Things I Should Have Said

After the SAT, I come across a post online. Someone posts, "If you could make a choice all over again, which major would you choose this time?" The comments are filled with people wishing they had chosen a different major. They all have their own regrets. One response stands out from the rest. "I would choose literature. That way, he and I wouldn't have missed out on the four years we should have spent together because of that unwanted baggage." I chuckle and am about to scroll past when I suddenly notice the profile picture and username. They are identical to those of my childhood sweetheart, Winter Andersen. I click into the profile. Everything matches her current account exactly, except that the age is ten years older. My heart sinks to my stomach. This has to be her ten years in the future. No wonder I am the only one celebrating when we are admitted to the same major. No wonder she zones out for so long after seeing my best friend, Simon Brown, receive his acceptance letter from the literature department. It turns out I am the unwanted baggage responsible for so many of her regrets and disappointments. Since that is the case, I quietly press "Accept" on the admission offer written entirely in a foreign language. I shall end this mistake ten years ahead of schedule.

After I discovered Chelsea Stone’s infidelity, I ended the relationship without giving her a chance. I packed my luggage bit by bit. She watched me, then suddenly said, “Jensen Scott, do you know what was the most boring thing about you?” I paused and turned around. She blew out a puff of smoke and smiled in a flirtatious way. “You were so boring. You did not even know how to sweet‑talk in bed. It was so uninteresting.” I walked away with my things, and I held back my tears. Three years later, I ran into her in the hospital corridor. She wore a white coat, and the medical record book in her hand almost slipped when I bumped into her. Our eyes met. She looked me over, and her tone turned playful. “Oh, is this not my blockhead ex‑boyfriend?” I smiled and did not reply. As I left the hospital, she stepped in front of me and lowered her voice. “Three years have passed. Have you learned how to sweet‑talk in bed?” I raised my hand and showed her my wife’s ultrasound report. “I have, but not to you.”

After the death of his first love, Caspian Stormcrown hated me for ten years. No matter how carefully I tried to please him, he met me with nothing but sneers. "If you really want to make me happy, go and die," he said. The words cut deep. Yet when a burning beam collapsed during the palace fire, he shoved me out of the way and died in my stead. He lay in my arms as his life faded. When I reached for him, he spent his last strength brushing my hand aside. "Evelyn Frostwood, how much better would my life have been if I had never met you…" he whispered. At the funeral, his mother sobbed until she could barely remain standing. "This is my fault," she cried. "I never should have forced you to marry her. If I had let you marry Amelia instead, would today have ended differently?" His father looked at me with open hatred. "Caspian saved you three times. Why did you only ever bring him disaster? Why did you live instead of him?" Everyone regretted that Caspian married me. So did I. In the end, I leapt from Starfall Tower and returned to the past, 10 years earlier. This time, I chose to sever every tie between Caspian and me and give everyone the ending they wanted.

I was in a long-distance relationship with my boyfriend. It had been three years, and he never let me go to him. I cried, I protested, and I even shouted at him. Alas, all he did was give me a tired answer. "It's for your own good, Wendy." I shut up because that really was the truth. I had made frequent trips to him during the first year we were together. The first time I went, I forgot to turn off the stove, and the fire burned my house down. The second time I went, the elevator I took malfunctioned. I was locked inside for hours. The loss of oxygen nearly knocked me out. Then, the third time came. I didn't think my luck would be this rotten, but it was. On my way to the airport, I ran into a car crash and stayed in the ICU for three days. Since then, he came to me. The fateful day came. My company sent me on a trip to Imperia. I didn't tell Chris and prayed to God that this trip would go smoothly. My prayers were answered, and the plane landed smoothly. I was so excited about my change in luck. I was about to text Chris to tell him all about it when I turned around and saw him standing among the crowd of people picking up the passengers. He was holding a bouquet of roses. I thought either my friend told him, or we were secretly telepathic. Just when I was going to approach him, I saw him smiling at a girl and pulling her into his embrace. Then, they kissed.

Seven days before our wedding, Danny Wagner—my childhood sweetheart—got down on one knee for Mia Kant, the broke girl he'd been sponsoring. Right in front of me and his buddies. I didn't cry. Didn't lose it. Just slapped a smile on my face and said, "Wishing you two a lifetime of happiness." His buddies? Oh, they had the nerve to tell me to be generous and let Danny help Mia finish her "wish list." Danny, unsatisfied and ticked off, said I was overreacting and demanded an apology. Dismissive, he sneered, "I said I'd marry you after Mia's wish list was done. Stop being so unreasonable." I knew this was the last item on her list. I opened my notes app, scrolled to my wish list, and deleted all thirty-three bullet points. Done. Then I made a call. "I'm willing to marry you."

The night before my wedding, I stumbled upon his old chat logs with his friends. "I've never met anyone so easy to fool." "You know she comes from a single-parent home, right? She’s desperate for love." "So, all I have to do is be a little nice to her, and she throws herself at me." I used to believed he had saved me from the depths of despair, but in the end, he played me for a fool. I thought I’d found love, but in the end, my sincerity was worth less than dirt.