The Past Comes Back in Tears

Today was just supposed to be a normal workday. I’ve gotten better at my job, learned about the unspoken workplace politics, and the kids have gotten more comfortable around me. I go to the assigned classroom and find that today is a bit short staffed. As I clock in, I question it to the manager and he reassures me that we’ll have a substitute, CJ.

“Who’s CJ?” I so naively asked.
The manager responds, “Oh there he is right now.”

I spin my head towards the classroom door, and everything starts in slow motion. CJ is walking in, mid-fixing his hair, before he stops in his tracks. The sunlight through the door shines behind him as if revealing some god-level character in a movie, but the icy gust of wind that sneaks in is enough to perk up my cheeks and remind me that this is reality. We lock eyes and it seems that the world has stopped for just a second. The face I’m looking at, the name I just heard, both have been confirmed and it brings me back to 5 years ago.

CJ points his finger at me, “Are you-?”
“Yup.” I cut him off.

Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to CJ; my ex-boyfriend’s friend that cyberbullied me on Instagram 5 years ago.

In my last year of high school, I got into my first ever relationship. It ended not too badly as others, but as most gaslighters and manipulators are, my ex-boyfriend miraculously found a way to paint himself as the victim. I was the one that got broken up with, yet the story he told his friends was that I broke up with him because I didn’t love him anymore. Understandably, after feeding his friends these lies, his friends wanted to stand up for him. How did they do this? By commenting nasty shit under my posts. Okay it wasn’t that many people, just that one guy CJ. I didn’t respond to it at first because it wasn’t any of CJ’s business, but eventually other people started getting involved and it started getting too messy. To put an end to things, I came up to CJ in real life to ask him what his problem was. Like a coward, he first tried to deny it, but I was too fed up with this mess to leave it alone, and with a little more questioning, he folded and admitted to everything. Also admitting that my ex was feeding CJ what to comment under each post, and blah blah blah it just gets too tangled. Either way, I apologize to CJ that he had to get involved. He didn’t apologize to me. And we left it at that because one week later, we were graduating anyways.

Back to the present.

The manager and assistant manager notice our tension and ask if we knew each other. I was going to reply that we were high school classmates but CJ gets to it before I do and says, “I’m her ex-boyfriend’s friend.”

If he wants to do me dirty then I can stoop that low too, “Yea and he cyberbullied me afterwards.”

He tried to squabble and deny it but we agree to just leave it at that.

The school bell rings signifying the end of the school day and the beginning of our shifts. It’s time to go gather the kids for supper in the cafeteria. In front of the cafeteria, all the employees are trying to check the kids in. I try to keep my distance from CJ, but he comes up to me anyways acting all high and mighty as if everything is okay. He tries to make small talk about how long I’ve been with the company and whatever but I’m so fucking over it. I’m not his fucking friend. I don’t like him. I don’t wanna fucking talk to him. But do I say all this? No. You guys should know me by now, I just smile and go along with it. Why? Because I don’t need the label of “crazy ex-girlfriend”. Not to mention, acting sour will only hurt me in the long run because I have the bad luck of always somehow running into my ex, his family, and his friends after all these years. Remember orientation? How I also saw another one of his friends there? That’s the downside to growing up in a small rural countryside town. Unless you move away, you’re going to be stuck running into everybody from the past.

I find an out and leave him. The whole rest of the day is me doing my best to run away and ignore him.

As I’m heading home after a long day, I get a call from Club President. I haven’t seen or talked to her much these past few days, so it’s a surprise to get a call from her. I pick up and her voice sounds shaky. Without many words, I tell her I’ll meet her at her house and we can talk about whatever she’s going through. It’s an hour long ride to her, so I try gunning it as fast as I can. When I get there, she leads me to her room and almost immediately starts sobbing. This is my first time ever seeing her cry and it was just straight up water works and snot. I almost didn’t know what to do. My first instinct is that something happened between her and her boyfriend, but she said it was about her parents. It was the typical case of parents being too harsh and expecting too much out of their kid and the words the parents used wasn’t the kindest, and she was just feeling over-stressed. The way she cried kind of reminded me like how a little baby cries so the sight of it couldn’t help but make my heart melt a little. I tried comforting her and hugging her. Also, to get her mind off of it, I told her about my terrible day as well. I stayed with her a while longer, making sure she finishes her homework that was due today, and left after a bit.

TLDR: Terrible start of the day, but a very heartwarming night.