Regret comes when guilt cannot be enough. You would know. You lived right through it. And I should have known better when I clambered up your infernal house and knocked against your door. Before I left, the TV spouted something about a college kid in our neighborhood straying too far from shore and was not able to find his way back. He toppled off a cliff from so high, and when he landed, he was not the same. Not anymore.

You were not in school, and the other children looked at me as if they had seen a ghost of a past whose truth they could not agree on. In the fire escape, I relished the absence of your warmth and welcomed the cold. I did not miss the biting scratch of the dry, autumn wind, but it was welcome. Just like you were.

The guilt started there, I am sure of it now. Without you on the fire escape, I should have known better than to feel relieved, to breathe easy because, for once, you were not there to rile me up, to make me feel like I was not enough and I deserved to be punished for being seen with me. The monsters from the outside might have stopped, but those from the depths of my gut did not. Rather, they grew stronger the more I stepped into the light and the more you stayed on my path.

I hated it, but I do not hate you. I never could.

Most of the time, I hated how you made me feel. First, the tiny flickers of heat climbing up my throat and cheeks, then the flare of white-hot embers devouring my soul. It was the same cycle, and I would want to kiss you, to do everything you wanted me to do as long as you have me. But after the empires have fallen and the fire has devoured every bit of us, the ashes were the only trace left.

And those ashes would tell our story. They would betray all the eternities we lived through when seconds were no longer enough. They would be our testament, the only proof there was something inside our borders, something that could only burn and burn.

But I was relieved, and guilt alone could never atone for that. When you answered the door, you looked as if the fires in your house found their way into your throat. The smoke choked you, drained the life out of you. There was no love when you stared at me down the hallway. You hated me. Dear God, how you made it so clear.

"Go away," you rasped before slamming the door to my face.

I should have known better than to stop pushing. You needed me that day, but with youthful feelings and hopeful ignorance between us, I did not stay. Instead, I turned around and dug the last piece of crumpled paper from my bag. With the only shred of willpower I had left, I slid it under your door. I did not stay long enough to hear you scramble for it. Did you? Had you treasured it more than I did when you saw what it was? I would never know.

It was the beginning of my regret. You got what you wanted, but I think you might have gotten more than that. You got what you needed—one final push to send you in the same place the college kid on TV did. And it was my fault. I did nothing about the problem, but I did everything to help you decide. Even without me knowing, it was my fault.

Like everything that went down and will continue to go down, it was my fault.

And that was where regret and guilt played hand in hand. I could not sift through them, and God knows, I tried. That is why I am here, spilling my heart on the pages which once have vowed to face you. We could have been star-crossed lovers, but all we became was a tragedy in the making. We were a disaster before we even started, and I hope you knew how it would end when you never looked away from the fire escape stairs all those years ago.

Hope. It was an empty word for the likes of us, and dear God, I should have known it better than anyone.