I hired an actor to stand beside me at my high school reunion because I couldn't face my bully and my ex-husband alone. I thought I was only buying myself one night of courage, but when my bully recognized him, the story she'd told about me finally started to fall apart.
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That afternoon, I erased the words 'Unreliable Narrator' from the whiteboard as my last literature student filed out of the lecture hall.
"Don't forget," I called after them, "the person telling the story isn't always the person telling the truth."
A few students laughed, and for one quiet minute, I felt like myself.
Then my phone buzzed.
I glanced down.
"Come to our reunion. All our friends will be there, and even your ex, Mark, now my fiancé. We're really looking forward to seeing you. XOXO, Miriam."
Just like that, I was 17 again.
I erased the words 'Unreliable Narrator' from the whiteboard.
***
I sat down hard and read the message three times.
The words didn't change.
Miriam had made my life unbearable all through high school. She mocked my thrift-store sweaters, my library books, and my careful answers in class.
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She called me "Miss Perfect" until people stopped using my name.
Years later, she found Mark, my husband, and fed him a new version of me. Cold. Judgmental. Hard to love. The kind of woman who made a man feel small.
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