the audacity of the guilty

what happens when regret arrives too late, and still asks to be held

There are wounds that heal, and there are wounds that just learn to hide. I thought I had tucked this one away for good, neatly, like a letter I never sent. But then someone I once loved reached back into the quiet, not with an apology, but with a drunken monologue delivered to someone else. Not to me. Never to me. Just about me.
They reached inside me with the same hands that once offered care, and all of it spilled out again.

It’s cruel how someone can hurt you again in the same place, like they remembered where you were soft. Like they aimed. And what hurts the most isn't always the action itself, but the confirmation of a pattern you were hoping you imagined.

I keep coming back to silence. Not because I want to, not this time. I wanted to stay loud. I wanted to grow out of that reflex, the one where I disappear into myself. But silence knows me. It knows where I live. And sometimes I think it misses me more than any person ever has.

They said I was great. That they regretted how things played out. That they didn’t mean for it to get so messy. That they just had other priorities.

And just like that, I was back in it.

Back in the ache I’d worked so hard to silence. Back in the remembering, not just of the hurt, but of the softness that came before it. How kind they were. How warm. How good. Until they weren’t. Until they were sharp-edged and gone and full of noise that I hadn’t chosen.

What broke me wasn’t just what they did. It was the clarity. The confirmation that they had understood me the whole time. That they saw me clearly — knew the way I moved, the way I loved, what would break me — and still did it anyway. Not out of confusion but out of choice.

They knew I was full of grace, and gave me none.
They called me peace and happiness and then left me with none to feel.

I keep thinking about how someone can say good things about you in hindsight while knowing they left you with nothing good to say in return. Like they get to hold onto a version of you that’s all warmth and light, while you’re stuck holding the memory of their coldness, their withdrawal, their absence.

I’d already done the hard work of moving on without an apology, without acknowledgment, without grace. And now, without asking, they’ve handed me their guilt like a flaming match and expected me to hold it.

They couldn’t even say these things to my face.

Not out of embarrassment. Not out of fear. Not even out of empathy for what it might do to me. But because — once again — someone else’s comfort was more important than my peace. They spoke my name like it was still theirs to hold, and somehow still didn’t speak to me. I was just a character in their little redemption arc. A footnote in their guilt.

I never wanted closure. I never even believed in it. I had already buried the hurt. I had already built something new on top of it, shaky, maybe, but mine. But then they showed up with a shovel. Not to dig me out. Just to bury me deeper.

There’s a wicked kind of greed in that. The kind that makes people mistake their conscience for permission. That makes them believe they can toss their regret into your lap and call it healing, as if the mess belongs to both of you equally. As if they didn’t create it and walk away.

Once, I hurt. Now, I’m just angry. Very angry.

Because how dare you return only to remind me that you always knew better. That you knew who I was, how I felt, what I gave, and still — still — chose to treat me like I was disposable. Replaceable. Erasable.

How much more of your audacity must I endure? What more could you possibly want from me? I gave you softness when I had none left. I gave you silence when you didn’t deserve it. I gave you a story with no villain in it, just so you could sleep at night.

But if you want to be the hero of your story, you don’t get to drop into mine like a ghost and ask to be forgiven just because you finally feel haunted.

You don’t get to hold tender memories of me.
You don’t get to like me in silence.
You don’t get to mourn me in private like I died in some tragic accident you had no part in.
You don’t get to tell my friends how amazing I am as if you didn’t already know that, as if you didn’t wreak havoc despite knowing that.
You don’t get to regret what you did to me and still not speak to me. You don’t get to deliver your guilt like a eulogy to the wrong audience and call that growth.

Because the truth is: things could have been different. But they weren’t.
Because you made sure they weren’t.

You were not confused. You were not overwhelmed. You were not lost.
You were certain.
You were deliberate.
You prioritized what you wanted. And it was yourself.

You don’t get to slip another body into the blame‑seat and pretend your hands were tied.
You chose the spotlight you wanted, the applause you needed, the comfort you prized, and it wasn’t mine.
Sure, someone marched you to the crossroad, but you stood there, looked me in the eye, and still turned away. So don’t rewrite the scene with a convenient antagonist.
The only author of that decision was you.

Don’t come back now with your sad little could’ve-beens and “she was so good to me”s.
Don’t whisper sweetness behind my back like it’s a gift.
Don’t cry over the softness you burned through.

I reject your guilt and the illusion that it’s enough. That silent admiration counts. That hindsight gets to rewrite harm.

You don’t get to hurt someone and still call them a blessing. You don’t get to speak fondly of what you buried.
You don’t get to say I was peace when you were the war.

You don’t get to make my people feel bad for you.
You don’t get to weaponize regret in front of the ones who picked me up off the floor.
You don’t get to look them in the eye like you’re the one who lost something precious. You lost it on purpose. So don’t act like it slipped through your fingers.

And you definitely don’t get to ask them to talk to me.
To “say something on your behalf.”
To test the water for you, like I’m some possibility you’re circling back to now that your conscience is loud.

You don’t get to plan some secret conversation, away from anyone who might hear it and take it back to your top priority.
You don’t get to think I’ll listen just because you finally feel ready to speak.

So no, you don’t get to come back, not as a whisper, not as a memory, not as a person learning their lesson too late.
There is no version of this where you return, there is no soft landing for you here.

I’m not your mirror and I’m not your priest. Whatever you’re carrying now, you carry alone, and I really hope it’s heavy.

You’re not misunderstood, you’re simply unwelcome. I don’t need revenge, I don’t need closure, I don’t even need to be right.

I just need to stay gone. And I will.

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