No, I regret nothing.

Dance with me!

The light in the room glows dimly. A woman stands in high heels, wearing a black dress slit at the knee, holding a glass of red wine. Her loose hair cascades over her shoulders like waves. A massive mirror reflects her slender silhouette.

I look exactly the way I wanted! Just as I imagined! And this necklace—it goes so well with the dress. It’s really beautiful, isn’t it? I even picked these heels specifically for today. Today, I will dance! I will dance for you!

Then, in complete contrast, she collapses into the armchair and laughs out loud.

Look at me! Look into my eyes and tell me you don’t like me.

I want to remain in your memories just as I am now. You will remember this day—and me!

She turns on the music, 'Non, je ne regrette rien' (No, I regret nothing). The room fills with Édith Piaf's bittersweet, slightly raspy voice.

"Non, rien de rien

Non, je ne regrette rien"...

Want to hear something from the depths of my childhood? Never mind, anyway, I will tell you. Only you.. When I was little, my mother used to listen to this song. She would stand in front of the mirror and dance. The old phonograph crackled... The scratched vinyl spun and spun, Édith’s soul-piercing voice filling the night... The air—thick with cigarette smoke—settled in layers over everything.

I knew... my mother was dancing for someone, that she was dancing with someone. And that someone was not my father. She wore a blue checkered dress with a white collar. The faded yellow walls were painted with mismatched flowers. She swayed, swayed so gently, so beautifully, her dress twirling and twirling, filling the room with a feeling I did not yet understand.

Do you hear me? I don’t know who that person was. I don’t know why they separated. But I saw it—how, over the years, she carried that feeling with her, hidden and fragile. I stood in silence, watching her. She was enchanting, weightless. I wanted to catch her thoughts, but I couldn’t. I didn’t fully grasp what was happening to her—or why I felt uneasy, why I wanted her to never notice me watching.

Now, I understand much better what it means to dance in abandon—to dance to the brink of forgetting. To dance with the ghosts of memories.

Would you like a drink? Oh, but you don’t drink wine. Should I make you tea? With lemon or without.

She prepares the tea, places it on the small table, then walks to the mirror and looks at herself. Suddenly, she slaps its surface, as if striking a face. Then she smiles—an apologetic smile. She glances back; the darkness creeping in from outside cannot touch the intimate aura of the room. A shadow falls over the armchair. She looks toward it.

Go ahead, drink your tea. It’s exactly the way you like it. I prefer wine. Tonight, I want to be drunk on wine.

You know? It was a warm autumn day when I first saw you. That sounds like an old phonograph crackling in my mother’s room, but I have to tell you this story—once more. I need to. Listen!

In reality, it all started much earlier. I had been fighting severe depression for months. My thoughts were so heavy, so chaotic. Life had lost all color. I didn’t want to see anything or anyone. I ate, slept, woke up—each action was just a way to drag myself into another day.

I often sat by the window, staring down at the world from my high-floor apartment. What does flying feel like? Free fall? I wrote a million scenarios in my mind. But—my mother! She was the one person I couldn’t leave alone!

Suddenly, the woman freezes, as if diving into the sea of her memories. She takes a sharp, pained breath, then continues speaking.

How many years has it been? Ten? Yet I still feel it all so vividly. The fear never left me. The fear of relapse.

And then! That trip—I ended up there by accident. I forced myself to go. My friend bought the tickets. Paris… the Eiffel Tower, the city of love. I should have been excited. I should have felt something. Anything. After all, I was finally going to my dream city.

But no. I felt nothing. Only an endless void staring back at me. And I stared into it, searching, searching for something to hold onto.

And then that day… You stepped onto the tourist bus, packed with strangers. You were wearing jeans, a dark blue shirt, a casually slung backpack. Sharp, cynical eyes. Thin lips. A slightly curved nose.

Suddenly, our eyes met.

And in that instant, everything followed—a hurricane, a tsunami, a storm, all at once. It was as if every string in my heart had been struck at the same time. I closed my eyes and fell into the abyss.

I saw you—the one I had been waiting for all my life. Someone I must have known in a past life, in dreams. But I knew you. You felt so familiar...

Dizziness overwhelmed me, and by the time I regained my senses, you were already walking toward the back of the bus.

And that’s where my new adventure began. I named it after you.

On one of Paris’s narrow streets, I took your photo and promised to send it to you. That’s how you gave me your contact information. Do you remember that street? I remember every part, every stone, and the people who passed us.

