His Regrets

I caught my best friend Kissing the man who had promised to ask me out the next day. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Clara. My best friend of two years. And Dante. The man I had spent weeks falling for. For several seconds, I stood in the alley without moving. My hand clutched my bag and the hem of my dress, my heart pounding so loudly that I could barely hear anything else. Maybe I was mistaken. Maybe there was an explanation. Maybe this wasn't really happening. But Clara was there. Dante was there. And the messed clothes from their disheveled appearance with heavy panting told me everything my mind was desperately trying to deny. “Lily…” Clara's voice finally broke the silence. I looked at her. She looked terrified. That should have been enough to tell me she knew exactly what she had done. My eyes moved to Dante. He had gone completely still. “Dante…” His name left my lips like a question. He stood up quickly. “Lily, wait.” I took a step backward. “No.” “Please, just let me explain.” “Explain what?” My voice cracked. I hated that. I hated that they could see how much they had hurt me. I looked at Clara again. “Why would you do this to me?” She said nothing. “You encouraged me to go for him.” Tears filled my eyes. “You were the one telling me to give him a chance. You knew I liked him.” “Lily, I—” “And you have a boyfriend.” That finally made her look at me. I laughed bitterly through my tears. “You have Adrian.” I didn't understand. That was the worst part. If Clara had never known about Dante, maybe I could have understood it. If she had never been my best friend, maybe I could have hated her more easily. But she knew everything. She knew how nervous I had been the first time I spoke to Dante. She knew about every flower he gave me. She knew about every date, every conversation, every little thing that made me believe he genuinely liked me. She even knew he was going to ask me out. Tomorrow. He had promised. I looked at him again. “Dante… no.” He took a step toward me. I stepped back. Something inside me had already begun breaking. I turned around before either of them could say anything else. I didn't know where I was going. I only knew I couldn't stay there. As I walked away, tears blurred everything in front of me. And the strangest part was that just hours earlier, I had still believed I was one of the luckiest girls in the world. I had believed my life was finally becoming the fairytale I had always dreamed about. My name is Lily. I'm twenty years old, a university student, a songwriter, a daughter, a sister, and, until that night, a girl who still believed that love could be beautiful. I had always loved fairytales. Not because I thought life would magically become perfect, but because I liked the idea that somewhere out there, there was a person who would choose you and keep choosing you. When I was younger, I had imagined meeting my Prince Charming in the most ridiculous way. I would be walking somewhere without paying attention, a car would suddenly come speeding toward me, and just before it hit me, a handsome stranger would pull me out of the way. Our eyes would meet. He would ask if I was okay. And somehow, that would be the beginning of our love story. It was silly. I knew that. But some dreams were too sweet to completely let go of. Then, during my first year at university, something almost like it happened. Except it wasn't my fairytale. And it didn't involve a car. It involved a motorcycle, a girl named Clara, and the boy who would later become her boyfriend. I just didn't know then how important that moment would become. I certainly didn't know that one day, I would look back at it and realize that the first person who ever made me believe I had found my Prince Charming was also the person who would teach me that I didn't need one. But that was later. Before the heartbreak. Before the songs. Before the auditions. Before I learned how to stand on my own. There was a girl who still believed in love. And her best friend was the person she trusted most. At least, that's what I thought. Until I walked to that alley.