He Chose My Bully, I Stopped Loving Him

Everyone said I was a fool. Getting married, and not even throwing a wedding.

I always smiled and explained that Abner Swanson had severe social anxiety, that a crowd could send him into a panic so bad he'd nearly black out.

Until this afternoon, when my best friend sent me a photo.

The man who wouldn't even go out to dinner with me was standing in the middle of a party.

He was laughing, his arm wrapped around Pansy Sullivan, letting her smear cake across his face.

I sat there a long time, frozen.

I swiped back to the previous screen on my phone, to the notes app crammed with line after line, every excuse I'd ever rehearsed for why we weren't having a wedding.

Looking at those small, groveling little sentences, I suddenly had no idea what I'd been doing with myself.

My best friend's message popped up right then:

Take a good, hard look at who he's got his arm around.

Five years together. He hid behind that social anxiety the whole time, never once met your parents, and you still want to marry him?

I looked down at Abner's grinning face in the photo.

The man who claimed he could barely breathe sitting across from me in a restaurant was perfectly happy to party in a crowd for someone else.

I bowed my head and slowly typed:

We're done.

The message had barely sent when the door opened.

The moment Abner saw me on the couch, he came straight over and pulled me into a tight hug.

"Why are you sitting here with all the lights off?"

Before I could answer, he buried his face deep in the curve of my neck, his voice trembling.

"Trudy Cooley, the elevator was so packed just now. I almost couldn't breathe again."

The air conditioning in the room was cranked low.

Against the side of my neck, his warm breath carried the unmistakable smell of champagne and frostingthe smell of a party.

I lifted my hand and slowly pushed him off me.

"The elevator was too crowded?"

"And now elevators come with champagne showers and cake-cutting too?"

Abner froze for a second, then casually wiped at his neck.

"There was a kid having a birthday down in the lobby. Must've gotten some on me by accident."

Watching him not so much as flinch, I almost laughed.

"Really?"

"The lobby was that busy, and you didn't keel over on the spot?"

His expression dropped at once, and he shot to his feet.

"I'm so wrecked right now I can barely breathe. I feel like I'm dying!"

"You can't even ask if I'm okay, and instead you sit there throwing snide little jabs and accusing me?"

I said nothing. I just held the photo up in front of his eyes.

Abner faltered for a heartbeat, then let out a long, drawn-out sigh.

"I can actually go to crowded places like that now. Shouldn't you be happy about it?"

"It was Pansy's birthday today. We're all old classmates, so I went."

The instant I heard that name, my whole body started to shake, and I couldn't stop it.

Pansy.

The Pansy who led the whole class in freezing us out. The Pansy who locked Abner and me in the storage room in the dead of winter.

And now Abnerthe one with the social anxietyhad not only gone to her birthday party, he'd stood there laughing while she rubbed cake into his face.

I stared at him, the dark closing in at the edges of my vision.

"Abner!"

"Have you really forgotten what she did to us?"

He turned his head away and rubbed at his brow.

"That was years ago."

"Everyone's grown up. Why do you have to be so petty about it?"

I looked at him, and inside there was nothing left but a dead, scorched stillness.

"You can get past it. I can't."

"Let's break up."

Abner stared at me, startled at first, then he reached out and, with a put-upon air, patted my head.

"Trudy, I know you're upset that I didn't tell you. But I really don't have the energy right now to play your little crying-screaming-threatening game."

"Let's not throw around words like 'breakup,' okay? Just calm down first."

He reached out to pull me into his arms. I dodged his touch, turned, and walked away.

Outside, the rain was coming down in sheets.

I didn't even grab an umbrella. I just walked straight into it.

That familiar cold cut through me, and in a single instant it dragged me back to that winter years ago.

Pansy Sullivan had cornered me against a wall with her crowd and dumped a basin of ice water over my head.

It was Abner who rushed out and threw himself in front of me, shielding me with his own body.

The price was that the two of us got locked together in a pitch-black room.

I cried and told him I was sorry, said I was the one who'd dragged him into this.

Abner was so scared he was crying himself, and yet in the dark he gripped my hand and wouldn't let go.

"It's okay, Trudy."

"As long as we stay together, no one will ever be able to hurt us."

I'd sobbed my heart out back then.

But now, I couldn't squeeze out a single tear.

Forget it.

I shouldn't hate him.

If it hadn't been for saving me back then, he never would have gone through any of it.

The rain overhead suddenly stopped.

A black umbrella appeared above my head.

Abner stood behind me, slightly out of breath.

