The Fourth Year
Sorry By Halsey
For my mother — who thought love wasn’t hers to keep. But stayed anyway.
It starts with the light. Not the glaring kind — just the dull amber flicker from a faulty streetlamp bleeding through the blinds. The kind of light that keeps me awake even when I’m tired, like it knows I’ve got something left to remember.
I sit in the corner of the apartment I never really unpacked. A mug gone cold in my hands. A voicemail blinking on the old phone I haven’t touched in weeks. I haven’t played music all evening. Not since the song. The one your mom used to sing when you cooked together, back when the kitchen still smelled like garlic and basil instead of silence.
It was your birthday two days ago. I didn’t call.
But I remembered.
I always remember. The shape of your name on a coffee order. The way you looked when you laughed with your whole body, like it surprised you every time joy decided to show up. The skin of your knuckles when you reached across the couch. I remember that too — my own instinct to pull away just before contact, like some part of me still believed it wasn’t mine to have.
And the sound of your voice. The way it dipped when you were nervous. The quiet patience in the way you waited for me to meet you halfway, and the way I never really did. Not fully.
I told myself I was being kind. That it was better not to hold on if I couldn’t promise to stay.
But kindness never looked like this.
The truth is uglier. I wore you like an heirloom, fragile and borrowed. Too precious to keep. Too dangerous to break. I never said that aloud, but it bled out in all the ways I never said anything when it mattered. You called me mean once — not in anger, just a whisper over pillows when you thought I was asleep. I wasn’t. I just didn’t know how to say you were right.
I didn’t think anyone could really love me. Not fully. Not truly. Not without peeling me back until I shattered. Somewhere deep down, I didn’t believe I deserved it — not the real kind of love, the stay-when-it’s-hard kind. I thought anyone who got close enough would eventually see the cracks and walk away, so I made sure to leave first. And I was terrified you would. So I made sure you never got that far.
But you didn’t walk away. I did. Again and again — emotionally, physically, in all the small ways that don’t look like leaving until they’ve already built a wall. I laughed when I wanted to cry. I went quiet when I should’ve begged you to stay. I made you doubt things that were real, just because I couldn’t believe they were real for me.
There were moments you almost reached me. Like the night you played that old record and asked if I ever thought of us in ten years. I laughed — not because it was funny, but because I couldn’t picture myself that far ahead with anyone. You said you could. That maybe we’d have a cluttered kitchen and a dog that slept on the couch. I changed the subject. We never talked about it again.
You brought flowers the next morning. I threw them out that night. Not because I didn’t love them — but because I did. Because they made me feel something I didn’t think I was allowed to keep.
I pull my knees to my chest and listen to the old record player hum under the weight of a scratched-out song. I still haven’t fixed the needle. It skips now, every time, just before the chorus. A mercy.
My mind drifts to the last night. Your hands in your jacket pockets. The way you looked at me — like you were waiting for something. And maybe you were. Maybe you waited right up until I turned away and didn’t say goodbye.
It wasn’t cruelty. That’s what I tell myself. It was fear, sharp and gut-deep. The kind that makes you run when something good tries to stay. I thought I’d ruined you by loving you wrong. But now I know: what hurt the most was never letting you in enough to love me back the way I needed. You did everything right. I just didn’t believe it was real.
I treated you like jewelry — something beautiful I could try on but never keep. Something I admired in moments but tucked away when it didn’t match my fear. And the worst part is, I knew I was doing it. I just kept hoping you’d understand what I couldn’t say.
The voicemail blinks again. I don’t press play.
I already know what it says.
And someone will love you. Someone who doesn’t flinch. Someone who won’t need silence to feel safe. Someone who doesn’t leave before they’re left.
But someone isn’t me.
I set the mug down gently, like it might crack. I stand and cross the room to where the window catches the streetlamp glow. My reflection’s soft around the edges — all static and regret.
I touch the glass, and it’s cold.
Outside, it begins to rain.
Inside, I let myself cry — not for you. For the version of me who didn’t know how to stay. For the girl who only ever learned how to leave before love could prove her wrong.
And for the worst truth of all: that I might have been loved. Really, truly loved. And I will never know what that could’ve become, because I was too afraid to believe it was mine.
