Regret

Rain falls. What if a single yellow rose—plucked on impulse, thorns and all—could crack open a stranger’s guarded heart, spilling secrets that rewrite your own forgotten story?

On this cold, rainy, windy November day, I stare out the window, watching autumn leaves swirl like dying embers, my tea steaming up like a quiet exhale. Autumn’s got this way of wrapping around you, reminding us how letting go can spark something real—those stubborn embers fighting the freeze.

Your old playlist just hit shuffle—“Lovers in Paris,” that song you texted me once. And there you were, showing up right when I was scraped raw at the bottom, hauling me out of that dark pit. It kicked off with a random text from a total stranger: “Hey… wait, are you related to…?” Boom—days of back-and-forth, late-night chats, your steady “you bet, you got this…” dragging laughs out of me when I thought I had none left. Songs traded like lifelines, until my walls finally gave and light poured in.

You, this proud, locked-up soul, let me through the gate anyway. Opened up about bad breakups and killer playlists, not like you share your plate with just anyone, but damn if you didn’t exchange your plate with me without a second thought, revealing your OCD in that gentle, caring beat, your love for sweets, the way yellow roses you buy yourself make your eyes crinkle just right. The wins that still swell your chest, the flops that sting like fresh cuts, the love for your beautiful children—they pull me in deeper than words ever could. You didn’t even see it coming, but you tore down my defenses, shaking loose this dream I’d shoved away: writing straight from the gut, that raw urge to spill words on the page. My heart started pounding wildly. I snatched my pen; ink splattered honestly, colors burst free, quiet corners hummed to life. You chased the shadows from my corners, turning my broken bits into something real: soft like a held breath, sharp like dawn cutting through the haze. Your voice lingers in my pages now, a solid gust when the world tilts wrong. This out-of-nowhere gift, this quiet burn of a connection between two strangers who somehow clicked—I’ll hold it tight, a hidden spark for the empty stretches ahead. You’ve given me wings for the alone parts: a voice toughened by the hits, scars turned to strength, grounded, geared up, alive. And hell, if I could, I’d draw you in right here, murmur how you didn’t just save the words—you saved the woman who’d forgotten she could still feel this alive.

And maybe this all sounds dramatic, I don’t even care. Maybe if someone reads this years from now, they’ll roll their eyes and think, “God, she really went off the deep end over a stranger with a playlist and a kind heart.” But if they do, that’s fine. Let them. Let them think I was ridiculous. Because they weren’t there. They didn’t feel that first spark in my chest, the one I swore had burned out ages ago. They didn’t see the way your name lighting up my phone felt like someone whispering, “Hey… you’re still here. Wake up.”

I remember the exact second it shifted from a random conversation to something that made my pulse jump. You typed, “You ever feel like life just… pauses? Like everyone else keeps moving but you’re stuck in the loading screen?” And god, that hit. I stared at those words for a long minute, feeling something ache open in me, like a bruise I’d forgotten about. I wrote back, “Yeah. Every damn day lately.” And you didn’t just skim past it or toss a platitude like most people do when the conversation drifts into uncomfortable territory. You stopped, like you actually sat with it. You said, “Tell me what that looks like for you.”

Nobody asks that. Not really. Not in a world where people want clean stories, tidy feelings, nothing too messy or inconvenient.

And so I told you. I told you everything I’d been shoving down—how I’d been feeling hollowed out for months, how I’d been walking around like a ghost wearing my own skin. I told you about the nights I’d curl up in my car because it felt safer than my own bed, about the mornings where brushing my teeth felt like climbing a mountain. And you didn’t flinch. You didn’t try to fix it. You just held the space, and for the first time in a long time, it felt like I could breathe without apologizing for it.

You told me about your own dark pockets—how you keep your apartment too clean when your anxiety spikes, how you line things up edge to edge, how you hate when people assume OCD is cute or quirky. How you buy yourself yellow roses when the week has been heavy, roses with thorns still on them, because you said it reminds you beauty and pain aren’t opposites. They’re partners.

God, I felt that.