"It's pouring. Where do you think you're going?"

"You're this worked up. What if your condition flares up again?"

Right. I had a condition too.

Those three years, we'd both been sick.

I came out of it with severe post-traumatic damage, desperate for any sense of safety, jolting awake from nightmares night after night.

He was worse off. In any crowded place his whole body would shake, and he'd hide in a corner, retching uncontrollably.

On the nights when we fell apart completely.

It was the two of us holding each other, sharing what little warmth we had.

In that living hell, we were each other's only lifeline.

I was about to speak when Abner's phone rang.

He answered it and put it on speaker.

Pansy's sugary voice spilled out of the speaker, laced with a smile.

"Trudy, I'm so sorry."

"Abner told me you're still holding a grudge over what happened before, that you're throwing a fit at him."

"We were young and didn't know any better back then. It was all just joking around. Seeing you like this, I really feel awful about it now."

I said nothing, just stared at the puddle on the ground.

When she got no response from my end, she sniffled, hurt.

"Abner, is Trudy never going to forgive me? Am I just a bad person"

Abner's voice softened, almost without his realizing it.

"Don't cry. It's not your fault."

"She's just stubborn. Don't read too much into it"

Pansy kept sobbing on the other end, and Abner turned to me with a frown.

"That's enough. Pansy's already in tears."

"Just say you'll let it go, and we can put this whole thing behind us."

I lifted my eyes and said it word by word:

"I will never forgive her."

His expression turned vicious in an instant.

"When did you get so cruel?"

"Pansy already knows she was wrong. She can't sleep at night out of guilt. What if she ends up depressed too?"

"The two of us know better than anyone how unbearable it is to live in pain and panic every single day, don't we?"

Before he could go on, I hurled the phone hard into the standing water beside us.

Abner stared at me in disbelief.

"Have you lost your mind?!"

"Yes. So stay away from me."

Even one more look at him made my stomach turn.

I turned and yanked open the door of a taxi that happened to be pulling up at the curb.

In the rearview mirror, Abner stood in the downpour, his face twisted with fury, like he might still come charging after me.

Half an hour later, I knocked on the door of my best friend, Letitia Cobb.

Letitia's eyes were rimmed red as she cursed Abner under her breath, toweling the rain out of my dripping hair.

My phone buzzed.

Abner.

You smashed your phone, so I dug out this backup just now.

You're too extreme, you know that? Look at how things used to be. We all got along just fine.

Then he sent a photo.

It was Pansy, one arm slung around me and Abner.

In the picture, the two of us were smiling like it hurt worse than crying.

It was taken right before graduation, with Pansy's fingers digging hard into the back of my neck, forcing us to pose.

She'd laughed when she said it:

"Now that we're graduating, don't you dare forget me."

So Abner had really kept that photo all this time.

I didn't reply. I just blocked his number.

The next day, I took Letitia with me to the apartment to pack my things.

I pushed the door open and there was Pansy, wearing the slippers I'd just bought, lounging on the couch.

Abner looked up, saw it was us, and yanked Pansy protectively behind him.

"Trudy, what did you bring her here for?"

"You've got a problem, take it up with me. Don't even think about bullying Pansy."

Beside me, Letitia's face went taut with rage. I patted her hand.

"I'm just here for my things. Move."

Abner froze, then let out a soft scoff.

"Moving out? Trudy, there's a limit to how much of a tantrum you get to throw."

But Pansy poked her head out from behind him.

"Honestly, Trudy, you really shouldn't hate me this much."

"Back then I led everyone in freezing you out because I liked Abner."

"Whose fault was it that you clung to him every single day? And then he actually went and protected you, so I had no choice but to deal with him too."

That was Letitia's breaking point.

"Are you out of your mind? You bullied people for three years over a guy?"

"And you, Abner. Back then all you knew how to do was cower while they beat you. Now you want to play the man?"

"You two pieces of garbage deserve each other!"

Abner's face went ashen, and then he roared.

"Shut up!"

"Fine, since it's all out now, I'm done pretending. Pansy and I have actually been together for a year."

A year?

Those two words shattered something at the top of my skull.

I thought back to a year ago.

Abner had suddenly volunteered to go out to the suburbs for "exposure therapy."

He refused to let me come along, said that with me there he'd just grow dependent again.

Every weekend, he'd head out alone for the better part of the day.

And every time he came back, he couldn't hide the smile in the corners of his eyes, and sometimes he carried the faint trace of perfume.