If only you knew! That day, I took more than one photo—thousands. I captured every step you took. The way you moved your hands. The way you smiled…

I carried an unnamable happiness with me, one that needed no name. You were light—sunlight that burst into my life uninvited and wrapped itself around me.

Depression? It turns out I needed love! Ha! Can you believe it? I needed love!

I needed you.

I fell in love with my dream of you.

She walks to the window, pressing her forehead against the cold glass. The city glows outside. The room remains half-dim. She lifts the wine bottle, refilling her glass. The dark red of the wine matches her lips perfectly.

Silence. Then her voice breaks it again.

My blood is this color too.

Did you know? Spiders, squids, and octopuses have blue blood. Some worms and leeches have green. Some sea worms have violet. Beetles and butterflies—pale yellow.

What color is your blood?

She turns to face the armchair.

Do you even have blood? Do you even understand the road I traveled—from the day I met you until now?

The truth is, I was always afraid of losing you...

And I was certain—if that happened, I would fall back into the darkness, and this time, I wouldn’t find my way out.

Maybe I was selfish. Maybe it’s my fault. I clung to the foolish little girl who grew up with you, who looked into your eyes and never saw the same emotions reflected back.

You wanted me—as a woman who could satisfy your desires. But nothing more.

She frowns, kicks off her shoes, tosses them aside.

"I’m tired."

She takes off her earrings, then her bracelet, placing them on the table nearby. She lifts her hair off her shoulders, tying it up. This time, she talks to herself, whispering so quietly that even the shadow crouched at her feet cannot hear her.

"Maybe it was your approach to the world that I loved—so real, so rational, stripped of dreams, fantasies, and illusions. Pragmatic. Every step you took left a mark on the ground, steady, unwavering. And I—lost in my dream world, floating between illusions—maybe I needed a hand so radically different to pull me out. Cold, unfeeling… But what if that, too, is just my imagination? What if I created you? Gave you the body I desired, the character that suited me, the emotions that kept me grounded? Maybe… maybe you were never even real.

Are you real? In this time, in this moment, are you real?

She turns sharply, resting her bare foot on the armrest of the chair, her dress riding up slightly.

"The same question again? How many times, how many more times do you need me to answer? What do I want? Hahaha! Do you really not understand? I want you to dance with me! And more than that, I want the warmth that always followed your presence—the warmth in which I lost my sense of time. I want your scent to linger on me. I want to be as strong as you! And in the end, I want you to tell me, just once, to tell me that I’m a ‘good girl,’ that you like me so much. Am I asking for too much? Am I too late?"

The light fades more and more. The woman grips the table with both hands, looking down, her voice trembling with tears as she continues.

"I know I’ve already lost you. I lost you that day, the moment I saw you with her. You were so happy, looking at her with eyes that had never looked at me that way. I sat there, watching from a distance. The bar was packed, music was playing. Then you got up, wrapped your arm around her waist, and started dancing. Your bodies disappeared into the rhythm of the music, and that embrace—it said everything. I sat and watched, remembering every moment we had shared, and I felt every string in my heart snap, the ones that had been resonating since the day we met.

The woman turns, running her hands over her body as if trying to recognize herself.

"That woman… she wore high heels. A black dress, perfectly fitted to her waist. Dark hair, dark eyes… a passionate gaze… And I wanted to dance. I wanted to dance the way my mother used to when she was alone, in front of the mirror."

And so I wrote to you: “It’s time to say goodbye.”

I stood outside, at the entrance of the bar, on a freezing winter night. My hands were frozen, my lips were blue, I was silent. And you replied: “Okay. Goodbye.” Nothing more...

And today—today, I will dance. And today, I will dance for you. And after—after this unbearably long day—I will leave it all in the past.

She rises. The music begins—“Non, je ne regrette rien.” 

She starts to dance.

Her bare feet move gently, tracing patterns on the floor. Her body floats like a butterfly. The mirror reflects her fragile silhouette. She spins, and the world spins with her.

She dances alone, lost in the rhythm, submerged in memories.

She dances for him.

She dances for herself.

She dances with the woman she once was.

The man’s shadow slowly fades. The room dissolves into emptiness. The music grows louder, Edith’s voice stretching through time and space, echoing. The woman’s movements become lighter, more intense.

She dances… and lets go.

And then, as the final note of the song fades, she stops. She stares at her reflection in the mirror.

A bitter, yet determined smile forms at the corner of her lips. She lifts her head and says:

"No, I regret nothing."