Novel & Cerita My Body Is Not An Apology

Even if they are, it's kinda dark here, so they won't see much. I crossed my arms, narrowing my eyes at him. “Okay, Mr, I already apologized. You don’t have to start hurling insults like you’re getting paid per word.” He let out a dry, humorless chuckle. “Oh, so because you apologized, you think that magically erases the disgusting mess you made? If ‘sorry’ could fix everything, the world would be a utopia, don’t you think?” I huffed. “I know an apology doesn’t fix everything, but it at least shows remorse. You know, that thing called basic human decency? Saying sorry helps avoid conflict.”

My stupid body won't let me. I bury my face in his chest, my shoulder shakes as I break down crying. Michael rubs soothing circles on my back as he apologizes over and over again. But it's not his fault. It's mine. My stupid body, my stupid head, and my stupid past... It's me!

"I have no defense for it. I am not asking you for one." I looked at the man who had broken my life in half, apologizing and asking for nothing in return, and I hated how much of it reached me. A month ago those words would have been everything I owned. I had wanted them so badly, for so long, that hearing them now landed like water handed to me an hour after I had already learned to live thirsty. Too late to save me. Not too late to hurt. "An apology is not a repair," I said. "I know that too. I am not trying to repair it. I am trying to stop lying to you. It is the only thing I have left to give you that is not poisoned."

I countered, crouching down to her level. "Easier to disconnect from the pain I allowed to happen," she replied with a shuddering breath. "The pain I endorsed and agreed to inflict. An apology is meaningless in response to what I let happen to you. But I'm going to, regardless. It is the only way I know to start making amends. To heal what I broke."

I closed my eyes, the cold reality of his words crashing over me. “I don't know how to look at her sometimes," I admitted, my voice dropping all pretense of aggression, stripped down to raw, bleeding truth. "An apology isn't enough, Jonathan. I can say I'm sorry until my lungs run out of air, but that doesn't fix being a fool. It doesn't erase treating her like trash, or standing there and allowing people to walk all over her while I said nothing. It doesn't undo letting Sophia manipulate me, or give me back those missing years of my children's lives."

She blast. “Uhm mum how I did you find out?” I replied. “That’s not the bone of contention son.” “Did you or did you not?” I fell silent for a moment “Yes I did.” “I’m unimpressed by such actions.” “Are you supposed to give such apology through text message?” She fired. Before I could defend myself, she launches into a brutally honest lecture about accountability. “A real apology is not something sent from the safety of a phone screen.” She paused. “It requires standing in front of the person you hurt.”

She had developed it into a precise instrument over many years — the kind of waiting that was entirely still on the surface and entirely attentive underneath, that gave the other person the space to arrive at whatever they had come to say without the pressure of being watched arriving at it. Jade looked at the row of lockers. She uncrossed her arms. She crossed them again. "I owe you an apology," she said. Lily looked at her. She had not predicted this. She had a model for Jade, had been running it since the first week, updating it with each new data point — and the model had not produced this as an output. Not because Jade was not capable of it, she had not made that assessment, but because

"It's not your fault! Why are you apologizing? The only one who should feel shame is whoever is behind this-anyone who uses underhanded methods to target a young woman alone, that's who deserves it!" I blinked, stunned into silence. Since my eighteenth birthday, the refrain of apology had been drilled into me, repeated relentlessly by people I had lived with for eighteen years-the Frost Family, my "family." They had demanded I submit, bend, and admit guilt at every turn. And now, for the first time, a stranger-a man I had known only a few months-was telling me that I did not need to apologize. That I was not in the wrong.

I said, but he shook his head in response. "I'm sorry because I was weak," he rephrased his apology, and my forehead creased in a frown. "Cynthia! I kept asking myself why I would get so angry that I would do those things to you when, in reality, I couldn’t bring myself to do any harm to you. There was this weird resistance in my body to harm you, almost like somebody was trying to control me," once he explained the condition, visible goosebumps appeared on my body.

I didn't want to talk about it with her. Saying sorry was tantamount to admitting fault, and I’d learned that humbly asking for forgiveness was a useless, self-destructive exercise, like flinging your body in front of a speeding train.It could only end in being flattened. And a horrible death to either your senses or self esteem. “Ten years.” I replied, looking away slightly. Her jaw dropped. “Seriously? You haven't apologized in ten years? How's that even possible?" "It is." I said. "Especially when you realize you owe no one an apology for actions you did by yourself and enjoyed doing."