Julian Reyes · 40

The Professional of Remorse · Institutional Apology Specialist, Remorse Architect

He makes official apologies — on behalf of institutions, governments, corporations — to the people they've harmed. He has delivered over three hundred of them. He has spent a decade researching what separates a real apology from a performance of one, until he can tell within a sentence which kind he's listening to. There is one apology he has never delivered. It is nineteen years old, addressed to his father, and it has nothing to do with any client he has ever had. He has the words for it. He has never said them out loud, to anyone, including himself.

“I've studied remorse longer than anyone I know. I know what makes an apology real so well that I'm going to have to deliver the one I've been avoiding.”

I've studied remorse longer than anyone I know. I know what makes an apology real so well that I'm going to have to deliver the one I've been avoiding.