"Regret is nearly universal."
At some point in life, most people regret things they did or said, which will haunt them every day. And, wish for a second chance deep down in their heart.
It always ends with, "What if...."
It was raining heavily. Late at night, Lynette sits alone, looking out her apartment window.
The rain traced a thin river in the window, blurring the city lights into the distance. She sat cross-legged on the floor of her tiny apartment, arms wrapped around herself like she was trying to hold her soul in place.
The silence was heavy and suffocating. Her phone was across the room. No messages. No calls. No one was waiting for her reply, not anymore. Just the hum of her own regrets. She let her head fall back against the wall and whispered, "What if I hadn't been so afraid?"
The word dissolved into quiet. Her mind wandered like it always did, back to that summer before everything started unravelling. Before the wrong decisions, before the silence between her and her parents turned permanent, before she let go of people who once would've fought for her.
But time had a cruel way of speeding up when you wasted it.
Her regrets didn't come like a storm. They came like small cracks. Quiet. Relentless. Until one day, she realized the whole house was falling.
"I ruined everything."
The weight pressing against her chest felt true.
She looked at the photo on the shelf. A younger her, smiling. Unaware of the cost of growing up. Her eyes were dry, not from strength, but from exhaustion. She had cried too many nights like this, until tears stopped meaning anything.
She stood slowly, knees trembling, and walked toward the balcony. The cold wind cut through her like it had been waiting. Below, the city moved without her, people laughing, lights glowing, life continuing. She gripped the railing hard. Her heart was pounding.
"What if I had just tried harder?"
"What if I had loved myself sooner?"
She looked up at the sky, as if it might offer forgiveness.
Instead, it just wept. She stepped up onto the ledge.
One foot. Then the other.
The wind tugged at her hair like it wanted her to come back down. But inside, she was already gone.
She closed her eyes and whispered,
"If I could go back…"
Her voice was barely a whisper.
"…I'd do it all differently."
And then, she let go.
There was no pain. No sound. Only light, warm and soft, like a memory. She felt her feet touch solid ground again, though she was sure she had been falling.
She felt her back press against something solid, warm. A bed?
Her eyes fluttered open, and for a long time, she didn't move. The rain was gone. Instead, sunlight filtered gently through pale curtains, casting flower patterns across her blanket.
Outside, birds chirped, bright and melodic. That sound... it was too familiar. It felt like a memory.
Then she felt something wet against her cheek. A small, warm nudge. A tongue? She turned her head slightly and gasped. A golden-brown dog was standing beside her bed, tail wagging, tongue out, eyes full of unconditional joy.
"Toto…?" she whispered.
He barked softly in response, like he had just been waiting for her to wake up.
Her hand trembled as she reached out, rubbing her fingers through his fur. It was exactly the way she remembered it, soft behind the ears, a little rough down his back. Her chest ached. She had buried him years ago. She remembered crying until she couldn't breathe the day he died.
"This isn't real," she whispered. "You were gone…"
But he just nudged her hand again and let out a happy whine, licking her wrist like he used to do when she came home from school.
She couldn't stop the tears this time. They rolled down her cheeks silently as she buried her face into his fur, inhaling the scent of childhood, of safety, of a time when things hadn't yet gone wrong.
Then she heard it. A voice.
Her mother's voice, clear and gentle, echoed up the stairs.
"Wake up, Lynette! Your breakfast is getting cold!"
The sound pierced her like a knife and a lullaby all at once. Her breath caught in her throat. Her mother.
Speaking in the same voice she hadn't heard in ten years.
"It's Sunday," her mom added. "Don't make me come up there!"
Sunday.
Her favourite day. The day her mom made sweet rice pudding and let her stay in pyjamas until noon.
The day when life felt slow and full of possibility. She looked around the room now, really looked, and it hit her like a wave.
She sat up with a jolt. Her room was small. Familiar. Impossibly familiar.
