He Chose My Bully, I Stopped Loving Him

"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.