“It changed his whole mindset and he devoted himself to helping people and religion.”

"Two days later he sent me a friend request on FB. I ummed and aaaah about it, and then accepted it, and sent him a message saying 'Hey, school sucked. Your bullying made it difficult, and was one of the reasons I changed schools'. 

He sent me a two page apology, saying that he's really sincerely sorry about it, he was getting bullied by his brothers, and thought punching down would make him feel better, but that that is no excuse, and he's felt bad about it ever since... and that he hoped I was doing well now. 

He'd had a toddler, just like I had, and we met up a couple of times for our kids to play together. He was pretty fucked up, clearly, but I genuinely appreciated him saying what he said. I actually felt a weight lifted, and it made up for the other bullies I had as well."

"He asked if I remembered him and I told him, ‘How could I possibly forget him because he made my life a living hell for four years?’ He got really sheepish and said, ‘Yeah, I know. I was going through a lot of shit at home and taking it out on everyone else.’ 

He asked when my break was and if we could grab a coffee and talk so he could apologise properly, and I agreed. We talked, he apologised sincerely and he told me what was happening at home back then…it was horrific and I cried, but then it was like a weight lifted off the both of us. He’s got a loving wife who helped pull him out of his bad living situation and they have two beautiful kids. He owns his own business. He goes to therapy. I’m genuinely happy that he was able to turn it all around."

"I hadn’t seen him since we finished middle school in 2004, but then my best friend sent me an article from a local news station about a year and a half ago saying that he was going to be on Wheel of Fortune that night. 

He won a decent amount of money, and I posted on Twitter about it, recalling a story of how, the last time I saw him, he stomped on my foot because I was wearing flip flops so hard that my big toenail eventually fell off. A couple days later, he starts replying to a bunch of my tweets accusing me of lying about it, calling me 'gay' and 'a loser', even after I stopped responding. So yeah, he’s grown up a ton since then...'"

"It was like some sort of weird 'through the looking glass' Al Bundy. Literally named his kid after himself and sent him to the same high school. Never left where he grew up, apparently surviving on their high school glory days. I feel both happy and (only slightly) sad seeing that. I'm a bad person though."

Additional thumbnail credits: Universal Pictures