To begin with, I refuse to admit to any claims suggesting that I’m a bully. I am not. While there have been things that I’ve done that I’m not proud of, overall, I consider myself to be a person of good standing. I used to joke around in my high school years, something I now heavily regret. It gained me popularity; it helped me woo women. But now I am at a loss reconsidering my choices, after a joke completely ruined my life.
I suppose you’d want to know exactly what happened.
I found myself sharing the same language class with this girl, Lydia, who occupied the seat in front of me, constantly blocking my view of the board with her straight, broad shoulders. Being in a high-level language class came with certain disadvantages, one of which was the lack of classmates, forcing me to do activities with her. I don’t want to sound hateful, but for someone not so competent, she was irritatingly obnoxious. She had a large, hooked nose that didn’t fit her bloated face, constantly wore nerdy black glasses despite the existence of contacts, and sported a never-changing, out of date mushroom head hairstyle. I had never seen her change out of the emerald green turtleneck she wore to class every day; I doubt she ever washed it. Seeking to lighten up the mood in class, I often turned to joking with her. While she never directly commented on my jokes, she usually huffed out a few chuckles. It was clear that my antics had made the class far more enjoyable for her, and honestly, if I didn’t talk to her, I don’t know who would.
That day was no different. With the teacher running late to class, I felt bored by the room’s dull atmosphere. Aiming to turn things around, I leaned forward.
“Yoo Grinch what’s up?” Burying my head into her shoulder, I inhaled with a rasping, audible gasp. “Geez, when’s the last time you showered. Do you ever change your sweater? I swear I could see mold on that sleeve.”
With an exaggerated gesture, I stood as my finger pointed to a small stain on her cuff. Disturbed, the entire class turned their gaze at us.
“Chris? Stop it,” she murmured, her eyes not meeting my gaze.
Stop it? But I was on a roll! It would be impolite to stop when the punchline hasn’t been delivered. Snatching out my phone, I tapped exuberantly, looking for pictures of Edna Mode. Without hesitation, I pushed the screen up to her face,
“Yoo, Edna, why is your photo online?” I couldn’t help but choke out a string of laughter, hissing like a madman at how funny my joke was.
The class agreed with me, giggling and guffawing erupted in the room. Embarrassed, Lydia’s face instantly lit into a bright shade of red. She attempted to hide her reaction as she tucked her head down, pretending to be focusing on classwork. Satisfied, I returned to scrolling mindlessly on my phone.
Two days later, I was called to the teacher’s office. I only had an obscure sense of what was going on until I saw Lydia sitting in one of the office chairs. The teacher informed me that Lydia wanted a talk with me, so he was there to supervise. Frankly, if she intended to convey the message that she was unhappy, I got it. Did she really need to snitch on me and get us both into trouble? Why can’t we just work it out privately, move forward, and keep our friendship?
But whatever. Sure. Let’s talk.
Begrudgingly, I dropped into the other chair, legs folded, waiting for her to open up.
“Chris, I wanted to talk to you because you insulted me in class two days ago. You called me names and continued insulting me after I asked you to stop. I want you to apologize to me,” she announced with great determination and resentment, staring at me in the eyes.
So, this was what she wanted to talk about — a joke. She never failed to get on my nerves with her pettiness, like the time she cried after I told everyone her secret crush. It served her right that he spat on her after he learned about it. Who wouldn’t feel insulted being liked by a whale!
“I didn’t insult you; I was joking with you. We were just having fun! But it seems like you remember things differently than I do.”
I could see anger brewing in her eyes, rage coiling uncontrollably. “Yeah? What about that time you laughed at my writing? Awww, Lydia’s dad ran away, awwww. Poor Lydia!”
She was almost jumping out of her seat; her hands were trembling, tears threatened to roll down her cheeks. Though, to be honest, I didn’t even remember saying that to her. The teacher was waving his hands dismissively, telling her to calm down, clearly annoyed. I didn’t want to add fuel to the fire, but I felt like I had to defend my point of view as well.
