CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: Hope and Failure CLOSED

A Mundane Regret

Note: Names have been changed to protect privacy

As I look at my life, what little of it has gone by, the failures and missed opportunities always speak louder than the successes. I have a lot to be thankful for, and yet I keep going over the times I’ve mucked up, goofed around and generally bungled things. No memory has as firm a grip as my time in high school—embarrassing as that is.

I was a weird guy in high school. And weird guys in small prairie towns are often social islands. I wore a trenchcoat in the summer and I had strange interests like Latin American history and linguistics. Though I didn’t understand these subjects particularly well, I carried myself as though I were an expert. My peers had little interest in these things but would humour me from time to time as I struggled to develop social skills.

As a result, I was also deeply unpopular. I had my friends and my circle, yet the broader student body largely saw me as strange and arrogant—labels which were warranted in fairness. Yet, for all the embarrassing remarks and uneven hygiene that characterised me at this time in my life, I caught the eye of Sloane Williams.

Unlike me, Sloane was popular. She was well liked: a talented singer, artist, actor and dancer who simply let her talent speak for itself. More than anything, she was remarkable for her interest in other people. She was intelligent, insightful and a deeply caring friend.

It’s odd to look back now, but being liked by other people really was that simple; if you talk to people and ask them questions, they are more likely to like you. Of course, this fact can be deployed for evil but it can also form the foundation for lifelong friendships. At the time, I was a teenage boy with no brain so I thought that bragging about myself was the answer—only to be shocked when people, especially girls, found it off-putting. For whatever reason, however, Sloane found me intriguing and the feeling was instantly mutual.

She approached me during our drama class taught by Ms Little: a white woman who had just discovered reactionary neoliberalism and was going to use it to save the world. We heard about the evils of misogynist communism and the radical feminism of Margaret Thatcher almost every day and when the time came—in Ms Little’s mind—to put on social justice plays, Sloane and I were on our own. Sloane was Black and I was Native and we were the only people of colour in the class; we were constantly reminded of that. Perhaps that is why she sat beside me that day.

She talked to me in a way that was strange and unfamiliar—she asked me to continue my odd ramblings and half-formed opinions about subjects I had just discovered. We spent spare periods together and soon, she started calling me her friend. By the time that happened, I had already fallen in love.

What I didn’t know then—being an oblivious git particularly with regard to the feelings of others—was that Sloane truly liked me back. So, when we were complaining about sitting through plays consisting of the white boys in our class donning atrocious AAVE and makeshift durags to show the impacts of racism, all the thoughts racing through my mind probably at least entered Sloane’s. 

It’s odd to think now that she liked me that way, given that I didn’t think it possible.

Part of me hoped that she loved me back that way. She said many things that made me think it was possible; even probable. Yet I was too clueless to see that it existed beyond my eternal, angst-ridden internal monologue.

The daily humiliations of having to speak for all Black people and all Indigenous people brought us together. They say a burden shared is a burden halved, but really it just means that you gravitate to people who don’t need anything about your experience explained to them. If they already get it, you feel sane and you know that you aren’t alone or imagining things.

It was deeply draining, but we went to class together. When we were together, it was easier.

We had a day of class just before our spare period: the one time of day that we had together, away from everyone else. Of course, drama class was a nightmare as always. Our project was a play adaptation of Ten Things I Hate About You which saw me in the role of a drug dealer—as usual—and Sloane in a dual role as the sassy English teacher and the inappropriately promiscuous guidance counsellor. 

Our peers thought I would be best suited in the role of Patrick Verona—owing partially to my resembling Heath Ledger—and Sloane as Kat Stratford, but this would never come to pass. Despite Sloane’s—and admittedly my own—interest in the proposed casting, Ms Little had a different set of roles in mind for us. We were instead cast according to what we knew—or what the teacher thought we knew.

My parents immediately sent a complaint to the principal and I went to sit in his office and accept the decision not to recast the play—which had never been proposed.

“I know your community struggles a lot with these issues,” said Ms Little. “I think you can bring a unique perspective to the character.”

With the principal satisfied, I prepared to leave. The meeting was pointless. Complaining was pointless. Only toughing out the environment was left.

I ran lines and commiserated with Sloane, who was instructed to bring some more of her experiences to her roles. We laughed about the coded ways we were told to act like stereotypes and spent the rest of class talking about the coming performance and our shared desire to avoid having our families in the crowd. Of course, we knew they would come anyway.

Then we went to breakfast. I don’t know that I will ever forget that. That was the scene of one of my greatest failures. It was at 10:00am approaching prom at the turn of Spring. I wanted more than anything to ask her to go out with me and she spoke often and vividly of what I should wear—the way my hair could be done up, how to incorporate my culture, everything. Stupidly, I told myself that she was just saying these things to be kind. 

We began talking about Panama—my fault, naturally—which caught the attention of a Costa Rican waiter. He chimed in and we humoured him until it was time for him to get back to work. We talked about the end of school and the final exams just around the corner. She talked about her plans and her hopes to one day work in the arts. I still had no idea what I wanted to do; for once, I was silent.

My thoughts turned to the big event on the horizon and all the awkward, public ‘promposals’ I had seen that day: large cardstock signs from eager boys who didn’t see that the positive reactions they got were always reluctant. I realized that I was somewhere semi public—but away from crowd spectacle. Suddenly and abruptly I turned to prom. My words were inelegant but the excitement in Sloane’s voice was audible.

“There’s still one thing on everyone’s mind,” I said, sipping my coffee.

“Prom?” said Sloane eagerly—expectantly in hindsight.

“Yeah,” I replied. “Prom.”

For a moment, time stood still. I heard an angel on my shoulder telling me in my mother’s voice that this was my chance to live a little, then a devil telling me in my words that this was a terrible idea and that I would only ruin everything. Sadly, I only listened to myself in those days.

The word had already passed through my lips. I couldn’t reel it back in. Instead, I made a few dumb, half-committed remarks about it being a shallow popularity contest, followed by pondering over whether or not I should bother going in the first place.

“I don’t know if I’d enjoy myself,” I said. “Or who I would even bring. I’m not a great dancer and I don’t like noise much either.”

Sloane told me dejectedly, “Well, if you decide to, just come say hi.” 

And I regret to inform you that, as you may have guessed, I never did.

Now it’s not all bad. Sloane and I are still friends, but we will only ever be friends now. Sloane has seen me go through more painful, ridiculous relationships than I can count and has always stayed loyal and kind—even when telling me that I’m being dumb. We’re honest and supportive of each other. We all should have a friend like that.

I did tell her eventually, of course. It was too late by then. She told me to stop being miserable for the benefit of everyone and I still struggle to adhere to this request, even as it sticks in my mind. Sloane has never fully forgiven me for being oblivious that day and neither have I. We’ll always be friends, even as life whisks me far away.

But we still both wonder what could have been had I listened a little better.

There have been worse failures than that one. So many. This is simply the one that, perhaps tellingly, has stuck with me the longest and filled me with the most regret. I still sometimes see myself, awkwardly fumbling at that table with a desire to scream through time: “Just ask her out, already you self-sabotaging nincompoop. Ask her out before it’s too late. Too late is just a few years away.”

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