You apologized today. “I’m sorry for being inconsiderate and shitty the last few weeks we were together.” Really? It only took you a month to realize? Ignoring me, calling me a bitch (and not ironically!), mocking me, and calling me a liar about the one thing that I trusted you and no one else with. You refused to acknowledge my hurt when you looked at other girls and called them cute, you talked to them when I begged you not to, you straight up decided I wasn’t worthy of being treated like a human being. And what did I do? I fucking dealt with it. I smiled, pent-up my sadness and cried at night. I knew you’d have preferred it was someone else in your bed, I felt it in the way you looked at me, and especially in the way you refused to in the mornings.
You’re sorry. Fuck you. Actually, no. Thank you for acknowledging the fact you were a piece of shit. But I can’t forgive you. You used me, and for that, I’ll never be as open to love as I was. Every nice gesture, every affection will be questioned and analyzed, any man that might come after you are never going to know me the way I want to be known. So thank you for that. You couldn’t even apologize to my face. Maybe it’s because you were so guilt-ridden that you couldn’t bear it, and had to let it out. How do you think I feel? I lived with the pain you caused me, the consequences of your cruel, heartless words for weeks more than you had to. And without explanation, until you decided you were sorry.
I fucking sat there and took your hatred and abuse with love. I told myself it would be okay. The people I turned to smiled sympathetically and said they would help, but I knew I was alone. There was no one to turn to because the one person I had was the one standing over me driving a knife into my ribs and twisting it while pretending it wasn’t there. But it’s okay, because you’re sorry. Do you feel better now? Is that all it took?
I remember the time I once voiced my opinion and told you that you were selfish and cruel. You genuinely looked so confused I almost laughed. ‘How am I selfish?’ was your response. I merely smiled while a thousand words wished to fall upon you in tears and screams. ‘You are selfish because you take what others have sacrificed for you,’ I wanted to say, ‘you are cruel because you consume the love given to you with no thought of the source that gives it to you.’ But I did not. Because you are only a small boy lost in the world, and you faced it with nothing but cluelessness, strange humor, alcohol, and a complete lack of emotional depth. I don’t know why I believed your promises, all as empty as the space between your ears. My favorite – excluding the classic, I love you – would have to have been ‘We’ll be okay.’ A week later, you decided to play a mix of football, basketball and a little bit of MMA with my heart, and fuck was I broken.
I’m sorry I wasn’t good enough. I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough to leave when you said it would happen anyway. I’m sorry for not being mature enough to accept the love I had for you wasn’t enough to keep us together. I’m sorry I cried all the time. I’m sorry I nagged you, I’m sorry I wanted you to do better things, I’m sorry for wanting us.
Even now I want to cry and scream at you, I want to tear my hair out and beg you to tell me what I did wrong when I know full well I did no such thing. I want to claw at myself and beg you to take me back, even though I know you damn well don’t deserve me. I want us to be friends (after all, you always did treat your friends better than you treated me), I want us to share meals together and go to the grocery store without animosity, without feeling like a useless afterthought. But now, I don’t think you even deserve that from me.
Every time you upset me, you always cuddled me and said you were sorry, then asked me for forgiveness. I always said yes because I couldn’t bear to hold a grudge especially against you, no matter how devastated I was. I always forgave you because despite odds being against my favor, I believed you’d actually change one day and stop doing the same thing over and over again to my battered soul. Truly, I want to forgive you. I really do. But right now, I can’t. And it’s not because the pain is raw and the wounds are fresh, no. It’s because you are sorry for being inconsiderate, not sorry for treating me inconsiderately, sorry for being shitty instead of being sorry for treating me like shit. There’s a distinct difference, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you never understood that. You reduced me into near nothingness for a while, and that is why I can’t forgive you. But that’s okay. Because you’re sorry.