“Right now, you’re just putting words in my mouth. By claiming that I’ve said things which I don’t recall saying, it kind of seems like you’re victimizing yourself, you know?” I didn’t bother to hide the amusement in my voice as I noticed the teacher nodding along with my point.
Her mouth gasped in disbelief as she shook her head, her lips twitching in frustration.
“So not only do you refuse to apologize to me, but you also deny that you’ve ever said those things to me?” Her brown eyes narrowed into slivers that appeared almost defeated as her accusation rang through the office.
“I’m not denying anything. I’m saying I remember it differently than you do.”
Red in the face, she dragged out an ugly smile, going mute as she glared at me dead in the eyes. Not knowing how to react, I maintained an indifferent, carefree look, attempting to lessen the tension.
“Well,” she finally started after our long, silent standoff. Her tone chilled to a degree so serious and solemn that it made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end, “Since your memory is so awful, I’m going to show you something you won’t have trouble remembering.” Her shoulders relaxed, her body sinking back into her seat. It appeared like she was almost at ease. “You’ll live your life in peace, not knowing what it is. But if you mess with me again, and I mean, ever again, I’m going to show it to you in a way you’ll never live to forget it. It will ruin your life in every way imaginable.”
Finishing her statement, she slowly rose, striding out of the classroom, leaving me frozen in my chair, contemplating blankly on its implications. Her calmness transmitted a slightly uneasy feeling that swelled in my chest, but surely someone so delusional was only capable of making empty threats. The teacher promised that they would make sure no harm would come to me, mentally or physically, and that Lydia would receive detention for threatening a fellow classmate. Despite knowing their general inactiveness, it still filled me with a thrilling sense of justice over her uncorroborated accusations.
Due to Lydia’s outburst, I walked away punishment-free. In the following weeks, I worried that being in her same class would result in awkward interactions. However, she remedied the situation by straight up ignoring me. Whenever I was to appear in her view, she turned quiet, eyes darting around, head turning in all directions to avoid contact with me. Being the bigger person that I was, I chose to greet her when I passed her seat. She ignored my greetings as well.
In the end, it didn’t really matter, as we were both seniors and would be graduating in three months. After high school, I moved on with my life. Though never achieving anything grand, getting into a nice university alone contented me. The switch of environment and the hustle bustle of the big city hit me in such a frenzy that I soon forgot about the existence of Lydia completely.
Moving to college, I joined a frat and quickly became well-liked among the guys. My sense of humor helped me win over the hearts of a handful of ladies. One of them, Bella, especially adored me, to such an absurd extent that I dare say she idolized me. After we first met, she put in huge efforts going around asking what courses I was taking, just so she could join my classes and accompany me. Since I didn’t enjoy cooking for myself, she did the cooking for me. There wasn’t a single day where I don’t remember her preparing delicate lunch boxes for me. Sometimes, she would even book dinners at fancy restaurants just in case I got bored. Although I turned down her pursuit a couple of times as I was busy chasing some other prettier girls, in the end, she was so persistent that I had to say yes.
I showed her off to my friends, flaunting at how obsessed she was with me. Most of them envied me, others were obviously jealous. Still, it didn’t stop me from comparing her publicly to other girls around me. I boasted about her having nicer boobs, a rounder ass, and a prettier face, often earning me irritated looks. However, our relationship wasn’t perfect; there were aspects of Bella that displeased me. For a while, she was so trapped in her own head that her oversensitivity plagued her into deleting all of my female friends’ contacts. Well, a girl can’t be perfect.
With her by my side, college passed by like a whim. I spent most of my days killing time in drinking games and having sex with Bella. It surprised me that, for a college chick, she was awfully good at sex. She rode me like a wild west cowgirl, her large tits bouncing ferociously with each thrust. I got turned on by her every gaze as I’ve never had anyone scream so hard when they climaxed on me.
