When I Disappeared, He Regretted It Novels & Stories

, his pupils widened at me in disbelief, while I motionlessly stared into thin air, reliving the painful scars he left at his disappearance. “At least he left with dignity! You don't tell me what to feel Raymond. Don't step out of the thin line you are right now”, I sternly warned, emitting a ton of regrets at my previous actions. Storming inside with a hard slam on the door, I leaned on the kitchen counter in deep thoughts, realization washing hard over me, exhaling in regret. There was no more reason to tolerate Raymond anymore. I was in love before I even knew it.

He buried that desire under layers of scorn and coldness. He told himself that if she disappeared from his life, the feeling would die too. That was what led him to take part in the plot to have her abducted. Looking back now, he realized that it had been the stupidest path he could have taken. And every night since, in the quiet hours before dawn, he had been drowning in regret.

I said in my mind. "You’re playing with fire." "So are you…You're marrying Betsy and looking at me like you want to burn everything down." He said nothing. I moved past him to grab a glass of water from the kitchen. His presence followed me like a shadow. "Do you regret it?" he asked finally. "Regret what?" "Us." My throat tightened. "I regret that I can’t remember all of it." I said. "I regret that someone made sure I forgot... and that when I came back, you weren’t there."

I say, my voice rough, uneven. He turns slowly, eyes scanning mine, calm but sharp, the fire I’ve missed for months flickering in them. “I never disappeared,” he says quietly, “you just stopped looking.” I swallow hard. Words fail me. Months of anger, regret, guilt, and longing are tangled into one impossible knot. I take a step closer. “I was ready to give up,” I confess. “Ready to let you go. To walk away.” His lips twitch in the hint of a smile, small but warming. “And yet here you are.”

Admitting mistakes, hurting me with confessions, and feeling his regret in every word. “You didn’t seem like I mattered more than she did that night in the kitchen—that day in the bedroom. I truly believed you loved her and that I could disappear, and you would never regret it. You would never miss me.” I remind him of how cold he was, how he asked for a divorce and told me he wanted me out of his life for good.

Ellison spent his days lost in drink, stumbling through life until he drank so much he ended up in the hospital. The doctors saved him, but they had to take out part of his stomach and told him he could not drink anymore. Even so, he was so thin and tired all the time, it looked like his life was pretty much over. My parents, they went grey overnight after I was gone, like they aged years in a moment. They would spend the rest of their days filled with sorrow and regret. A month after I died, Death finally came for me. He said I had not done anything bad and could go to heaven, but I would forget everything if I left.

My silence must have sounded like confirmation because Rean let out a weary sigh. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I never should've arranged your marriage to Dylan. The two of you didn't even know each other back then. It must have been hard on you all these years." Did my father finally realize how unfairly I'd been treated? Had he known all along that his own daughter had been miserable in this marriage? A bitter scoff escaped me before I could stop it. I never expected to hear those words from him. My chest tightened painfully. How ironic. His regret had come three years too late.

“For everything.” Reluctantly, I turned away from his touch to look at him. His eyes were filled with regret. We both knew what had happened seven years ago. “I should have never humiliated you ,” he whispered. “It was a mistake. I have regretted it ever since.” Time stood still as I felt my heart breaking all over again. It was like he was ripping open an old wound Jack. I quickly move away farther from him, bringing myself to my right senses that I had come to work and not fall for him again.

At least, Freya hadn't turned her back on him and that was the most important thing. However, he couldn't shake off the fact that he had already lost so much and was bound to lose more if he pushed further. His heart ached, and he felt a wave of despair wash over him as he thought of that. He poured another drink, the whiskey glugging into the glass. The sound echoed through the silence, a rhythm which matched his wandering thoughts. He leaned on the couch, his glassy eyes fixed on the whiskey bottle and empty glasses which littered the coffee table. He was lost in a sea of self-doubt and regret, the once-confident CEO now a shadow of his former self.