Guilt feels like a million million ants writhing all over you, gnawing into your skin with their tiny mouths, crawling inside of you from every access point possible, running down your throat and straight to your stomach where you drown them in bile. And also a little bit of a headache.
Did you ever wonder what I must have been thinking?
Guilt. Horror. Regret. A swarm of tiny insects blanketing my skin. I think maybe humanity’s greatest folly is the nature to think only of yourself.
It seems to me that life likes to hold up a mirror for you to look into from either side. A chance to experience the same event from each perspective, creating these strange, disjointed little echoes throughout time. It’s something that allows you to understand each other better, to grow through experience and through hindsight. But to me, it just feels like the two of us are tangled in an ouroboros of misery.
A twisted, hellish chain reaction of pain that we get caught in, following in each other’s footsteps, until finally… what? Where does it end, if it ever does? Me, suffering alone, loving alone. Him, following right behind me. Me, being left behind with jarring speed, left in a daze. Him, suffering the same thing at my own hands. Like some horrendous curse where we’re doomed to follow a short distance behind each other on the wheel of suffering, to feel all the same pain.
My blood grows cold when I think of what might be next, a horrible fear of what else I could see from the other side. Hours of that soul-ripping agony, the horrible, animal-like shrieking tearing out from my lungs. And him, gently holding me in silence as I broke down into pieces…
It’s only on the other side, in the reflection of my fragile, quivering fear that I truly realize what I’ve done.
The apology was all I needed.
How is that possible? How can it be? It’s not nearly enough. But suddenly, one of the echoes is there, transposing over my mind. A boy in a parked car asking me through tears, I don’t understand; why aren’t you mad at me? And me, smiling at him with a bruised heart, I’m just happy to see you again.
Guilt. Horror. Regret. I was too contorted and possessed by my pain to realize I had inflicted the same hurt onto someone else. Not thinking at all of what he might be thinking, what he might be feeling, too occupied with my own thoughts, my own misery. The pain I went through—being disoriented, confused, suddenly abandoned—it’s like a plunge into ice-cold water, the idea that he felt a similar way because of me. How can I reckon with the mistakes I’ve made? How can I ever begin to make up for it at all? There aren’t enough apologies in the world, not enough days on any calendar.
That fear of myself, that I can’t do anything but hurt is so much stronger, feels so valid when I see just how far it can go, when I have already caused so much harm. What if I made a mistake coming back? What if I only end up bringing him pain?
But I can see it glimmering through the haze, a tiny flickering speck of hope. Because I have something important, someone precious to change for. Because I’ve been on the other side; I know exactly what it feels like. I don’t want anyone else to ever have to feel that pain. Especially not him. And especially not because of me.