Gin And Regret

 

The bar was dimly lit, the kind of place where stories hung in the air like cigarette smoke, where strangers shared secrets they wouldn’t dare tell in daylight. She swirled the last of her gin and tonic, the ice clinking against the glass, when the man next to her spoke.

“I noticed that scar on your wrist,” he said, his voice gentle but curious. “What happened? Fell off a bike?”

She laughed, a short, almost bitter chuckle. “Yeah, was going too fast.” She played it off like it was nothing, but he wasn’t buying it.

“No, really. Tell me what happened.”

“I fell,” she said simply.

“Really?”

“Yeah. I just fell. Not off a bike, though. Just… into a bad life.”

He exhaled, understanding something unsaid. “Must have been one hell of a crash.”

She nodded. “Yeah. One of those.”

The ice crackled as she took another sip. She looked at him then, her eyes flickering with something between regret and acceptance. “I had it all, you know? Friends who loved me, a family, and a man I adored. They all thought he was good for me, and maybe he was. He had this way about him—he called me ‘Njunju,’ a name just for me. Took me everywhere, made me his trophy, but not in a bad way. His friends were kids trapped in grown men’s bodies, playing tag, laughing too loud. He was the same way—just a boy with a beard. And I thought… this is it. This is forever.”

She paused, rolling the glass between her fingers before continuing.

“Then my ex came back to town. The one from when I was younger. The one who knew me before all this. Before him. He wanted to see me, and I told myself it was harmless—a cup of coffee at Starbucks, nothing more. And it was good. We laughed about old times, about stupid things we did, about where our old friends ended up. He still had my scarf, the one he stole the last time we went swimming. Said it was his little piece of home.”

Her voice softened. “I melted. It was just coffee, but it was three hours of nostalgia wrapped in a warm cup.”

The man at the bar didn’t interrupt, just watched her, letting her unravel the story at her own pace.

“He took my number. Called when my boyfriend wasn’t around. And one day, we met at the park. I knew it was wrong, but I went anyway. We walked, talked. It felt like being sixteen again, sneaking around like kids who didn’t want to get caught. And then… we kissed.” She exhaled, shaking her head. “It was… intimate. Stupid. And for a second, I forgot the life I had. But then he pulled back, and we just… stared at each other.”

She ran a finger along the rim of her glass.

“And then, like some sick twist of fate, my boyfriend walked by. Holding sunflowers. My favorite.” She laughed, but it was empty. “He asked for directions to a coffee shop. My ex gave them to him. And he just… looked at me. Didn’t say a word, just nodded and walked away.”

She blinked quickly, as if clearing the memory from her mind. “I didn’t chase him. I should have, but I didn’t. I just went home and waited. Hours passed. When he finally came back, he was drunk. I had never seen him like that. And when he looked at me, his eyes were red—not just from the alcohol, but from something deeper.”

She closed her eyes for a moment before whispering, “He asked me, ‘When did I fuck up so bad that you’d do this to me?’”

The man at the bar didn’t move, barely breathed.

“I told him, ‘Baby, I’m sorry. It was just a kiss. A mistake.’” Her voice was hollow now. “And you know what he said? He said, ‘Forgetting your keys at the office—that’s a mistake. Leaving the gate open—that’s a mistake. But walking in the park with another man? Kissing him? That’s not a mistake. So tell me… when did I lose you?’”

She swallowed hard. “I couldn’t answer him. So I just sat there, sobbing, realizing I should’ve never drank that damn cup of coffee.”

She let the silence sit between them before finishing, “And you ask me what happened because you saw the scar on my wrist? Well, it happened after that man left me. Left me alone in a house we built together. After I became the past that came knocking.”

The man across from her finally spoke. “And the guy from your past?”

She shrugged, a humorless smile on her lips. “I don’t know. I left town too. Now I’m someone’s past. I could see him again, the man I loved, but I’d just be what my ex was to me—a past that never should have happened.”

She took the last sip of her drink, then looked at him. “So, since you were nosy enough to ask about my scar—what about yours?”

The man stared at his own wrist, then back at her. “Something like yours.” He paused. “Only to me… it was a past that never happened.”

They sat there, two strangers bound by old wounds, drowning their ghosts in gin and regret.