Prologue
Everyone hassome regrets throughout their life.
Some regrets are just whispers, faint what-ifs that appear in quiet moments.
Many people regret not being braver about confessing their feelings to the love of their lives in their youth; others regret the career they chose when they weren't mature enough; and others regret not leaving a situation where they were mistreated sooner.
Those regrets sit in the corners of your mind, gentle but persistent, reminding you that life could have unfolded differently if only you had been braver, wiser, or faster, but nothing else. They don't have a significant impact on who you are now. They're simply ways of reminding you that you weren't bold enough once.
But then there are the other kinds of regrets. The ones that don't just whisper, they scream. The ones that mark a before and after so sharp it carves through your soul, leaving you changed forever.
They haunt you for the rest of your life as a penance you must fulfill for notacting in time.
Those are the ones I carry right now.
I was eighteen when my life split in two. One moment, I was a girl who believed in good things, in kindness, in the certainty that if you loved someone, you would protect them. The next, I was a stranger to myself—a coward in my own story. I stood still when I should have fought, stayed silent when loved ones needed my voice the most. And because of that, I lost a lot.
Since then, regret has been my shadow, following me into every new chapter of my life. I am no longer the girl I was before that year. She was soft, hopeful, untouched by the weight of what-ifs. I, on the other hand, know better.
Every morning, I wake up with the same thought: If only I had done things differently. But time is merciless. It does not rewrite the past, nor does it grant second chances.
So, I carry my regrets. I let them shape me, define me, and remind me of what I failed to do. Maybe one day, I'll learn how to let them go.
But today would not be that day.
CHAPTER 1
Lily
My organizationand routine are everything to me. To be happy, I need to control every step I take. I don’t like surprises, and I definitely don’t believe in leaving things to chance. Every decision I make, big or small, is carefully selected after much thought. I always check all my options, consider all the possible outcomes, and plan for contingencies. Every aspect of my life, from my job to my apartment setup, is exactly how I want it because I’ve made it that way.
I know what every day will look like before it even begins. Monday through Friday, it’s always the same: up at 5:00 A.M. for the gym, work, home, dinner, a good book, and sleep. Saturdays are for my friends. Sundays are for my family, planning, and meditation. Simple, predictable, perfect.
All this, if external factors do not interrupt my perfectly orderly routine. Something I try to avoid as much as possible, but life can't be that perfect.
"Did you see the hottie human resources hired for the systems engineer position?" Marlin's voice cut through my concentration, her perfectly manicured nails tapping excitedlyagainst the corner of my desk. I glanced up from my laptop, momentarily annoyed at the interruption, and saw Marlin and Claudette looking at me like they had discovered a new treasure.
Despite working in a shared area, my desk is a little farther away from everyone else's, something I explicitly requested when I arrived to avoid unnecessary conversations between colleagues in moments when I need maximum concentration. Still, my friends always found an excuse to stand before my desk and make me lose my time.
"Not really," I responded honestly. "I was too focused on next month's budget document the whole week to even stand up from this desk. You know how I get in the final days of the month."
It wasn't entirely a lie.
The end of the month is the most tedious and stressful part of my job. Working in the accounting department means coordinating all the money spent that month and all the money that will be spent the following month. My job requires intense concentration, and I'm the best at what I do because I always focus hard enough to make it happen, even if it makes the outside world disappear completely.
But of course, I didn't care much about who the new tech employee would be.
"You can go back to your spreadsheets in a second," Claudette said, leaning closer so she could whisper her next thought. "But seriously, he looks like the hot guy from that firefighter calendar I gave you last year."
I arched a brow. "That calendar was a joke."
"Maybe. But your face wasn’t when you saw July."
I sighed. "I haven’t even stood up from my chair to get some water today, let alone scoped out new hires."
Claudette rolled her eyes dramatically, tucking a strand ofher curly hair behind her ear. "I've always told you to take breaks between your tasks, or you'll go crazy. You already look like a robot."
I forced a small smile, the kind that didn't quite reach my eyes but was enough to keep the conversation friendly. Marlin and Claudette were the only people who could handle my controlling personality. They knew when to push me out of my comfort zone and when to leave me alone. In the four years since we'd met, they'd somehow learned to navigate my rigid boundaries and still managed to stay in my life.
