Hesitate and talk

Katie has seen your ups and downs and how you interact with people in general. You know she'll catch on eventually and you don't want to bury these negative feelings like you used to. As she said, things can change over ten years. "Actually, he was a bully," you say with some hesitation and a pained tone. "He made at least two years of high school a living hell, and it took a lot of work to get my confidence somewhere near normal levels. I thought things would be better but just seeing his face from far away brought up all these bad feelings."

If Katie wanted to remind you why you married her, she did so magnificently. She gave you a big warm hug and you just melted into her chest despite her being an inch or two shorter. You felt like that high schooler again. Except this time you were not alone with no one to go to with all your angst and suffering. You felt like the boy you were wrapped up in love and compassion so needed after all that time. "It's okay baby, you're not in high school anymore and if we want to avoid that jerk there's nothing stopping us." With that you shared a long soft kiss and you felt a tear roll down your cheek. You were no longer in a boy in living hell but in a man living somewhere close to heaven.

You both broke the kiss at the same time, and you noticed Katie seemed to have something on her mind. "What is it?" you asked. "Well, we will probably be fine avoiding him, but the person living with him is another story," she said pursing her lips. It made sense, why would one guy move into a large suburban house by himself? Especially with this housing market. With them living so close to you, the truth soon became apparent.