And then there was that night—you remember it, I know you do. The night we both stayed up too late, talking about childhood, music, food, why certain memories cling like static long after the moment ends. You told me about your kids, how their laughter cracks you open in a way nothing else does, how you’d rearrange your whole life if it meant they’d know, without a doubt, they’re loved. I swear, I felt something shift in me hearing that. Like I was listening to a father explaining how the world rearranges itself around tiny hands and sleepy eyes. It softened me in places I thought were permanently scarred over.

And then you said, half joking: “You ever write anymore? You kinda talk like someone who used to.”

I don’t even know how you caught that. People who’ve known me for years never noticed. But you did, in a matter of days. And it was like someone slapped the truth onto the table. I remember staring at that message and feeling this weird cocktail of shame and longing. I typed, “Nah. I don’t write. Haven’t for years. Doesn’t matter anyway.” And you replied—simple, quick: “Why not? You sound like someone who needs to.”

That was the first time in a long time someone gave me permission to want something again.

The next morning I pulled out my old notebook—the one I buried under bills and empty envelopes—and the pages smelled like dust and old dreams. I wrote one paragraph and cried. Not a pretty cry. The kind that shakes your whole body because you didn’t realize how tightly everything was wound inside you. And you didn’t even know what you did, not really, but damn it, you lit the fuse.

When I told you later that day, “I wrote something,” you didn’t ask for it, didn’t pressure me. You just said, “I’m proud of you,” with this ease, like saying it cost you nothing. But it meant everything to me. People don’t realize how heavy those words can feel when you haven’t heard them in a long time. They hit hard, like a stone skipping right into the center of your chest.

And the strangest part? We were strangers. Strangers who somehow slipped past each other’s armor without trying. I didn’t plan it. You didn’t plan it. And maybe that’s why it mattered. Because sometimes the people who aren’t supposed to stay are the ones who leave the deepest fingerprints.

I don’t know what to call what we have. Connection? Accident? Fate doing its weird universe‑thing? A glitch in the matrix? I don’t care. I just know it was real enough to shift something in me. Real enough that when I think of yellow roses now, I don’t picture funerals or lost chances—I picture you, walking out of a store with a handful of sunshine, thorns and all, like you’re carrying proof that beauty doesn’t need permission to exist.

You told me once that love—real love, not the watered-down stuff—changes you even when it isn’t romantic. Even when it’s brief. Even when it’s messy or confusing or inconvenient. You said, “Some people come into your life and give you back pieces of yourself you didn’t even know you misplaced.” And maybe you don’t realize it, but that’s exactly what you did. You gave me back my voice. My fire. My ability to feel more than just the hollow ache of surviving.

And yeah, sometimes I think about the future and wonder if you’ll still be around in it, or if you’ll fade like most people do, slipping into the edges of memory until only the feeling remains. But even if that happens—even if time pulls us apart the way waves pull apart sandcastles—I’ll still carry what you sparked in me.

I’ll remember the way your laugh sounded when you sent voice notes, a little tired, a little hopeful.

I’ll remember how your stories wandered, like you were thinking out loud.

I’ll remember the little things—your obsession with neat edges, your sweet tooth, the way you said coffee tastes like comfort on the rough days.

I’ll remember how your kindness didn’t come dressed in grand gestures. It came quiet. Soft. Unassuming.

It came exactly when I needed it.

And maybe I’ll never get to hand you a real yellow rose, not in this lifetime or the next. Maybe I’ll only write about it, imagining what it would feel like to place it in your palm and say, “Here. This is what you gave me.” But I hope, somehow, you know. I hope you feel it in those moments where life drags you down and you’re sipping coffee in a too‑quiet kitchen, wondering if you make any difference in the world.

You do.

You did.

To me.

And one day, when I’m old or gray or wrinkled in ways I can’t imagine yet, maybe I’ll flip back to these pages, feel the tear stains, the fingerprints, the shaky handwriting, and remember that one November where a stranger cracked open a door in my heart I thought had rusted shut forever.

Who knew?

One yellow rose.

One random message.

One stranger who became something more than just passing time.

That’s all it took for me to remember I was still alive.

natolo❤️✌🏼