I thought I was doing the right thing when I showed up at my old classmate’s door with a wedding invitation and an apology. Then he let me inside, and one look at his wall changed everything I thought I knew about my past.
I used to think I was a good person.
Not perfect, obviously, but good enough.
That illusion shattered the night I told my fiancé, Ryan, a few stories about how I used to treat a boy named Dale in high school.
Dale and I had been on the same cheer team all through high school.
Back then, I was captain.
Looking back, I am not proud of the type of person I used to be as a teenager. But who is truly proud of their teenage self, right?
I was insecure and bored, the worst combination you can be as a cheer captain.
So I entertained myself and my girls by pulling “harmless” pranks on poor Dale.
At least, that was what we called them.
We locked him in changing rooms.
We hid his uniforms before competitions.
We wrote him fake love letters.
We shared photos of him in our group chat with reaction emojis and laughed when he got embarrassed.
Sometimes other students joined in, too.
Or so I told myself.
There was another thing about my life that I never questioned.
After graduation, I slowly lost touch with most people from high school.
At the time, I blamed distance, busy schedules, and adulthood.
Ryan always assumed I was just introverted.
After hearing my stories about Dale, he wasn’t so sure anymore.
I had coworkers I liked and neighbors I chatted with, but I couldn’t honestly say I had many close friends.
Every year, my circle seemed to get a little smaller.
I never thought much about it.
Ryan didn’t see it that way.
We were sitting on our couch one evening, sorting wedding details, when I casually brought up some old stories.
I expected him to laugh.
The expression on his face made my stomach tighten.
“What?” I asked.
“You’re serious?”
“Yeah.”
“Vicky, that’s bullying.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Oh, come on.”
I laughed nervously.
“It wasn’t that bad.”
“It sounds pretty bad.”
“We were kids.”
“You locked someone in rooms.”
“For a few minutes.”
“You humiliated him.”
“We were joking around.”
“Did he think it was funny?”
I opened my mouth.
Then closed it.
Because the truth was, Dale had never laughed.
Not once.
He usually just stood there awkwardly while everyone else laughed around him.
What happened next changed everything… continues on the next page.
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