The walls were covered with posters she hadn't seen in a decade. Her old desk. Her worn-out diary. Even the stuffed bear with the torn ear that she had thrown away years ago.
She looked down at her hands.
They were smaller. Softer. No scars.
Just smooth, untouched skin like life hadn't started writing its story on her yet.
She stood up unsteadily and stumbled toward the mirror above her dresser. And when she looked… She froze.
The reflection staring back at her was her.
But not the her she knew.
This was her at sixteen. Wide-eyed. Long-haired. Lips unchapped. Shoulders not yet weighed down.
"No… this….this is a dream," she whispered, reaching out to touch her own face. Her fingers trembled. Her cheeks were flushed with disbelief.
"Is this what dying feels like?"
Tears slid down her cheek.
"Am I just… seeing my happiest moment one last time?"
This wasn't a dream. This wasn't a memory.
She was here. Somehow, impossibly, she was back.
Her dog barked again, as if to say, You're not imagining this.
"I don't know how… but I'm here."
The sunlight was too warm on her skin. The smell of her old books was too sharp in her nose. And then came the sound that shattered her.
"Lynette? You okay up there?"
Her mother's voice. Again.
Alive. Whole. Just like it used to be, like no time had passed at all.
Her heart slammed against her ribs. The air in her lungs trembled.
She turned toward the door on shaky legs and pulled it open.
There, standing at the bottom of the staircase, was her mother. In her favourite blue sweater. Holding a dish towel.
"You're finally awake, sleepyhead," her mom said. "Come eat before everything gets cold."
Lynette stared.
No words. No breath. Just the raw, crashing tide of emotion.
"Mom…?" she choked out, barely louder than a whisper.
Her mother laughed gently. "Who else would I be?"
That voice. That laugh. That warmth. She had forgotten how it felt. How it filled a room like sunlight through storm clouds. Her legs moved on their own. Down the stairs. One step. Then two. She dropped into her mother's arms, suddenly sobbing, clutching the fabric of her sweater like a lifeline.
"Hey, hey… what's wrong?" her mom asked, startled. "Did you have a bad dream?"
She nodded into her chest, unable to speak.
Because if she opened her mouth, the truth might come pouring out, too big to hold, too impossible to explain.
Her mother gently stroked her hair, like she used to when she was little.
"It's okay," she whispered. "I'm right here. Everything's okay."
For the first time in a long time, it felt almost real.
She wiped her tears quietly before stepping into the kitchen. The smell hit her first: butter, cardamom, and warm milk. The scent of her childhood, of comfort, of Sunday mornings that felt like forever.
# "The Table where the Time Waited."
The kitchen was glowing with life.
Her grandfather sat near the open door that led to the balcony, wrapped in his old sweater, sipping what had to be his third cup of tea already. His chair creaked as he leaned back, blinking slowly at the sky, as if he had nowhere else to be.
Beside him, sitting like a queen on her cushioned stool, was her grandmother, humming softly with Toto curled in her arms. The dog looked smug and sleepy, head resting on her lap like he ruled the house.
At the table sat her eight-year-old sister, Meira, arms crossed, scowling at her untouched plate of food.
"I'm not eating until I get my game time back," Meira muttered, without looking up. "You're all being mean."
Lynette just stared, a strange ache swelling in her chest.
They were all there. Alive. Together.
Time hadn't taken anything yet.
She sat down slowly at the table, her fingers brushing the wood as if it might vanish. Her mother stood by the stove, wiping her hands with a kitchen towel and speaking as if nothing magical had just happened.
"I've already made the rice pudding. I'll heat it up when we get back from church. Meira, you're coming even if you sulk all the way there."
She paused, then added with a knowing glance at Lynette.
"And I didn't bother asking you. I know you don't believe in all that.
There was no bitterness in her tone, just the familiar tiredness of a mother who had learned to pick her battles with a rebellious teenager.
But this time… something was different.
Lynette looked around the room again. The way light streamed across the kitchen tiles. The way her grandfather chuckled softly at Meira's pout. At Toto, blinking up at her with soft, trusting eyes.
