An apology that wants nothing is harder to hold than one that wants something. The one that wants something, you can refuse. The one that wants nothing, you have to feel.

People warned me against it— told me to set it down and let it go, because apologies sent into certain kinds of silence have a way of being rewritten by the person who receives them. I knew that going in and I told them my reasoning: an apology is not an apology if it comes with expectations. What someone does with your apology, how someone interprets y…