After graduation, a small company contacted me, and I quickly became one of their salespeople. With my charismatic personality, I charmed my way through the ranks and became someone quite significant at the start of my 30s. It was to my joy that Bella’s love for me had not diminished the slightest. We settled down a few years after college; I married her in a small wedding, and not long after, we had our first child. Generally, the way she ran our domestic sphere was impeccable, always presenting her best self during our regular weekend parties at home with my colleagues. It would be impossible to weigh the amount of love I had for her and our child. James was the cutest, most imaginative kid I had seen. He would often wake Bella and I up late at night, complaining about red-eyed monsters in his closet.
A few years later, I received another promotion. To celebrate, I hosted another party at my house. We spent the night drinking and dancing. However, at that point I’ve already grown weary of these repetitive social interactions; the conversations were shallow, and the drinks tasted like piss. During one of those games, as punishment for losing, one of my colleagues dared me to call the most unattractive girl back in high school and fake a love confession to her. It sounded childish to me, and I wanted to refuse, waving my hands in protest. But Bella egged me on, pouring alcohol down my throat, even calling me a pussy.
Annoyed, I flipped through my yearbook, searching for some hideous abomination to phone. Zoe, too blond; Janelle, not fat enough; Emily, not that geeky; Lydia — Oh! Lydia! That pathetic whale. She was the perfect pick. Pointing at her yearbook photo, people were already laughing; what a massive let down it would be for me to back out now! Thoughtlessly, I dialed her number.
The ringing went on for the better part of a minute as the room quieted down, giggles shrank as eyes around me grew eager, the tips of their lips tick up unconsciously, waiting for her to pick up. After what felt like an eternity, I began growing impatient. However, just when I was about to hang up, the call went through. Snickering, I shouted zealously,
“Yooo Chris here, you remember me, Lydia? Or should I call you Edna Mode?”
The room echoed with peals of laughter.
Yet, the response that I was anxiously anticipating did not come. The other end of the phone remained silent; all I could hear was her faint breathing. Then, before I could continue with my joke, she hung up. The anticlimactic nature of the scene almost made me sigh. Disappointed, I attempted to call her a few more times. Still, all of my calls were left unanswered. Irritated by the monotone ringing, we quickly moved on, finding other ways to nag at each other.
I didn’t take what happened that day to heart. Continuing my normal routine, I kept myself busy with work, only occasionally reaching out to those around me. It was the simple life that I’ve always dreamed of: having an easy job, a doting wife, and a warm family. How I wish it would stay that simple.
One night, coming home late from work, I conveniently checked the mailbox as I left the driveway. Opening the crate, my hand hesitated as a blue envelope caught my attention, standing out among its white counterparts. It had no contacts written on it, no sender, no receiver. Curious, I pulled it out, and resumed my path inside, opening the front door as I tore open its seal. Sitting down, I reached for its content, drawing out a thin piece of folded up paper. When my eyes scanned the words ‘DNA Test Report’ printed at the top of the page, my head went blank. But before my mind could conjure up any horrifying implications, I read on.
CHILD: James Cooper
Alleged FATHER: Chris J. Cooper
…
Interpretation:
Combined Paternity Index: 0
Probability of Paternity: 0%
The alleged father is excluded as the biological father of the testing child. This conclusion is based on the non-matching alleles observed at the loci listed above with a PI equal to 0…
Fuck me.
How did this happen? How long has this been happening? Was it just a one-night stand gone wrong or was it a long-term infidelity? If so, with whom? If she had been cheating behind my back, she showed no obvious signs of it. But perhaps her act of passion towards me was only a result of guilt? Oh, this bitch. Repressing the indignation and rage shooting up my spine, I bolted to Bella’s room, pushing over chairs and stomping on scattered clothes as I shoved the report on her face.
“Explain this to me, you whore!”
I expected her to fumble, stumble out a pathetic excuse claiming that the report was fake; or apologize profusely, tears streaming down her cheek as she confessed her act of adultery, hoping for my forgiveness. Yet, contrary to all my expectations, she laughed. That fucking bitch laughed.
“Oh Chris, we always thought you were a little slow for someone your age, but now we can confirm it!” Her laugh boarded on maniacal as she struggled to catch her breath.