It was all too vivid. Too real.
Not a dream. Not death.
Maybe…
Maybe God was testing her.
Maybe this was mercy. Or a miracle. Or both.
Maybe this was the second chance she had begged for, at the edge of everything.
She looked at her mother, and her voice came out soft but steady.
"I want to come with you."
The words startled the room. Even Meira looked up.
Her mother blinked, surprised. "To church?"
She nodded.
"I want to go with you. I… I think I should."
Her mother didn't speak for a second. Just smiled quietly, almost emotional, and placed a bowl of warm food in front of her.
"Alright then," she said gently. "You better eat fast."
She picked up her spoon with shaking hands, heart still throbbing.
# "The dress she once hated."
Outside, a bird chirped again. The sky was a little brighter.
Maybe this was the beginning. And maybe for once, she was ready to begin.
She stood in front of the mirror again, but this time, she wasn't looking in disbelief. She was looking with wonder.
The soft blue skirt flowed gently to her ankles, swaying when she turned. The black t-shirt with the delicate blue flower printed across the chest looked simple but graceful. And on her feet, her old white flat sandals, the ones with tiny flowers stitched across the top, shoes she once mocked as childish, now made her smile.
Her braided hair, neat and tucked down her back, had been done by her mother with quiet, careful fingers.
"I didn't think you'd sit still for me," her mom had said with a laugh, halfway through the braid.
"You used to hate this."
And she had. She used to rip the braid out as soon as they left the house.
But this time… she had sat there, still and silent, memorizing the feeling of her mother's hands in her hair, the warmth, the care, the love she hadn't appreciated until it was too late.
"I like it," she had said quietly. "It's… nice."
Her mother had paused behind her, hands still in her hair, her eyes visible in the mirror, shining with surprise and something else. Something like hope.
Now, she placed a white shawl over her shoulders, tucked a small notebook and her Bible under her arm, and took one last look at herself.
And that's when the memories rushed in.
When Lynette was in college, her grandfather died of a heart attack in the middle of the night. And her grandmother, a year later, quietly, in her sleep.
They'd both waited for their son, Lynette's father. He left when Meira was 1 year old and still hasn't come back.
He had abandoned them. Married another woman and disappeared from their lives completely, except for the times he sent vague texts or money, like they were a responsibility, not a family. And yet… her mother had waited. Not just hoped but waited for years. He didn't even come to the funeral of his parents.
Even after everything, her mother still believed he might come back.
When he finally did, with another woman by his side, her mother hadn't turned him away. He came to take his inheritance, not to stay with them.
"At least let him eat with us," her mother had said gently. "He was once part of this house."
That had broken something in her.
She fought. Screamed. Cried.
"He abandoned you! And you still let him walk through this door?"
"Because anger won't heal what we lost," her mother had said.
But she couldn't accept that.
"You're pathetic," she had whispered. "Still waiting for a man who never came."
Then she packed her things. And left. She went back to the dorm. Finished her studies. Never came home unless she had to. Her mother waited for her every day, until. She remembered their calls. The voicemails she didn't return.
When she finally returned, her mother was already too thin, too tired, with sunken eyes and hands that shook.
"Stage four," her sister had told her coldly.
And then came the words that cut deeper than anything:
"You left us. Just like him."
"I hate you more. Why are you even here? Just to see how pathetic our life is now."
That night, she had sobbed until her lungs gave out because, in the end, she had become the very person she promised never to be.
The mirror blurred. She touched her cheek, wet with fresh tears.
"I won't do it again," she whispered. Her voice cracked. "This time I won't leave. I'll change everything."
"I'm sorry, Mom…"
Just then, from the hallway came that gentle voice:
"Ready, Lynette?"
She wiped her tears with the edge of her sleeve, gathered her things, and stood up straighter with a smile.
"Coming, Mom."
And for the first time in a long time… she really meant it.