Just Like You

by Nick Hornby

It was a time when everyone was vowing never to forgive people. Politicians were never going to be forgiven for what they had done, friends and family were never going to be forgiven for the way they had voted, for what they had said, maybe even for what they thought. Most of the time, people were not being forgiven for being themselves. Politicians who had lied every day of their professional lives were not forgiven for lying. People who lived in cities were not forgiven for being metropolitan, people who were poor were not forgiven for expressing dissatisfaction, old people were not forgiven for being old and scared. But was that all there was to them? And could you only love someone who thought the same way as you, or were there other bridges to be built further up the river? Could you just tunnel under the whole mess, even? She hadn’t ever been able to forgive Paul for what he had done to her and the children. Now she had to decide whether she could forgive a young man for being a young man, and if she decided she could, would she be able to follow through with it? Deciding to forgive, after all, was not the same thing as forgiveness.