Packed Regrets

I regret that one summer I didn’t have sex with my then best friend, Doug’s, sister’s friend Amy. She was two years older than me and from all our interactions she didn’t like me much. But one night I found myself woken from Doug’s scruffy living room carpet floor by a drunken Amy. Her boyfriend had dumped her so she and Doug’s sister, Mayel, got Dustin, who had a fake ID, to get them some liquor to drink away the pain. That’s what she told me in drunken slurred speech. He left her for an older girl, a girl he said was more of a woman than she was, not a bitchy prude. I remember thinking that was a harsh way to break up with a girl but then again it was Calvin and he was a mean shit of an asshole. He bullied bullies. He’s currently on his third or fourth or fifth, I haven’t cared to remember, year of a forty year sentence for robbing two banks and shooting a security guard. Amy went on and on and on about how she was a woman and how she wasn’t prude, I fucked Parker Weeks last summer, she shouted. I was surprised no one in the house woke up. She thought, with alcohol induced logic, that she could best prove her unprudish nature by having sex with me. She took her shirt off, Amy wasn’t one for bras, and sat down on top of me topless. She kissed me and even though she tasted disgusting — a mix of vodka, cigarettes, tacos, and cool ranch Doritos — my dick got hard as a rock. As I squeezed her bare tits in my hand, the first pair of naked breasts I’d ever felt, a hint of shame hit me. She didn’t want to have sex with me, she was just drunk and angry. She didn’t even like me. Earlier that day she called me an annoying shit turd and she said it with conviction, not jokingly. It felt wrong so I stopped and told her she probably shouldn’t have sex with someone she didn’t even like. She ran to the bathroom and threw up before she could respond.

I found her passed out on the bathroom floor, some of her vomit on her chest the rest in the toilet, mostly on the seat. I cleaned her and the toilet then dragged her back to the living room. I wasn’t strong enough to carry her. I got a blanket from the closet and covered her with it. I put her shirt back on and slept next to her. She woke up the next morning and could only remember minor details of what happened between us. She remembered telling me about her break up and taking off her shirt but nothing else. She asked, with a mother’s worry on her face, what else had she done. I told her she threw up in the bathroom and passed out. Thought she’d feel better if that middle section about her trying to have sex with me was left out. I used to carry a camera with me everywhere back then. That night after I laid Amy down to sleep I took a picture of her, she looked so peaceful and beautiful. It’s still one of my favorite photos I’ve ever taken. She got married yesterday. She doesn’t know about the photo or how she offered herself up to me. Or that I’ve loved her ever since that night. A part of me wishes I did have sex with her so I could have had that experience with her. The other part of me is happy with the photo and the nasty tasting kiss we shared that night. It’s a lonely memory, but it brings glimpses of joy with it.

I regret not telling my dad my mom was cheating on him. I was daddy’s little girl and the thought of hurting his feelings was too much for thirteen year old me to handle. I skipped school and came home early one day, no one was supposed to be home. Mom worked at an office that sold catalogs, of what, I had no clue. Dad was a dentist. I’m not a loud person, my dad joked that I could be a ninja because I’m always sneaking up on people and startling them. I don’t do it on purpose it’s just how I walk, quietly. I see no need to make a fuss about walking with my feet. This was why my mother didn’t hear me come in the house, or as I walked toward the kitchen. Her screaming, tear dat pussy up, I’m sure also played into her ability to hear nothing other than herself. From my mother’s frank instructions on what to do to her vagina I knew what was happening in the kitchen. I figured surprising my parents fucking would be so embarrassing for them that they’d not only over look my skipping of school but would over compensate for said embarrassment with extra kindness. The type of wallowy kindness I could exploit for my own self gain. Having your daughter catch you fucking in the kitchen has to work out to three months of free passes on whatever I wanted, four if I occasionally “accidentally” made reference to seeing their naked bodies bumping and grinding. I expected quick movements of limbs to cover naked privates. Shocked expressions. Stuttered words asking questions such as, what are you doing here? Mixed in with a rumbling of comforting words, honey mom and dad love each other, or some bullshit along those lines. What I hadn’t expected to see was my uncle pounding my mom from behind instead of my dad.

