The Library That Erases Regrets

The Library That Erases Regrets

By [Hazrat Bilal khan]

It was raining the night Clara found the library.

She hadn’t planned to be out so late—her shift at the diner ended early because the power flickered out in the storm, leaving the place cold and silent. Clara decided to walk home rather than call a cab, partly to save money, partly because the rhythmic drumming of rain on the empty sidewalks made her feel less alone.

That’s when she saw the building.

It didn’t belong there; she was sure of it. The street was lined with shuttered shops and closed cafés, but at the end, under the flickering glow of a single streetlight, stood a narrow, towering structure wedged between two brick apartments. A sign above the door read, in letters faintly glowing:

THE LIBRARY OF WHAT-IFS

Clara hesitated. The door looked ancient, carved with swirling patterns, the handle shaped like a quill pen. The windows were lit from within, but no one moved behind them. The strange pull of curiosity—mixed with something deeper, something like yearning—pushed her inside.

The air smelled of old paper and candle smoke.

Rows upon rows of books stretched upward, disappearing into shadows where the ceiling should have been. The shelves curved in impossible directions, some spiraling like staircases, others vanishing into dark corners. Each book’s spine bore a title written in gold script: The Words I Didn’t Say to My Father, The Day I Quit Piano Lessons, The Night I Left Him Waiting.

Clara ran her fingers along the spines. The titles weren’t about other people.

They were hers.

“This is impossible,” she whispered.

“It’s regret that fills the shelves,” came a voice.

Clara spun around. An old man stood behind a wooden desk that hadn’t been there a moment ago. He wore a tweed suit and half-moon spectacles, his eyes the pale blue of winter sky.

“Every choice you mourn, every moment you wish you could change, has a place here,” he said softly. “Read one, and you may return to it. Live it differently, if you wish.”

Clara’s breath caught. “You mean… I can fix things? All of them?”

The librarian gave a thin smile. “Change one thing, yes. But regrets are roots. Tug at one, and others may shift.”

She didn’t think long.

Her hand stopped at a slender book titled The Night I Let Her Walk Away.

It was about Mara. Her best friend since childhood, the one Clara loved quietly for years but never confessed to. The last time they spoke was after a fight—Mara had begged Clara to come with her to New York, start fresh together. Clara refused, afraid of leaving everything she knew. Mara left alone. They never spoke again.

Clara opened the book.

Light spilled out, bright as sunlight on water. Then she was there—twenty-two again, standing in the bus station, Mara in front of her with a duffel bag slung over one shoulder.

“Come with me,” Mara said, eyes hopeful, rain streaking the windows behind her.

This time Clara said yes.

They lived together in a tiny apartment that smelled of coffee and paint from the murals Mara made on the walls. Clara worked at a bookstore. Mara kissed her for the first time on a rooftop while fireworks bloomed above the city.

For three years, life was messy and loud and perfect.

Until the accident.

A delivery truck, a rainy night, a crosswalk lit red too late. Clara stood at the hospital bed clutching Mara’s cold hand, screaming silently at fate.

And then she was back in the library, the book snapping shut in her trembling hands.

The librarian’s eyes were steady. “You see. A regret erased may plant the seed of another.”

Clara’s knees shook. She looked around the shelves, realizing how many choices in her life tangled together like threads in a tapestry. Could she find the book where Mara didn’t die? The one where she confessed her love sooner? The one where she stayed, or left, or never fought at all?

Her hands itched to reach for another book.

But she didn’t.

For the first time, Clara understood: life wasn’t a series of clean pages you could rewrite. It was ink soaked deep into paper, one moment bleeding into the next.

She left the library without another word. The rain had stopped, but the streets felt different now—alive, shimmering with the weight of things she could never change, and the beauty of living them anyway.

Thank you for read