Chapter 1

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DEDICATION For everyone carrying a grudge — and wondering if they can put it down.

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Mrs. Nakamura's eighth-grade ethics class was not popular.

It met at 8 AM on Mondays, it had no textbook, and its assignments were, in the words of Tyler Marsh, "emotionally violent."

But the assignment she gave in October was different. It was worse.

"This semester's project," Mrs. Nakamura said, writing on the whiteboard in her precise handwriting, "is called The Forgiveness Project."

The room went silent. Not the good kind of silent.

"Each of you will identify a conflict in your life — a grudge, a resentment, a broken relationship — and work toward forgiveness. Not necessarily reconciliation. Forgiveness. There's a difference."

"What's the difference?" asked Sophie Park.

"Reconciliation means repairing the relationship. Forgiveness means releasing the poison of resentment from your own heart. You can forgive someone without ever speaking to them again."

"What if they don't deserve forgiveness?" asked Marcus Williams.

"The Bahá'í writer I've been studying says that forgiveness is not about what the other person deserves. It's about what you deserve. You deserve to be free of anger. The question is whether you're brave enough to let it go."

Dario Reyes, in the back row, crossed his arms. Dario had a grudge against his father, who had left the family two years ago. The grudge was large and justified and comfortable, and the idea of forgiving it felt like someone asking him to put down his shield in the middle of a battle.

"I'm not doing this," he said.

"You don't have to forgive," Mrs. Nakamura said. "You have to engage with the concept. Write about it. Think about it. See what happens."

Dario stared at the whiteboard. THE FORGIVENESS PROJECT. The words looked dangerous. Like a door he didn't want to open because he wasn't sure what was on the other side.

Over the next eight weeks, twenty-three students engaged with forgiveness. Some forgave siblings for betrayals. Some forgave friends for lies. Some forgave themselves — which turned out to be the hardest kind.

Sophie forgave her mother for remarrying too quickly after her father's death. She didn't tell her mother. She wrote about it in her journal, and something inside her chest — a knot that had been there so long she'd forgotten it wasn't supposed to be there — loosened.

Marcus forgave his former best friend for spreading a rumor. He actually called him. The conversation was awkward and brief and insufficient. But afterward, Marcus felt lighter. Like he'd been carrying a backpack full of rocks and someone had unzipped it.

He read the letter to the class on the last day, his voice shaking, his hands gripping the paper so hard it wrinkled.

When he finished, the room was silent. Then Mrs. Nakamura said, very quietly, "That is the bravest thing I have ever heard in this classroom."

THE END

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR