She Apologized

You broke her heart and she apologized. Her words floated like petals in the wind, soft, sorrowful. "I'm sorry," she whispered, as though the blame could ever be hers, as though your indifference was a shadow she cast. But no one sees the sun and blames it for causing the night.

Her eyes, tired from nights spent awake, watching the ceiling spin with thoughts of you, were still filled with something you couldn’t name - something that wasn’t yet dead. But you saw her tears, didn’t you? You watched them fall silently, making the kind of sound only she could hear - like leaves crumbling underfoot in an empty forest. And you said nothing. You let her carry the weight of the silence, as though it belonged to her.

She kept saying sorry.

Sorry for asking too much.

Sorry for loving too deeply.

Sorry for being broken by someone who never cared enough to stay whole.

But most of all, I’m sorry for believing in something that was never there.

You wanted to leave that night, didn’t you? The way your hand lingered too long at the doorknob, the way your shoes tapped impatiently against the wooden floor. You wanted to be anywhere but there, in that room filled with the ghosts of promises you’d never intended to keep. And yet, she smiled through it all. A smile that almost hurt to see because it was hollow, like a memory that had forgotten itself.

"I never wanted to hurt you," you finally said, but even you didn’t believe it. The words tasted stale, rehearsed - like a line from a script you had read a hundred times. Her smile widened, but her eyes, oh! her eyes, they dimmed just a little more. She knew. She always knew.

And still, she apologized.

You left. Of course, you did. You always leave. You walked into the night, where the cold bit at your skin, but it wasn’t the cold you felt. It was something heavier, something unfamiliar, something you couldn’t name because you had never allowed yourself to feel it before. Regret. But no, not yet. That would come later.

Days passed. Weeks, even. You thought you’d moved on. Thought you had buried her beneath layers of distraction and busyness. But her apology haunted you, didn’t it? Like a song stuck in your head, a melody you couldn’t shake. You told yourself it didn’t matter. That she was fine, that she would get over it. People always get over things, don’t they?

One night, you found yourself at the door again. Why, you didn’t know. Maybe curiosity. Maybe guilt. Maybe something darker - something that tugged at the edges of your mind, whispering things you didn’t want to hear.

You knocked. No answer. Knocked again. Silence.

You called her name, half-expecting her to appear, to open the door with that same broken smile. But the house was still. Too still.

The door was unlocked. You pushed it open, the creak of the hinges louder than your heartbeat. Inside, everything looked the same - too the same. The room was neat, as if untouched by time. The air smelled faintly of lavender, her favorite scent. You walked through the hall, calling her name again, your voice sounding foreign in the quiet.

And then you saw it.

A letter on the kitchen table, her handwriting delicate and neat, as always. You unfolded it with trembling fingers, your breath catching in your throat as you read the words written in that familiar, fragile script.

"I’m sorry for everything. I couldn’t be for you. I’m sorry for the love I gave, which wasn’t enough. I’m sorry for the nights I loved you more than myself. But most of all, I’m sorry that I couldn’t stay. I hope one day, you understand why I had to leave."

Your heart raced, pounding in your chest, your mind scrambling to make sense of the words. Leave? Where? Why?

You rushed to her room. The door was half-open. But when you stepped inside, the air hit you like a hard punch to the gut.

She was there. Lying on the bed, her face pale, her hands folded neatly across her chest, as though she were sleeping.

But she wasn’t sleeping.

She had left like she said she would.

And suddenly, her apology made sense.

You had broken her heart. But it wasn’t yours to fix anymore.

The last thing you remember was falling to your knees, her final words echoing in the hollow spaces of your soul.

"I'm sorry."