"At least you still say you’re sorry."
When I opened my eyes after a sleepless night, she was already putting on her make-up. On the bedside table my phone lay like a corpse. Its screen still displayed the words she had sent at 3:42 a.m. Let’s stop fighting. I’m sorry.
It was the same sentence a month ago. And the month before that. The word “sorry” had stopped being the mortar that patched us together; it had become a slow-acting poison.
A flower that blooms at night
Why does she keep saying sorry?
While she was in the bathroom I whispered the question to myself. The city’s neon bled through the dark window, and my face floated on the glass like a ghost. Thick shadows pooled beneath my eyes.
I know what her sorry really means. It means: I’m starting to dislike you. It is a confession that the moments when I do not love you are multiplying. Yet we pretend to accept the word as a genuine apology, and once it is spoken we lie back in bed and search for each other’s bodies again.
Sex steeped in guilt can taste strangely sweet; even the hatred we bear for one another can be scorched away by hot skin.
The first lie
"Jung-woo, I’m sorry. There’s a company dinner tonight…"
I had left the office barely thirty minutes earlier when her call came. The air had turned sharp; the wine in my hand was beginning to freeze.
At first I believed her. I told the same lie myself. In truth I was on my way to drink with old university friends. We drank until dawn. When I returned after two a.m. she was sitting on the sofa, eyes red. Had she been crying? She asked where I had been. I lied. She said nothing.
Then, after a long silence:
I’m sorry too. I started this.
In that moment we both knew the other was lying, yet we closed our eyes to it. The word “sorry” had become our shield. But that night her body was cold; when I touched her she trembled. It was the first time we feared each other.
The second lie
"Jung-min, I’m sorry. I’m just… off today."
I was watching her back. Water droplets slid from her hair after her shower. She sat on the bed, scrolling through her phone. For the past month she had been having “dinner with a friend” every Wednesday night. At first I believed her; she needed friends beyond me.
But last week she left her phone behind. The screen lit up with a message.
Sender: Sang-hyun.
So tonight she’ll see him again.
I said nothing. One more “sorry” and we could cover it all over once more.
Why do we drink this poison?
Psychology calls this phenomenon guilt addiction. The momentary relief granted by the word “sorry”, the delusion that admitting “I was wrong” can erase everything. But it is like a drug. At first it numbs small guilts; with repetition it demands bigger lies and deeper betrayals. In the end the word itself becomes meaningless.
We say we’re sorry not because we truly are, but because we want the other person to fall silent. The word is no longer an apology; it has become a spell of sealing. Utter it and everything is resealed—our real feelings, our mutual distrust, our secret wish to leave. All of it is buried again.
The final truth
"Jung-woo, I’m sorry."
The phrase flew toward me again today. I made no reply. I switched off the bedside lamp and closed my eyes. She crept over and grasped my arm.
Is this truly the last time?
No. We are already over. Only the word “sorry” still clings to us like a rotting bandage. It is no longer “I love you” and no longer even “I’m sorry.” It is simply evidence that we no longer want each other.
Are you, at this very moment, telling someone you’re sorry? Ask yourself: is it a real apology, or merely a quiet incantation to bury the other alive?