They quickly moved their limbs to cover their naked parts just as I figured. My mom asked why I was home, right on cue. But I didn’t wait for any comforting words. I asked why was uncle John fucking her. After they got clothed there was a lengthy discussion. It covered ground on how our mother and daughter bond needed to keep this a secret. We didn’t have a bond, we tolerated each other. She also explained how she’d keep my skipping school from my dad, so I was supposed to keep this from him too. An example of how our supposed bond was to work. My uncle first started with a brother’s share everything explanation but the, fuck-you-shit-head, expression on my face had him quickly regurgitating that. He fessed up to making a horrible mistake. My mother, kind of, took blame too but not without citing the problems she and my father had been having as a driving force to lead her to have my uncle, tear dat pussy up. As much as I knew what happened was wrong and the words coming out of my uncle’s and mother’s mouths were horse shit I couldn’t shake the image of my father breaking down when he heard the news. Me and my mother were my father’s world. This would break him. My father isn’t a get even man, he’s a, how can I make it up to you, man. Everything’s his fault. Even when he knows it isn’t he pretends it is to avoid conflict. I agreed to not tell my dad only to spare his feelings. I didn’t want my dad broken. I wanted my dad whole and normal more than I wanted him to know the truth about my mother, his wife, or his brother. They swore that day was the only and last time they’d ever do anything. Getting caught was a blessing my uncle said, it proved the error in his ways. Mother concurred from the couch.

For three years life was normal with my father. He had absolutely no idea of that day and he went about each day with a joy and smile that helped me forget many times about that day too. I couldn’t see my uncle without seeing him fucking my mother from behind. For a while every time I went into the kitchen the first thing I’d see was my mother naked bent forward arms stretched out holding the counter’s edge, tits pressed down against it, as my uncle fucked her from behind. I was able to eventually let go of that image but not from my uncle. It made visits with him awkward. Rude became the norm for how I treated him. It got to the point where my father asked if my uncle had done something to me that made me upset. Like touch me. I told him no. I just thought he was a dick. My uncle was a sweet man, so my dad didn’t get it. He laughed it off, probably equating the whole thing to teenage hormones. I avoided him on holidays and spoke only to say, hi and bye. Whatever imagined bond my mother and I shared was killed on that day. I kept cordial with her to not make my father suspicious. But when he wasn’t around. It was war. We’d argue, curse each other’s name. I never called her mom or mother when we were alone. She was Gina, or fucking bitch.

This summer when I was away for two weeks at my aunt’s house in Michigan my father decided to leave work early. My mother didn’t hear him come in, nor him walking toward the living room. My dad’s not a light walker but my mother is a loud screamer. When she finally lifted her head he was standing at the living room entrance watching my uncle, tear dat pussy up, from behind. They got quick with limb moving trying to block the knife my father was thrusting at them. They asked him to stop, of course. But they didn’t get to say any comforting words. My father called me and told me he loved me. He told me what he had done because he always tells me the truth. I cried and told him I was sorry because I had knew three years earlier. He said it was OK and that he loved me. Asked me what he could do to help me stop crying. I didn’t want to lose my dad. I didn’t care about losing my mother, or uncle. But I couldn’t bear to lose my dad. I told him to run. Run far away. Run to another country and on my 18th birthday send me a card and tell me where he’s at and I’ll be on the next flight to him.

Today I turned seventeen. I have one year to go until I can see my dad. 365 long days. 8,760 hours of anticipation. When I blew out my birthday candles I didn’t wish for a car or to even see my dad sooner. I wished I had told him about my mother. He wouldn’t have killed them. He wouldn’t have had to leave without giving me a hug or a kiss goodbye. I wouldn’t have had to spend the last three years wondering how he’s doing or where he’s at or if he died some place with a fake name all by himself. He could have been with me. I could have fixed his broken self after my mother left. We could be happy in our home as always. Instead he’s some place and I’m here. I miss my dad so much. Only 525,600 minutes to go.