THE ONE FROM THE PAST

Chapter - 8 ( REGRET IS A SLOW POISON)

Chapter 8

Regret is a slow poison

Callisto

Regret is a slow poison. It doesn’t kill you all at once—it lingers, seeps into your bones, and makes a home in the space's where love used to be.

Five years. That’s how long it’s been since Alyannah walked away. Since I made the biggest mistake of my life. Since I chose the past over the present—over the future I could have had with her.

I thought I was making the right choice back then. I convinced myself that Sofia was still the love of my life, that what we had was unfinished, that fate was giving us another chance. But fate had nothing to do with it. It was just my own blindness, my own cowardice, pulling me back to something that was already long gone.

And in the process, I lost the one person who truly mattered.

Alyannah.

Even now, after all these years, her name still feels like a whisper against my lips. It’s haunting how memories of her come unbidden—how I can hear her laughter in the quietest moments, how I still catch myself turning in a crowded room, expecting to see her there. But she never is. She’s nowhere to be found.

I’ve tried. God knows I’ve tried.

The first year, I searched desperately. Called every mutual friend, visited places we used to go, hoping I’d find some trace of her. But she was gone. Like she had never existed at all.

The second year, the weight of my regret started settling deeper. I stopped searching, but I never stopped wondering. Was she okay? Was she happy? Had she moved on? I hoped—no, I prayed—that she had found the happiness I stole from her.

By the third and fourth year, I realized something terrifying. Even if I did find her, what could I say? Sorry? I’m sorry for breaking your heart, for choosing the wrong person, for not seeing you for who you truly were—the love of my life? Words wouldn’t be enough. They would never be enough.

And now, five years later, I am nothing but a man drowning in his own choices.

I stand by the window of my apartment, the city lights stretching endlessly before me. The same city where we built memories. Where we fell in love. Where I destroyed everything.

I close my eyes, and she’s there. Alyannah, in the morning light, her hair tousled, her eyes still heavy with sleep. Alyannah, laughing, teasing me about my terrible cooking. Alyannah, sitting across from me at our favorite café, stirring her coffee, pretending not to notice how I was watching her like she was the only person in the world.

Alyannah, walking away, her back to me, never turning around.

I should have stopped her.

I should have fought for her.

But I didn’t.

And now, all I have left are ghosts of what could have been.

Five years. And it still hurts like it was yesterday.

I run a hand through my hair, exhaling sharply. My chest feels tight, the kind of ache that never really goes away. I used to think time would dull it, that eventually, I’d wake up one morning and not think about her first thing. That someday, I’d learn to live with my choices without feeling like they were crushing me.

I was wrong.

The worst part? I don’t even know where she is. She disappeared from my world so completely, as if she had never belonged to it in the first place. As if I had only imagined her.

But I know she was real.

I remember the warmth of her hand in mine. The way she used to say my name like it was something soft and sacred. The way she loved me, despite everything.

And I?

I let her go.

I let her believe she wasn’t enough. That she was second best.

I remember the night she left. The way her voice broke when she asked me one last time—"Are you sure this is what you want?"

I had hesitated. Maybe just for a second. But hesitation wasn’t enough to save us.

I can still hear the silence after she walked out that door. Can still feel the way the air in the room changed, how it felt emptier. Colder.

And now, five years later, I live with that emptiness.

Every relationship since her has been meaningless. Every moment, every kiss, every touch—hollow. They weren’t her.

I grab my phone for what feels like the hundredth time tonight, scrolling through old messages I never had the heart to delete. The last one from her is short. Simple.

"Take care of yourself, Callisto."

No anger. No blame. Just quiet finality.

I never replied.

And now, I never will.

Because wherever she is, she’s far from me. And I—I'm still here, stuck in the past, drowning in the what-ifs.

Regret is a slow poison. And after five years, it’s still killing me.