He'd lied and told me it was the calming aromatherapy from the clinic.

I'd been so happy back then, simmering hot soup at home every weekend, thinking he was finally close to recovering.

Now, looking back.

There was never any exposure therapy.

I'd been a complete and utter fool, hand-delivering my own fianc into the arms of the woman who'd tormented us.

Abner looked at me, his voice going soft again.

"Trudy! Back then, if you hadn't lied and told Pansy we were together, she never would've bullied us in the first place."

"And besides, I never said I wanted to break up with you. Pansy feels like she owed you all these years, she's been carrying the guilt, she even told me to treat you well!"

"Pansy's been so good to you, and you still want to hold a grudge against her? How can you be so ungrateful?"

Pansy nestled into Abner's arms, the corners of her mouth curving up in satisfaction.

"Trudy. Thank you for taking care of Abner in my place these five years. It must have worn you out."

Letitia lost it, snatching the ashtray off the coffee table to hurl at them.

I held her back, hard.

Throwing away my own life over trash rotting in the mud wasn't worth it.

I turned and walked into the bedroom, packing my cards and important documents into my bag.

As I passed through the living room, Abner was murmuring softly, coaxing Pansy.

Hearing my footsteps, he sneered:

You walk out that door now, and don't expect me to ever come crawling back to smooth things over with you.

I didn't slow down. I grabbed Letitia and slammed the door hard behind us.

Downstairs, Letitia's eyes were red as she gripped my hand tightly:

Trudy,

My dad's been wanting me to take over the overseas branch for ages. Come with me.

Leave this whole mess behind. We'll start over.

I nodded without a moment's hesitation.

The next three days, I was busy sorting out my visa.

Sure enough, Abner didn't reach out to me even once.

His social media, though, was buzzingevery post a photo of him and Pansy.

The day before I left the country, I got a text from Pansy.

Come by Abner's apartment. There's something I took from you back then. Time to give it back.

I pushed the door open. Pansy was lounging on the living room couch, wearing Abner's shirt.

Smiling, she tossed a yellowed diary onto the coffee table.

Before I could even reach for it, she suddenly flipped it open to a page and started reading aloud:

Today Abner smiled at me. I really hope he can keep that smile forever.

Oh my, how touching.

I held out my hand.

Give it back.

Pansy yanked the diary back, her eyes turning vicious.

What's the rush?

Trudy, look at all this groveling garbage you wrote. Honestly, it's so pathetic it makes me sick.

You guarded him like a dog for five years, nursed him through his illness, and what did it get you?

No matter how much you like him, all I have to do is crook my finger and he comes crawling right back to my side.

Just accept it. All you're good for in this life is being my stepping stone, picking up the trash I throw away.

Watching her smug, sneering face, I felt not a single ripple inside me.

Are you done? Because if you're done, I'm leaving.

Just then, Pansy's eyes darted, and she suddenly grabbed the coffee off the table and splashed it all over herself.

I watched this clumsy little performance:

Such a tired old trick. Aren't you embarrassed by how stupid it is?

Pansy tilted her head up and gave me a triumphant smile.

I said I bullied you both because I liked him, you told him you two were together, and he believed it, didn't he?

So you see, who cares how clumsy the trick is? Guess who Abner's going to believe when he walks out here.

The words had barely left her mouth when the door was flung open.

Abner came rushing out like a madman.

The moment he saw Pansy drenched in coffee, he whipped around and stared me down:

Trudy, if you've got a problem, take it out on me! Why would you throw coffee on her?

You always said you hated people who bully others. How are you any different from them right now? Apologize to her, now!

I didn't argue. I didn't bother to defend myself.

Apologize?

The only thing I need to apologize for is being blind these five years, actually treating a piece of garbage like you as something precious.

With that, I ignored Abner's stunned look, picked up the diary, turned, and pulled open the apartment door.

I never looked back.

Half a month later. London.

My phone suddenly rangan unfamiliar number from back home.

Trudy, you actually had the nerve to block me?

All right, you've calmed down by now, haven't you? Enough is enough.

Which hotel are you at? Send me your location and I'll come pick you up.

Listening to that familiar voice, I let out a soft laugh.

Abner froze:

What are you laughing at? Where are you?

Abner.

I'm not in the country anymore.

The line went dead silent in an instant.

Then came Abner's voice, the words tumbling out far too fast:

"You... what did you say? You went abroad? Where? When are you coming back?"

I didn't answer.

I just hung up and pried the domestic SIM card out of my phone.

In this life, we would never see each other again.