REGRET
“Kids, have a seat. We want to tell you something.” Mom and Dad pointed at the couch, inviting their children to an ambiguous family gathering.
Sofia and James looked at each other.
I hope it’s a girl, Sofia thought to herself.
Shit, I’m adopted, James thought to himself.
Sofia’s mind bounced from thought to thought, while James sat fidgeting his legs until Mom and Dad broke the deafening silence.
“There’s something you don’t know about my family,” Dad said.
Sofia and James nodded. Sofia could hear her brother gulping, and James could see his sister sweating.
“Well, you see, kids, your father grew up with — how should I phrase this — superpowers. Everyone in his family had them in the past, and anyone with his genetics will continue to have them in the future. This means you both have superpowers, too, and so will your children,” said Mom.
“You’re shitting me,” James said.
“Cooooooool!” Sofia blurted, while she stared at her hands and tried shooting spider webs from the tip of her stubby fingers.
Dad smiled to himself. “We are not shitting you. It’s very cool, Sofia, but also very dangerous. You can’t use your superpowers all the time because these are limited superpowers, which means you can only use them once — in one moment of your choice. I have used mine already. Use them wisely because you never know when that perfect moment will be.”
Dad sighed to himself. He remembered when he took Mom atop his back on their first date, and they had flown over New York City together. She was a country girl. Mom grew up in Alabama and woke up to the screeching of chickens asking to be fed and to the mooing of cows asking to be milked. New York City shocked, scared, and surprised Mom. Dad wanted to show her all of New York. She had mounted his back, both hands gripping his shoulders, and wailed her feet like a little kid on a swing. Dad would laugh to himself every time Mom gasped as the young couple flew from sight to sight. They had never felt so alive, but Mom and Dad never flew again after that.
“What superpower did you have, Dad?” Sofia and James asked, in unison.
Dad stared at his shoes and thought about all of the other moments he could have flown. The time his father was ill, but he couldn’t say goodbye because he was too far away. Or when he visited Machu Picchu and wanted a birds-eye view of the beauty that beheld him. So much he could have done, so much he could have seen. He told his children he had once flown.
“What are our superpowers, Dad?” Sofia and James asked, in unison.
“You two have different superpowers. Sofia, you can read minds and James can teleport,” said Dad.
Sofia and James jumped up from the couch and high-fived each other. They asked each other what they would do with their superpowers. Sofia said she’d find out what the boys in her class thought about her. James said he’d travel to Tokyo, or maybe London, or maybe Tokyo and London! That night, Sofia and James were finally able to close their eyes after hours of talking, and the both of them fell asleep with grins on their faces.
SOFIA
When Sofia was 18, she’d come home flustered from school, only to find herself locked in her room and scrolling through Facebook photos of Johnny LaGuardia. Johnny LaGuardia had slick, brown hair swimming in a pool of gel, an eyebrow that appeared to be a tad shaved but was actually scarred from a motorcycle accident, and one dimple. He wore white t-shirts, leather jackets, and black ripped jeans. Johnny rode to school in his dad’s red motorcycle without his permission, which Sofia loved. She wished that, one day, she could mount the red motorcycle and hold onto Johnny’s waist. In class, Sofia disregarded the teacher’s white board and lecturing. She only had eyes for Johnny LaGuardia. She stared at him tentatively and, as soon as Johnny LaGuardia looked at her direction, Sofia’s heart would sink and her eyes would sway from left to right, never looking straight at him. Sofia never thought Johnny noticed her until February 24th. She wrote it down in her diary.
Kids swarmed into the cafeteria, while Sofia paced herself to the salad bar. She wasn’t hungry that day, as she had spent the night before eating popcorn and Doritos while watching Johnny’s favorite movie, Grease. She knew of his favorite movie because she once spotted pictures of John Travolta in Johnny’s locker. Sofia prepared a romaine salad with a hardboiled egg, six olives, four tomatoes and no dressing, and walked to a table, where she sat alone.
“You’re the girl that’s always looking at me in class, right?” She heard a voice say. Sofia looked up to see slick, brown hair swimming in a pool of gel, a scarred eyebrow, and one dimple. He’s talking to me, she thought. Sofia looked behind her just to make sure he was actually talking to her.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.
“You’re not the only girl who looks at me, Sofia.”
