Looking back, I never meant to sell my soul. People say that when caught in some Faustian bargain, like joining a gym for the occasional yoga class only to end up with a personal trainer, a protein powder habit, and $200/month in dues. I had a simpler goal: I needed to pay my mortgage.

 

I figured my required resolution would be pedestrian this year, like “Eat fewer processed foods” or “Stop pretending to understand jazz.” But as I scrolled through the Resolution Exchange, past the bargain-bin oaths to “Drink more water” or “Be kinder to baristas,” my eyes landed on “Never forgive.”

 

I clicked for details.

 

Its owner was Everett Bellington, a billionaire famous for creating the Uber of coffins, transforming funeral homes into high-yield investments by introducing surge pricing for grieving families. It wasn’t clear why he wanted to offload it, but he offered a commission that would keep a roof over my head for a year, and really, what’s a year of resentment for financial security?

 

I accepted.

 

“Congratulations!” A burst of confetti filled the screen as a dialogue box reminded that the resolution was legally binding.

 

At first, nothing happened. Forgiveness was merely emotional housekeeping — nice, tidy, but hardly essential. People who forgave too quickly lacked discipline. They wavered in their convictions.

 

Look at me. Unyielding. A man of principle.

 

However, the inactivity violations started in March, and infractions were deducted from my earnings. The app needed proof of my commitment.

 

By April, it had become a game.

 

A date apologized after ghosting me due to a “family emergency.” Whatever. No forgiveness.

 

A cashier neglected to scan my loyalty card. When he offered to fix it, I murmured, “Forget it. You’ve spent your trust.”

 

A neighbor drove into my plum tree. I lectured him on how my late grandmother had planted it after the war as a symbol of peace, but now, it only reminded me of his incompetence. I made him pay to have it removed.

 

By May, I had compiled a spreadsheet of every slight, insult, and betrayal, and I systematically contacted each offender to remind them of my enduring contempt. Late at night, I pored over the spreadsheet, sorting, graphing, refining categories and severity, cultivating my scorn.

 

Meanwhile, the app tracked my social capital and measured how well I’d lived up to my resolution. The app broadcasted my positive metrics when I texted my eleven-year-old niece, Tabitha, suggesting she send a reciprocal Christmas card this year. It rewarded me with an advance on my commission. Dopamine surged, retraining my neural pathways.

 

Love, grief, nostalgia — without the ability to forgive, my compassion soured like expired yogurt.

 

Jeremy resurfaced at a coffee shop in July. He’d once been my everything but frequently became my nothing, randomly falling in and out of my life. Whipped into a tailspin of performative happiness, he approached with a resolution of his own: “Seek amends.”

 

“I messed up,” he said, smiling sheepishly as if coaxing me into remembering the good times: nights debating which celebrities we’d sleep with; absurd road trips to collect lighthouse figurines; how he’d caress my chin when he kissed me.

 

But I felt nothing.

 

“I’ve spent the year making things right with everyone,” he continued, “but I can’t move forward until—”

 

Two men, two resolutions, bound like a Gordian knot, utterly irreconcilable.

 

“I don’t care,” I said flatly, and I didn’t. The algorithm had seen to that.

 

His face crumpled. I waited for the guilt to bubble up from my gut, to feel the sting of remorse, but it never came. There was no satisfaction, either, no vindication. Just a hollow awareness that I’d become a negative space, a person with edges but no depth.

 

Jeremy exhaled, nodded, and left.

 

Afterward, the app prompted: You are stronger than mercy.

 

I didn’t think about Jeremy again until September. Alone, I stared at the ceiling, trying to remember how it felt to miss someone, to long for a do-over, to ache.

 

As autumn settled in, the world shrank around me. Days shortened, shadows stretched, and a chill seeped into my blood. Brittle leaves accumulated in my yard like unresolved apologies while my home — vast and cavernous — held its breath. I went weeks without speaking to anyone. Every bridge burned and broken.

 

By the time December’s snow arrived, my contract was nearly over. I browsed the Exchange, eager to find a more empathetic resolution for the new year.

 

“Never forgive.” Bellington paid me handsomely to escape it, and now I understand why. A person could live a long time in a shell — safe, untouchable, unbroken — but that isn’t the same as being alive.

 

Later, I opened my mailbox to find Tabitha’s card, a crayon-drawn snowman under a messy scrawl reading, “Merry Christmas!”

 

I sank to my knees and sobbed.