Life is full of ifs and buts. If I had done that.. If they had said that.. If this had happened..
I can’t think of any excuses I have ever made with anybody to avoid hurting or retaliating them, whatsoever, for anything major, I mean. They need the taste of their own medicine. For, who is ever empathetic these days! It could have been my counter-stroke. But for good or for worse, I make sure I never regret, in retrospection, having not done or reacted something. Just like you can’t go back in time to make the wrong right, you also can’t relive to make yourself act in a certain way. You get to live an instance only once. Make the most of it and live it on your own terms, not dictated by the society’s propriety.
While it is true that you cannot cry over spilt milk or take back the words said, if the other person is really an acquaintance of yours, this should not even matter. They always find a way to get back to you.
Time heals things. Give it time, things come back to normalcy without a push. Let the things take their own course to fall in place. This might turn out to be the best instead of trying and ruining even the slightest chance of making things better!