When one survives a date with death, one must live with what follows. The aftermath. The echo. The wardrobe of regret... and the color never quite fades.
I’m back in court again. Not legally. Mentally.
This is my sixth trial since her funeral.
Same courtroom: a dimly lit room in my head.
Same furniture: cracked floor tiles, a flickering lightbulb swinging like guilt’s pendulum.
I’m on trial for the crime of survival. Same jurors: Guilt, Memory, Denial, Obsession — and her, watching silently from the gallery of my mind, draped in the same black coat.
The charge? Second-degree obsession. First-degree delusion. Tampering with fate. And perhaps... murder by circumstance.
The prosecutor is well-dressed today. I stand accused by my own conscience, prosecuted by a sharper version of myself—emotionally emaciated, morally tailored in guilt. He walks like me, talks like me, but he’s colder — like a version of myself that never blinked that night.
"You didn’t kill her—you just wrote the script, cast yourself as the hero, then watched the tragedy unfold from the shadows.”
The jury nods. Except Denial. He’s flipping a coin. Always unsure.
But what really breaks me is the witness testimony. It’s her voice, from a voicemail I never got to hear. It was unsent. Maybe fate was merciful.
The trial drags.
I try to justify myself, but every defense sounds like a love letter forged in blood.
“I was in love,” I say.
“No,” Guilt snaps. “You were addicted.”
Denial won’t meet my eyes.
Obsession leans forward, smiling.
We review the evidence.
The catfished messages.
The route I mapped.
The restaurant I chose.
The breath I held while she crossed the road…
And then, like a knife slowly turned, the voicemail plays. Her voice, the one I never got to hear:
“If something happens to me tonight, tell them I was brave. Tell them I was tired of being afraid. And if he is listening... I forgive you. But stay away from the light. It isn’t for you.”
My mouth is dry.
Regret stands. Tries to say something. Fails.
Loneliness weeps in the corner.
Shame excuses himself.
Denial flips his coin. It never lands.
The jury deliberates. The room spins. The sentence hangs like the light above.
But hours pass.
They argue. They pace.
Some want blood. Some want mercy.
And still the verdict refuses to come.
A hung jury, they say.
Hung by memory.
Hung by contradiction.
Hung by the fact that love and obsession wear the same cologne when it rains.
My heart coughs in my chest.
She forgave me. Before I even knew I needed it.
I try to object, but I am my own lawyer and words feel like weapons. Everything I say sounds rehearsed, like a stalker’s apology:
“I didn’t mean to.”
“I just wanted to be seen.”
“I loved her.”
They laugh.
The courtroom lights dim.
Verdict pending. Sentence unknown....
And just when mistrial seems inevitable, a new figure steps forward from the shadows of my psyche—
Uninvited.
Unaccounted for.
Unforgiven.
Betrayal.
Dressed like me.
Smiling like me.
Speaking for me.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” he says, voice slick as oil, “the defendant has betrayed you all.
He denied Guilt.
Mocked Regret.
Abandoned Shame.
Gaslit Love.
He has betrayed every emotion here... and for that, I pass verdict.”
He turns to the judge.
He turns to me.
“Not guilty.”
And with the hammer of silence, he sets me free...
****
Now I walk the streets again.
I pass the spot where her breath became history.
The flowers are gone. The stain is washed.
The coat I wear? Hers.
Still lavender-scented. Still cursed.
It shields me now—not from the cold...
But from the truth.
Because when you betray every emotion you have,
there’s only one left to walk beside you.
And regret never walks alone.
So if you ever see me smile…
Just know:
It’s a tailored expression, fitted like a suit,
Hand-stitched by betrayal and pressed by a hung jury.
And when one survives a date with death, one must learn to walk backward through life.
One must know what to expect.
How to behave.
How to dress.
Regret he wore.