He knows my name, she cheered in her head.
“Want to watch Grease with me tonight? It’s on display. You know, in one of those outdoor cinemas. I could pick you up at 8PM on my dad’s bike, and I’ll ride you over there.”
“A million times yes.” She wished she could have come up with a better answer. Johnny LaGuardia walked away and took her heart with him.
Sofia mounted the red motorcycle and embraced his waist, closing her eyes and feeling his boniness, his flesh. She wanted to remember every detail. That night, Sofia wore a red mini skirt to match with the red motorcycle, and a white blouse to show a little bit of her black bra. Johnny LaGuardia wore a white t-shirt, a leather jacket, and black ripped jeans. They drove to the outdoor without saying a word, and they watched Grease without saying a word. Johnny stared at the screen, while Sofia stared at the side of his face. She nudged herself closer to his arm.
“Do you look at me in class, too?” She asked.
“Only because you look at me, like you are now.”
Sofia giggled. He smiled at her, and looked back at the screen. His eyes glittered as he watched John Travolta sing.
“What’s your favorite thing about Travolta?” She asked.
“You ask only the right questions.” He stared at the screen once more. “I think it’s the way he looks at people. You can tell a lot by the way someone looks at you.”
Johnny stared into Sofia’s blue eyes. Sofia diverted eye contact for a bit, but then she’d consume herself in Johnny’s gaze, which hadn’t budged. None of them said a word. Johnny grinned to himself as he studied the way her eye twinkled when she looked at him. He admired it. Sofia wanted to know his thoughts. Sofia had to know.
I’m going to kiss her, Sofia read in Johnny’s mind.
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“Do it,” she said.
Johnny leaned in and broke the endearing silence as both their lips interlocked into one.
When Sofia was 33, married, and had two children, she wished she could have read Johnny’s mind when she asked him whether or not he was sleeping with another woman.
JAMES
James was never good at waiting. He hated waiting in lines, and he especially hated waiting for people to tell him things. When he was a child, he sat shaking his legs left to right waiting for his parents to tell him he could teleport. When he was a teen, he sat shaking his legs left to right waiting for his girlfriend at the time to tell him she was ready to have sex. And two months ago, as an adult, he sat shaking his legs left to right waiting for the doctor to tell him he had cancer. James wanted everything then and there, and he hated mystery.
James traveled more often than not. Despite the constant stress and delays, James never accustomed himself to the chaos of an airport. It was too much for him. He despised the long lines and mingling with people who hadn’t showered for hours. He always carried with him a book he was never able to read because he never found the time to sit down and read. He also carried with him the anxiety of missing a flight.
“Why the fuck is the flight delayed by an hour?” James asked the British Airways gate agent. While he believed getting straight to the point was the right way of getting things done, everyone else believed he was being rude and unpleasant. When James was a sophomore in high school, he took Haley Woods to prom. Haley Woods was a senior cheerleader who smoked cigarettes during lunchtime, and all the boys thought she had the nicest ass in school. James gloated to his friends. He promised them he’d show them her panties after having sex with her. After prom, he asked her, as he unbuckled his belt, whether she preferred doggy style or missionary position. James never understood why Haley Woods left after he asked her that, and why she didn’t text him back after that night.
“Did I stutter?” James asked, staring into the eyes of a gate agent who was smiling to herself. “This is the third time British Airways has delayed my flight. I have a business meeting in Copenhagen to attend and I don’t want to be wasting my time on unnecessary bullshit.”
“Sir, first of all I’d like to apologize for the del-“
“An apology isn’t going to solve anything. Don’t give me a headache.”
“The flight is coming late because there was a storm earlier. I can assure you that you’ll certainly be on the flight by 8PM tonight and in Copenhagen by tomorrow morning. When is the meeting?” The gate agent smiled and acted as though she had never been in a bad mood.
“Mind your own business.” James turned his back to the gate agent, who was still smiling. Her smiling pissed him off. He thought people who didn’t stop smiling were being futile and faking their happiness. One of his favorite pastimes with his wife was to mock the happy family portraits in magazines, the mother and father smiling at each other while driving a Suburban, the kids in the back playing their videogames.
“When has driving ever been that fun?” his wife Linda would say.
“Come, Linda. I’m feeling a little down. Why don’t we hop in our car and pretend like we don’t have any fucking problems?” James and Linda would laugh and it would almost seem as if they were in good moods.
