Notes Toward an Apology I Will Not Send

1 point · November 2026

You will not read this, because you do not know it exists, and I have arranged things so that if you ever did, you would not know it was me. That is the only condition under which I could write it. I am not proud of the condition.

I was wrong about the flat. I said it was a bad idea and I said it in front of your parents and I said it in the voice I use when I have decided something, which you once told me was the worst voice I have. It was a good flat. You were right about the light.

I was wrong about the dog, later, for different reasons, and I was wrong about not coming to the thing in March, which I said was about work and was not about work.

What I was not wrong about is harder. I will not put it here, because this is an apology and an apology that includes the things you were right about is just an argument wearing a coat.

I have a week to decide whether to put my name on this. I already know I won't. But the site says the piece stays, without a name, for anyone to read, and I find that I like the idea of it being out there, unowned, saying the thing I could not say to you. A message in a bottle, thrown into a lake with no current.

If by some accident you find it: it's me. You'll know from the bit about the voice.