Regret

Those were normal days. All days are normal days. My life isn’t something worth discussing about, and effectively, this isn’t about me.

I remember it was early in the morning. I work at a mall in the outskirts of the city, so it is to be expected that that’s the place I passed most of the time in.

Grab & Go was called the establishment had to take care of from seven in the morning to five in the afternoon, right in front of it there was a stand by which people passed by to buy fashion accessories and things of the like. It was managed by this young and cute girl, she couldn’t be anywhere above twenty-one, her hair as black as her eyes, and her skin a little tanner than her sclera. Her proportions weren’t anywhere around the lines of what you see today, she wasn’t like those girls that have the body and dress to call attention. Oh no, she dressed conservative, always covering most of her skin under cute sweaters with animal print and black leggings, and her round glasses only made contrast with her big eyes, giving her an angelic look.

A few meters behind, there was another stand. In that one people went to fix their phones.There used to be a big fat greasy dude taking charge of that place, but that day was different. I remember instead of the mass of bulky greasy covered in potato chips and gravy, a boy with a fit build and a clean shirt (thank God) managed the stand. He was nothing out of the norm, not prominent muscles, no obviously-artificial tanning, no weird and extravagant haircut, no beggar-like facial hair. Just an average brown kid. Probably of the girl’s age.

I never bothered to talk with any of them so don’t ask me their names. But something was different from that day on, I had never really looked at that girl’s facial expression with detail prior it. From the very morning, I could see the dude was working hard on his machines, the girl had barely any clients so she could laze around a bit. Not a lot of people went into Grab & Go so I’d normally use my time to make inventory, but since then, I‘ve been watching them.

The girl was always looking down at the strings of bracelets and necklaces. She’d turn her head back every few minutes, almost as if she had lost something. Her mouth was always straight, sometimes it’d twitch down in the corner, but that was it. I thought she must have been sleepy or something like that most of the times since her eyes weren’t fully open, they only were when she was focused on something.

The boy worked hard; I’ll give him that. His eyes were always stuck either on a phone’s screen or a computer motherboard, his expression was kind of like that of the girl, but he’d have this small grin every now and then. When he wasn’t working he was talking with someone through the phone and chatting, I even got to see a video game controller in his hands a few times, too.

#

It had been two days since that boy started working at the tech stand. It was two in the afternoon and he was focused on this high-tech looking thing, a graphic card I think it’s called. The girl was making a very good looking bracelet, I couldn’t really make up its features from a distance, but I did notice it was pink, red, and purple. It surprised me how she spent forty-five minutes braiding and “doing” that thing (I don’t even know how you call that technique/movement/whatever).

After contemplating her creation with a slight bent on her lips, she turned her head over her shoulder, in that same moment the boy deviated his attention from the thing he had and his eyes met hers, she turned away in a flash, as if she didn’t want him to notice her. And right there I noticed, I was so stupid to not notice before, but now I know it, she was looking at him. All those times she’d look over her shoulder, or roll her eyes to the side, she was looking at him. My first thought was that she liked him, but after brief observation, I had this heartbeat she didn’t. Something deep inside told me she wasn’t sexually attracted to that boy. Then why? I couldn’t understand it.

A few minutes later, she stepped up, walked out of her stand, her gaze placed on him. Was she going to talk to him? For some reason, the clap of her converse shoes hitting the floor was the only thing I could listen for a second. Her feet moved at snail pace, her hands were holding something in front of her -perhaps that bracelet. I don’t know what happened but it seemed almost as if the boy had listened to my thoughts, he turned to face her and even before his look clashed with her, she turned to face a nearby railing, her feet quickened towards it, she just stood there, leaned on the metal bar, head bowed, eyes meeting the fountain below.

Perhaps my eyes cheated me, or my imagination decided to it would be funny to play a joke, but for a brief second, I could swear I saw a drop of liquid dripping down her cheek, before melting with her hair.