I Married the Boy Who Treated Me Poorly Throughout High School – At Our Wedding, He Broke Down and Said, ‘You Deserved to Know Why I Really Married You’
I knew marrying my school bully meant accepting a painful past neither of us could change. What I didn’t know was that he’d been carrying a secret about why he’d re-entered my life.
Ben started crying before we cut the cake! I found him in the hallway behind our reception room, staring at his wedding band.
“Ben?”
He looked up.
“Rachel, I need to tell you something.”
My stomach tightened.
Ben started crying.
Inside the ballroom, I could hear people laughing. My sister Natalie was probably trying to stop Mom from rearranging the dessert table again.
Ten minutes earlier, I thought I was having the happiest night of my life.
Then Ben said, “You deserved to know why I really married you.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
His face turned pale.
“You deserved to know.”
“I should’ve told you before today,” my new husband said.
Natalie appeared at the end
of the hallway.
“There you are! Mom wants family pictures.”
She stopped when she saw us.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Ben said too fast.
I folded my arms.
“There you are!”
“I don’t know yet.”
My sister looked between us.
Ben swallowed.
“Natalie, please give us a few minutes,” he said.
That’s when I knew whatever he was hiding wasn’t small.
And the worst part was that I’d already forgiven him for something I once thought I never could.
“I don’t know yet.”
***
At 14, I was the chubby girl who got straight A’s and ate lunch with a book open on her lap.
Ben was my classmate, and he made my life miserable.
He wasn’t scary; he was funny. That was worse.
He knew exactly how to say something cruel so that everyone else would laugh.
He made my life miserable.
Wherever I went, I heard his insults and the
laughter of the kids he’d turned against me.
If I answered a question in class, he’d mutter, “Of course she knows!”
If I brought lunch from home, he’d comment on how much I was eating.
If I wore something new, he’d ask whether they sold it in larger sizes too.
