I wish I hadn't let her go.
If I could go back to the night of the Vampires' Ball, everything would turn out differently. I would talk to Lori more. I would sit closer to her. I would flirt with her. I wouldn't just sit there and watch someone else take her out from under me. We would spend the next fifteen years together; the same her and me that met that day. I was content to just be a friend and call her "sister" when I wanted more. I was so jealous of Andy. He had charm and appeal that I didn't, and it was frustrating.
As the years progressed, she and I stopped communicating. She moved in with him, they got married, and they had a son. I moved in with someone I barely knew, was kicked out not long afterward, and ended up in Ashford and tried to replace Lori with Carol. Carol was in work release on an assault charge and was a recovering alcoholic. While I was trying to survive a toxic relationship rife with screaming, throwing things, and an on-again-off-again engagement, two hundred miles north Lori was apparently being yelled at, shoved and kicked. Somewhere in the middle of all of that, we forgot that each other existed.
It wasn't until I ended my relationship and moved back to Montgomery that we started talking again. We started our own relationship, and she told me that she regretted picking him over me. I told her that I regretted letting her go, and that I was always very jealous.
However, through years of absence and domestic abuse, neither of us were the same as we were that evening so long ago. She used to love having fun and doing things. Now she loathed venturing out of the house, even for just a moment and loved the bottle more than me. I used to do anything for a loved one. Now I put myself before anyone else and found my entertainment online.
I wanted so desperately for it to work. When she screamed I remained silent, trying to think of some response that would help. I guess the only thing that helped was to let it die and then to behead the corpse so that it can never rise again. I told her that I was better off having never known her, but I don't think that way at all.
If I could go back to that night and not let her slip away, none of that would have happened. Neither of us would have been so corrupted. We would still be the same people that we were back then.
As the years progressed, she and I stopped communicating. She moved in with him, they got married, and they had a son. I moved in with someone I barely knew, was kicked out not long afterward, and ended up in Ashford and tried to replace Lori with Carol. Carol was in work release on an assault charge and was a recovering alcoholic. While I was trying to survive a toxic relationship rife with screaming, throwing things, and an on-again-off-again engagement, two hundred miles north Lori was apparently being yelled at, shoved and kicked. Somewhere in the middle of all of that, we forgot that each other existed.
It wasn't until I ended my relationship and moved back to Montgomery that we started talking again. We started our own relationship, and she told me that she regretted picking him over me. I told her that I regretted letting her go, and that I was always very jealous.
However, through years of absence and domestic abuse, neither of us were the same as we were that evening so long ago. She used to love having fun and doing things. Now she loathed venturing out of the house, even for just a moment and loved the bottle more than me. I used to do anything for a loved one. Now I put myself before anyone else and found my entertainment online.
I wanted so desperately for it to work. When she screamed I remained silent, trying to think of some response that would help. I guess the only thing that helped was to let it die and then to behead the corpse so that it can never rise again. I told her that I was better off having never known her, but I don't think that way at all.
If I could go back to that night and not let her slip away, none of that would have happened. Neither of us would have been so corrupted. We would still be the same people that we were back then.