How Deep This Regret Goes Chapter 08
Maya’s POV
-One Year Later-
The sun here doesn’t feel the same as it did back home. It’s gentler somehow. Or maybe I’m just different now.
I sat at my usual table outside the café, nursing cold coffee and pretending to read. My hair was shorter, I‘ d cut it two months after arriving. Couldn’t stand looking in the mirror and seeing the girl who planned
a wedding that never happened.
“Maya!” Antoine called from inside. “Encore un café?”
“Non, merci!”
A whole year. Three hundred sixty–five days since I got on that plane. Since I left everything behind, Henry, the journal, that video, all of it.
I’m not her anymore. That girl who cried in airport terminals and documented every lie. She’s gone. I don‘ t miss her.
I reached for my coffee and that’s when I saw him.
Dennis.
Standing across the street, staring at me.
My hand stopped halfway to the cup. I set it down, grabbed my bag, stood up. Left money on the table and started walking toward the square.
“Maya!” His voice cut through the morning quiet.
Wait!”
I didn’t wait. Didn’t run either. Just walked to the fountain and stopped. Turned around.
“How did you find me?”
“Does it matter?” He came closer. “I’ve been looking for a year.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Your credit card. You used it at a bookstore six
months ago.” He dragged his hand through his hair.” I kept coming back, hoping I’d see you.”
“What do you want, Dennis?”
“To talk. Please. Five minutes.”
I stared at him. Then I sat down on the bench. “Five minutes.”
He sat next to me but kept his distance, like I might run.
“I was wrong. About everything.” His voice shook.” Those eight years, I was an idiot, Maya. I was so wrapped up in my own bullshit that I couldn’t see you were right there.”
The fountain kept running. I watched the water instead of him.
“I know I hurt you. I know I took you for granted. But I’m here now and I want to fix it. I want to-”
“Stop.”
He stopped.
I looked at him. Really looked. Eight years of my life I spent chasing this person.
“You know what you’re doing right now, Dennis?”
“I’m apologizing.”
“No. You’re doing what you always did. Showing up when you feel like it and expecting me to be grateful.”
“That’s not what I-”
“Eight years.” I cut him off. “I spent eight years thinking if I just loved you enough, you’d see me. If I showed up to every game, bought you presents, helped with your stupid assignments, maybe you’d look at me the way I looked at you.”
“Maya.”
“You never did.” I shook my head. “You don’t want to fix anything. You just hate that I moved on.”
“I love you.”
“No.” My voice came out softer than I expected. “You love the idea of me. The girl who worshipped you. But
Dennis. She gave up when she finally got it through her head that you were never going to love her back”
I stood up. He grabbed my wrist.
“Please. Just give me a chance-”
“Let go.”
He dropped my hand fast.
“I’m not angry,” I said. “I’m not hurt. I don’t feel anything when I look at you.”
I walked away. He didn’t follow.
I thought that was it. Thought Dennis was the universe testing me one last time.
Then I turned onto my street and saw Henry sitting on the steps outside my building.
My feet stopped moving. He had his head in his hands) and when he heard me, he looked up.
Jesus. He looked worse.
“Maya.”
That’s all he said. Just my name, and his voice broke on it.
My heart did this stupid thing where it skipped and I wanted to punch myself for it. After everything, some tiny part of me still reacted to him and I hated it.
“How did you find me?”
“Same as Dennis.” He stood up slow, “Credit card. I’ve been looking for a year.”
Right. They probably compared notes. Figured it out together.
“What do you want?”
Can we talk? Inside?” His eyes were red. “Please.”
Every part of me said no. Said walk past him, lock the door, forget he exists.
But I’d already run once. I wasn’t doing that anymore.
“You get five minutes.”
I unlocked the door and he followed me in. My apartment was small but I liked it. White walls, plants on the windowsill, photos from the past year. A whole life he wasn’t in.
I poured water for him and sat down across the table.
Waited.
“I haven’t slept.” He stared at the glass. “Not since that day. I close my eyes and I see you in that video. I hear your voice saying those things.”
“Everyone knows what I did.” His hands shook. “But I deserve it. I deserve worse than that.”
“So you came here to tell me you’re suffering?”
“No.” He looked up fast. “I came because I need you to know I love you. I know I didn’t before. I know I was using you to mess with Dennis and it was fucked up but Maya, it became real. Somewhere it became real, My throat went tight. “When?”
“What?”
“When did it become real?” I leaned forward. “When you were texting Brynn? When you were planning to ditch me at the altar? When you told your friends my eight years with Dennis made you sick?”
He looked like I’d slapped him.
“I believe you,” I said.
Hope jumped into his face.
“I believe you’re sorry. I believe you’re in pain. I believe maybe you did catch feelings somewhere in all those lies.”
“Then we can
“It doesn’t change anything.”
I got up and went to the window. The sun was going down, everything turning orange and gold.
“You want to know when I fell in love with you?”
I heard him hold his breath.
“The day I let Dennis go, I went back to that courtyard.
Where we met. Where I wasted so much time waiting for him.” I kept my eyes on the sunset. “I stood there looking at the roses and I thought about you. About those forget–me–nots you gave me at graduation. How you never made me feel pathetic for those eight years.
How you were just there.”
Behind me, Henry made this choked sound.
“It took me two years to be ready for you. Two full years cleaning Dennis out of my system. Making sure what I felt for you was real and not just me running from one guy to another.”
I turned around. Tears were running down his face.
“When I finally said yes to you, I meant it. My love was honest, Henry. I knew exactly what I was giving you and I and I gave it freely.”
I walked over and sat back down across from him.
“But yours? Your love was revenge. It was you trying to prove you were better than Dennis. You hated that
I loved someone before you. You wanted someone with no history, no baggage. Someone who only ever looked at you.”
“That’s not true now,” he whispered. “I swear it’s not, “Maybe not. But it was true when it mattered.”
Henry dropped to his knees in front of me. “Please, Maya. I’ll spend my whole life making this up to you. Anything you want. Just give me one chance-”
“Did you watch the video?” I asked. “The one I left?”
He nodded. Couldn’t talk.
“Then you saw her. That woman who loved you completely. Who was honest about everything she felt.”
“I know.” He was sobbing now. “God, I know.”
“She’s dead, Henry.” My voice didn’t shake. “She died when she heard you laughing about leaving her at the altar. No amount of sorry or suffering or time brings her back.”
I stood up and went to the door. Opened it. The evening air rushed in, cool and clean.
Henry got to his feet like it took everything he had.
Walked to the door.
“Can I wait for you?” His voice barely made it out.” Hope that someday-
“No.” I shook my head. “Don’t wait. Let me go. Let yourself go too.”
He stood there in the doorway. “Will you be happy?”
I thought about my mornings at the café. Learning French with Antoine. The way the light comes through my window. Being alone and actually liking it.
“I already am.”
He nodded. Started down the steps. Then stopped without turning around.
“For what it’s worth,” he said, “I really did love you.
By the end. It was real.”
“I know. But you’re too late.”
He walked away. Disappeared into the evening.
I closed the door. Locked it. Pressed my back against it and slid down to the floor.
And then I cried. Not because I was sad. Not because I wanted them back.
But because it was finally over. That whole chapter of my life, the girl who chased Dennis, the woman who trusted Henry, all of it. Done.
I cried until there was nothing left. Until I felt empty and clean.
Then I got up, washed my face, made tea.
Sat by the window watching the street below. People walking home from work. A couple holding hands.
Life just going on like always.
Tomorrow I’d wake up and go to the café. Antoine would ask if I wanted my usual. I’d say yes. The sun would feel gentle on my face.
And I’d be free.
END