie awake in the dead of night, whilst he lay sleeping next to me, and I would think of you. I would think of you and me. I’d imagine us feeling snowflakes against our skin. The cold tiptoe of a snowflake on our rosy cheeks. Tiptoeing, tap dancing on our skin. Melting. No one else would be around and only our footprints could be seen in the snow. I’d place my footprints in yours and yours in mine, and we’d become one. I would press my cheek against yours and I’d hold you, and this time, in the dead of night, this time, I promise I would never let you go.
The traffic had been hell that afternoon. It was a hot hazy summer’s day. The sort of day where you can smell only the fumes from the cars sticking to the insides of your nose. The miasma of monoxide collected in your lungs. As I sat patiently waiting for the traffic to move, I glanced down at the cornflower blue cotton dress I had thrown on hastily and noticed that it was stained at the hem. I remembered spilling coffee on it that morning, when I had rushed to answer the phone and knocked the cup from the table, causing it to spill across the tablecloth and onto my dress. I’d thrown it on top of the laundry basket, but in the rush to buy the pickles I had forgotten about the stain. I had even, at the moment of popping the dress over my head, forgotten about you.
Never before had I regretted wearing that dirty dress so much, but whilst I sat in the sweltering car looking at my coffee-stained hem, I didn’t know that then. But I know that now. If only I knew then, what I know now. Instead, I merely tutted to myself and leaned forward, switching the radio on. Turning the tuning knob in my hand, finding some song that I hadn’t heard before, to tap my chipped nails to on the car doorframe.
I leaned back in my seat and waited for the traffic to move and forgot about the stain. Until now that is. Now I remember everything. Now that I feel the blood dry and cracked on my skin, I remember everything and I regret even more.
I parked the car with ease and – without turning off the radio – I switched off the ignition and walked towards the store. Looking at my watch, I knew that it was later than I had hoped. I’d get the pickles and be back before Tommy returned. I’d have time to change my dress, tie up my hair, and be ready for when they arrived.
The bright fluorescent lights penetrated my sight momentarily and I squinted until the colours had adjusted, before deciding I didn’t need a basket. I would regret that too. Looking at the people queuing along the aisle, I once again glanced at my watch and anxiously walked to the pickles. Perhaps I could convince some kind person, whose cart was overflowing, that I was in a rush. Perhaps I would tell them that I had an urgent appointment. A little white lie wouldn’t harm anyone. Little white lies, like snowflakes tiptoeing on your cheeks.
Finding the pickles, I carried the bulbous jar between my fingers and walked hastily to the nearest aisle, spotting the young woman with the bulging grocery cart, who I’d offer my white lie to, in order to slip in before her. But I didn’t know that was you. How could I have known that? How could I have known when the toast had fallen down the side of the oven, it would be you?
At that moment, I felt the cold snow in between my toes, my footsteps in yours. Just for a second. Before I could utter a word, before I could remember my little white lie, there I was in my stained cornflower blue dress, surrounded by broken glass, and the pickling vinegar soaking into my scuffed shoes, that I momentarily looked down to in regret.
It was then, that moment, when you reached for the broken glass scattered at my feet, that I regretted wearing the dress with the stain. As you knelt down before me, to pick up the glass, you could see the spots, the coffee-coloured drops at the hem of my dress, and I regretted so much that I had worn it. I could see you couldn’t see – not the stain, as that was clear as day, but who I was to you.
As we both knelt down, our feet covered in pickling vinegar, I took that moment. I stole that moment, to look at you. When I looked down at my scuffed shoes in regret, I regretted looking away. You see, there we are again. If only I knew then, what I know now. I remember clearly the pitying look you gave me as I dropped the jar from my hands. I could see my reflection in your eyes. More than you realized.
‘You burnt somethin’, dear?’ Eli’s mother, Trudy had barely got through the door before needling her daughter. She wore a navy blue velour dress that had a small tie just below her breasts, making her ample bust seem even larger. She had never, as far as Eli knew, been a slight woman, which was ironic considering how much she showed her disappointment when Eli hadn’t turned out slim and lithe and thin.
‘No, Ma.’ Eli took a deep breath.
Eli’s Pa glanced across as he shuffled in. He raised his eyebrows to say hello, wandered over to the front living room window, and stood looking out, uncomfortable as ever.
‘Happy Birthday, Pa.’ Eli approached him and kissed him lightly on the cheek. Charlie just sort of nodded and turned to look back out of the window. Eli noticed in the light how old he had gotten. His build appeared scrawnier than usual. Perhaps it was because he didn’t have his overalls on, but