I looked around the empty gym. On one white wall were the signatures of hundreds of students.

“I hope you keep working on it, Marvin,” I said. “I don’t hate you anymore. But forgiving someone doesn’t mean going back to them, and it doesn’t mean forgetting.”

“I know,” he whispered.

“Take care of yourself.”

I hung up.

The call changed nothing about my life. It just closed a heavy door that had still been creaking somewhere in the back of my memory.