Shades of Love Hurt and Healing

“I wanted one moment. One moment where he could look at me—really look—and say, “I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve what I did.” Not excuses. Not confusion. Not silence. Just accountability. For a long time, I imagined what that apology would sound like. I rehearsed it in my mind. I wrote it for him when he couldn’t write it himself.

My chest feels heavy with the awareness of what I’ve done and the pain it caused you. I carry that weight every day. I don’t expect words to undo the damage, but I need you to know this apology is real, not reflexive. I regret hurting you more than I know how to explain.

You weren’t just someone in my life. You mattered to me in a way that shifted everything. Losing you feels like losing direction, like realizing too late what should have been protected from the start.

I understand now that remorse alone means nothing without change. I don’t ask for forgiveness as a right, only as something that could one day be earned. I’m trying to face the parts of myself that led here—not with excuses, but with responsibility. If growth is possible, it has to begin there.

What I feel isn’t dependency. It’s the recognition of what I failed to honor when I had the chance. I know trust doesn’t rebuild itself through promises. It rebuilds through consistency, restraint, and time—if it rebuilds at all.

I don’t know what the future holds, or if I have any place in yours. I only know that what I felt was real to me, and the loss of it is something I finally see clearly.

That is the apology I waited for. And slowly, painfully, I realized I wasn’t waiting for him. I was grieving the version of myself that believed he could be better.

I no longer need to understand why he chose what he chose. Only he knows the calculations he made, the fears he protected, the version of himself he wanted to preserve. I spent years trying to decode it, trying to measure my worth against someone else’s shadow. Now I see that his choices were never a measure of my value. They were a reflection of his priorities.”

Read more in my book “Shades of Love, Hurt and Healing”.