Libra
Society is indeed a contract. ... It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection.
Edmund Burke
Words that cannot be taken back live in the room now, and you have to decide what to do with them there. The impulse is to find a way to make things even again, to restore what was before the words arrived, but that version of even no longer exists. What you are looking for instead is a new arrangement that both people can live with, something that acknowledges what was said without letting it define everything that comes after. This requires you to sit with the discomfort longer than feels natural, to resist the quick apology or the quick dismissal, until you can see what kind of repair the situation actually wants.