Regret

Note to the readers:  Because I'm attempting to keep the pledge I made to my blog readers, I'm going to not watch Vampire Diaries Suits right now.  I had a physically miserable day yesterday because of some bad decisions disguised as a good idea.  I went through something I really never had before.  If you're unlucky, it's a something you may experience time and time again.

Regret

Regret.  It's a hard thing that grows and swells in your gut like a miscarriage waiting to happen.  The rolling of its shoulders and the kicking of its feet punch the breath out of your body.  Perhaps you'll find yourself lying awake at night mulling over all of your decisions leading to this inexorable pain.  Pain that chokes your throat and clenches your bowels. 

That's how she found herself at 2 in the morning.  She awoke beside her ex in sheets that were soaked in sweat and other shameful things.  The last few hours had been spent in revelry, the press of warm bodies, and mind altering substances--all to the tune of food and drink.  A desire for gluttony and hedonism was the excuse they gave to spend time together. 

Everything in excess when the world was ending, so they told themselves. 

She had been battling the pain in her mind and body beside his restless silhouette.  The emotion she had been denying was growing too large for her to ignore, let alone coherently contemplate.  It was as if the first shared bite of that evening's dinner sealed her fate to internal damnation. 

It wasn't that she was not accustomed to pain.  Nicks, cuts, broken bones were merit badges she collected as she walked through life.  But pain that sizzles, pops, and explodes to fill your body like a bag of mating snakes was something new.  Something that snuck up on her after too many bad decisions albeit among good company.  Regret poisoned her and infiltrated her every nook with each bite of food shared with the sleeping man beside her. 

Regret gestated within her as they lost themselves in a tangle of bodies to the tune of a TV turned down.  It lied in wait until sleep sucked her under and made her vulnerable.  When her eyes snapped open hours later she realized what she had done, and she fled to her only escape.  The bathroom.

Quiet with a door that locks, the bathroom was her sanctuary.  She gave herself over to the pain and vomited until even her soul was scraped out from the bottom of her gut.

Staring into the newly flushed toilet water as the porcelain sighed, she condemned herself to a sleepless night. 

After all, food poisoning is a demanding bitch.