The only person who understood James’ perpetual bad moods was Linda because she was always in a bad mood, too. Only she shared his cynical view on the world. People were fake, absolute happiness did not exist, and nothing truly mattered because they were going to die regardless. Until recently, James and Linda both believed that putting children into the world was unfair because the world was an ugly place and no child should have to put up with such cruelty. Linda came back home one day, though, and asked for a child. After her request, James had lit a cigarette, his hands shaking, his eyes glued to the floor.
James paced around Gate E6 back and forth, waiting for his flight to arrive. He was supposed to close a huge deal with Maersk, Copenhagen’s major shipping company. He had practiced months for this meeting. He paced around the gate, wanting to light up a cigarette more than anything. Fucking smoke-free airports, he thought. A stream of sweat trickled down his forehead, and he clenched his fists as soon as that same fucking smiley gate agent announced that the flight would be delayed another hour. James wanted to punch a mirror with his clenched fists. Instead, his mind wandered to the thought of having a child with Linda, a thought that once scared him but is now rather soothing.
“A child?” James puffed on his cigarette like he had been on a hiatus from cigarettes for months. His palms were sweaty and his heart sank to his stomach. “You know what I think about children.”
“I know, James. But life is so boring now, my days so empty. I come home from work at 4PM with no one to talk to because you’re either traveling or coming back from work late. I’m lonely, James. Imagine. We can raise him to be cynical just like us. We can mock everything together, like a family.”
“But I was fine mocking everything with you,” James said.
“It’s not about us anymore.” Linda grabbed James’ hand carefully, cautiously placing her fingertips on the palm of his hand to avoid scaring him away. “We’ll learn a lot from it. Do this for us. No. Do this for me; I can’t live an empty life anymore. My co-workers all talk about their children and it’s given me a lot to think about. I want something different now.”
James nodded. The thought scared the shit out of him. But Linda was the only one who had understood him ever since they met at Heathrow Airport, the both of them giving a British Airways gate agent a hard time after a delayed flight. They had insulted the gate agent simultaneously, looked at each other, and introduced themselves. Her handshake was as firm as his. She was the only one who had understood James in a world where no one understood him at all. So she must have been right about having a child.
James walked up to the fucking smiley gate agent and pointed his finger at her.
“You fucked me over.”
She was still smiling. It seemed like she was happy that an asshole like James was not getting what he wanted. But James had other plans in mind. He clenched his fists and closed his eyes, and knew that very moment was the perfect one to teleport. He began to feel his body less and less, and slowly felt himself dissipate.
It was painless. It was relieving. And the business meeting was an absolute success. Behind every successful person there is a painful story, though.
When James was away for his business meeting with Maersk, he wished he could have teleported to the hospital when his wife Linda was delivering their child.
SOFIA AND JAMES
Mom and Dad passed away. Dad was ill with Alzheimer’s and, after several years of suffering, he was unable to fend for himself. Mom had to feed him, change his clothes, and bathe him. One day, Dad was crawling out of the bathtub, slipped, and broke his leg. Mom grew tired of tending to Dad’s needs and she was eventually relieved once he passed away. But Mom’s relief was short-lived, as she died of a broken heart days later.
At the funeral, Sofia and James acted as though they didn’t know each other. She was 55 and he was 50. It had been years, and the two of them were strangers to one another. Sofia went to the funeral with her two children and no husband. James went to the funeral with his one child and no wife. Sofia had purple bags under her eyes, wrinkles forming around them as if she had been upset her entire life. James was balding and only a few meekly hairs remained to painfully remind him of his youth.
“You’ve changed so much,” Sofia said, each hand occupied by her children’s innocent, uncorrupted hands. Sofia’s hands were old and rusty, her children’s soft and clean.
“You look awful,” James said, both of his hands free. His son was walking around the caskets of the grandparents he never met.
Sofia and James looked at each other briefly, and they both knew. They both knew the painful lives they had lived and will continue to live. They both knew of their mistakes. Sofia did not want to know how James had used his superpower, and James did not want to know how Sofia had used hers. Sofia and James were both well acquainted with regret.
“Are you going to tell your son?” Sofia asked.
“So he can live in regret like the both of us have?”
Sofia nodded.
