Free Regret List by Jessica Billings

I don’t want them.” Even as I said it, a pang of guilt
forced its way through me and my stomach clenched. What would my
mom think?
    He shook his head, making my own head move with his.
“No, you have to go. I don’t want anyone to know-“ he trailed
off.
    I sank away from him. “I won’t tell anyone,” I
promised, “but I won’t sing either.”
    “Really? Promise?”
    Promise , I signed.
    He smiled and then turned away abruptly, rubbing his
face. “I’ve got some stuff to do. I’ll see you later.”
    I never did tell my mom why I refused to sing in the
choir after that. Maybe I should have. Maybe it would have abated
her disappointment. Maybe she would have understood why I stopped
going to church after that. Maybe maybe maybe. She knew it had
something to do with Asher, but that’s all. When her disappointment
turned to anger and accusation, I just told her that I didn’t
believe in God and it was a waste of time. It’s true, that’s how I
felt, but it was more complicated than that, really. She thought
Asher had convinced me to stop believing but if anything, it was
the other way around.
    All that ran through my mind as Jason asked me why I
never went to church anymore. Of course, I couldn’t explain it to
him any better than I did with my mom. Instead, I just shrugged, my
dress feeling heavy on my shoulders. “I guess I just got busy with
other stuff. School and all.”
    “Well, you should come sometime. You’re missing
out.”
    “Sure.” I let out one of my weird, awkward laughs
that always popped out when I was lying. Clamping my mouth shut, I
stood up. “I’ll go ahead and get changed back into my clothes.”
    “’Kay.” He left while I changed again. I stood for a
second in just my underwear, looking around me. What would my mom
think if she knew I was standing half-naked in some guy’s bedroom?
The thing is, it didn’t feel weird. Well okay, it was kind of
awkward, but not sexually weird. When I was around Jason,
those kinds of thoughts didn’t really cross my mind. Did my mom
really think I was capable of doing those sorts of things already?
Sure, I was in high school, but I still felt so young. Not innocent
exactly, just too embarrassed to think about it yet. If only
everyone my age felt the same way, but that’s skipping ahead a
bit.
    I quickly slipped into my clothes, triple-checking to
make sure my fly was pulled up, then stuffed my dress back into its
bag. When I opened the bedroom door, I didn’t see Jason anywhere,
but I heard a cupboard slamming in the kitchen. “Do you want a
peanut butter and jam sandwich?” he called.
    “Alright,” I agreed, venturing back into the kitchen
and sitting down in a folding chair.
    “I live off these things,” he said seriously, setting
one down in front of me. “When I was a kid, I tried going
vegetarian once, just so I could eat these sandwiches all day long
without my dad forcing other meals on me. He didn’t really know how
to cook anything vegetarian, so he let me fend for myself and this
was all I ate. It was heaven.”
    I laughed, taking a bite. “So what happened?”
    He grinned. “I only lasted a day. My dad made bacon
and eggs the next morning and I couldn’t resist the bacon. He
caught me sneaking some and that was that. Back to solid square
meals.” He said the last part in a deeper voice, sounding goofy. On
cue, the front door opened and a man entered. He looked a lot like
Jason, just older: narrow glasses framing a thin face, his dark
hair just starting to go gray on the sides.
    “Hey kiddo,” he greeted Jason, then glanced at me.
His expression suddenly turned from relaxed to rock-hard as he
studied my face, but Jason didn’t seem to notice. He wasn’t glaring
at me exactly, just silently disapproving. You could see it in the
way his eyes lost that crinkle on the sides and his mouth turned
down slightly.
    Oh God, I realized, he knows who I am. My heart sank as I wondered what he would say, how Jason would
react.