heya, thanks so much. I usually won't tell people how to read the story but i can tell from your post that you picked up all the things that i really wanted people to from this story so thanks, it's always reassuring to get messages like that.
In terms of the choices: Yeah, i wish their were more choices too. this was my first attempt at writing anything and i think it would be easier to write a book than a VN just because of all the branching paths and stuff. that can get out of hand really quick so i sorta limited them because my concentration is trash. Plus, the more paths i develop, the longer things take and people get antsy for updates. It's not very often people accusing me of being lazy but 2 or 3 have over the years and while i dont personalize those comments, the time it takes to create something like this is always on my mind.
the specific choice that you listed: the swimming accident, is a tough one. that's been heavily debated on our discord since it happened and i'll go on the record as saying that i have no regret for not giving the audience a choice. there was a lot that went into that moment and giving the reader a choice in that moment essentially breaks the story to me. I realized when i was writing this story that these characters and my ability to control them was out of my hands. they began to have a life of their own beyond me. i knew that for awhile but not until the beach scene. I found myself screaming at zack. i was frustrated and and angry and i wanted him to be a hero there... because that's what people are supposed to do. but in the reality is that that's not always what people do. sometimes trauma can twist you and zack's response in that scene is very much a realistic response. i couldn't control him and i was angry and i wanted the audience to feel the same like of control. while the game is a VN and we usually have choices associated with that to get the ending we want, it was never up to us, the audience, to choose this ending. these characters had to find what worked for them. a large part of this narrative was being yourself and finding who you really are. if the audience was allowed to change the story, or manipulate the character, that defeats the whole purpose because the characters would still have someone telling them who they were and who they should become.
i know some will disagree with that approach. hell, i disagree with it because there's things in the story that i would choose differently for them. but that wasn't my choice to make and i wanted to pass that along to the audience as well