This is my rather morbid take on a prompt about writing a scene where one character apologises to another without using the words 'sorry', 'apologise' or 'regret' (see cover image). I think I veered slightly off it in that the person being apologised to is not actually present in the scene, but still. Despite it being rather grim, I am proud of how this turned out. I hope you enjoy it too, and please leave feedback!

The wind ruffles my hair as I stand at the edge of the world and consider all that has been laid before me. It is beautiful, I think, almost too beautiful for me to even deserve seeing it. If she were here with me now, she'd probably think it beautiful too. But if she had been here with me, there'd be no reason for me to be here right now, so close to the edge.

And in a way, I suppose that is the point.

I'm not sure how it happened, but I went too far, did a thing (and more besides that) so irredeemable that now she does not want to be with me anymore, does not want to hear the sound of my voice or see my name flash up on her phone. She does not want my name mentioned around her, or to go to the places we used to haunt together. I am hated, and seen as beyond redemption, by the one I love the most. And for sure, it hurts. It hurts.

"Go. Go now. I don't want to see you again!"

Though I know that it is all my fault that I ended up like this with her, it is not as if I've just let it lie like that. I've not tried to twist and dodge to get out of it or to make things look as if they were all down to her. I've tried to say, over and over again, how much I wish that I hadn't done what I did. That it was a mistake, an error I will learn from, that I will never repeat. I've tried, countless times to reach out and say that I loved her and missed her and that I would spend the rest of my life making it up to her. I have tried, over and over. And it is not as if I was unaware of what I was doing when I did it- I just did not grasp just how damaging it would be to us, to her, to the way she felt about me. But I know now, and I am trying, I have been trying, for all this time, but it seems like it is not working.

"Your words are meaningless now! What makes you think I'm just going to believe you just like that?!"

These are the things she has said to me, and I have taken them to heart. I have always taken everything she's said to heart, because all her words are more valuable than gold. Everything about her has always been gold to me, and that's why this hurts, but it is also why I am here. Why I am standing at the edge of the world, contemplating.

"If you mean it, then actually do something!"

That is exactly what I am doing, right here. It is scary, it is dizzying, but it needs to be done. Words clearly won't cut it, anything else like what I've been trying to do to show her that I am remorseful has not worked. I'm at the end of my tether and it hurts. It hurts. So here I am, the wind in my hair, looking at what's laid in front of me. No doubt, what I will do in a moment will mar this beauty, but I do not deserve it anyway, so that's okay. It doesn't matter. All that matters is that she will forgive me, that she will know for sure that I really did want to make thing up to her, to atone for my sins, as they were. And if I do this, she will.

But first, I close my eyes and imagine her from before I messed up. Beautiful eyes, big smile, dancing, always dancing. More valuable than gold, everything about her. This is for her. So any doubts I may have had are all gone, and I open my eyes to look at the scenery in front of me for one final time as I bend down to take off my shoes. Carefully, I place them on the ground, so that they'll be visible to anyone who comes here, so that it can be seen that my atonement was real.

And then, I take a deep breath, and step off the edge of the world.