“We?” I asked, my head frantically scanning around for the mysterious affair partner. As I searched the room, Bella reached under the table to pull out a comically large garland. She placed it on my head, as though I had just won an award I wasn’t aware I was competing for.
Mad beyond belief, I reached up to yank the stupid leaf-crown off my head, but my hand froze halfway there as the bathroom door creaked open. The face that rounded the corner was no other than my colleague Carlos! I sputtered out a curse, but before I could make any steps to make my anger known, another person came into view, and another, and another. Faces that belonged to people I knew well; faces that I saw every day. In the break room, in the cubicle next to me, even on my own HR team! I felt my mouth opening and closing futilely, but no words made it out.
“Surprise!” They shouted, arms waving as they celebrated through my obvious bewilderment. I was utterly disoriented, their cheers enveloping me in a soul-crushing chaos of noises. Mouth agape, I watched them dance around the room, small confetti cannons shooting out ribbons and raining glitter. Ignoring my desperate consternation, Bella handed me a tablet, a video playing on the screen.
No, not a video, a livestream. The giant, flickering red dot on the top left corner told me so. Yet, that was far from my biggest concern, as I saw in the center of the screen, myself, holding a tablet, looking down at the device, into a thousand loops of me, standing perplexed in the same bedroom, trapped in the same position, staring into the same tablet. It was a livestream of me.
“You were chosen to be the main star of our reality TV show, Life Stream. My real name is Rebecca, a pornographic actress hired to play your wife. Throughout the last decade we’ve monitored and recorded your life; people were encouraged to place bets on your relationships and interactions with others. But the most exciting game was guessing when you would find out on your own. Winners got to walk away with all the money, and losers, well, let’s just say they paid their price. Even us actors bet sometimes. But there was never a winner because you never found out! Not once did you notice something was off!” She cheered with an ear-to-ear grin as she pressed several buttons on the tablet, instantly switching to a list of videos — past recordings.
Scrubbing through, I was appalled. The initial ones consisted mostly of my daily lives — me getting drunk at parties, me naked in the shower, me having sex with Bella, no, Rebecca. They recorded the entire progression of our relationship, but, of course, they were mostly interested in her nude form. So that’s why she acted so sex deprived. Sick Basterds, they didn’t even left James behind. Footage was shot through hidden cameras in his closet, filming him playing with his toys. Then, as the dates of the videos became more recent, their contents became more horrendous. No longer were they focused on my life, but on what was not in my life. Some showed me at home, sleeping soundly in the bedroom, while in the living room, five of my colleagues were having orgies with Rebecca, cumming all over her face even when she was still pregnant. They pounded her relentlessly on my bedroom door, to an extent that she had to bite her tongue to stifle her screams. Some showed my friends masturbating and peeing into my drinks during parties, then covering it up with fruit powders; I mustn’t have realized, since I gladly poured them down my throat unthinkingly. In the end they started playing these games that I couldn’t even begin to describe. What I thought was them barbequing in the yards was actually grilling roadkill of squirrels and racoons and making me guess what I was eating. I thought they were pork. After receiving the wrong answers, someone would leave the party and bash their arms with rocks until they fractured. Was that the price losers paid? And there I was wondering how Tom broke his hand in an alleged car crash when he didn’t even drive to my house.
But why? Why would anyone do this to me? I was only a random nobody, having done nothing tremendously good or bad in life. This seemed cruel. Looking at all of my ‘colleagues’ delighted faces, I was hit simultaneously with an urge to puke, to punch somebody in the face, to hurt myself until I couldn’t feel anything, to laugh and scream because I was so helpless. It was cruel to ruin someone’s life like this, telling them that their life for the past ten years had been nothing but a lie. At that moment, all I could think about was finding out who. Which son of a bitch did this to me and how to make them pay? Scrolling frantically through the page, I saw some familiar names: Jerry White, the nerd I mocked during frat party hazing, Emma Fowler, the neighbor girl I isolated when I was a kid, Coby Owens, Arthur Steward, Kaiya Rowe… So many people that I’ve alienated in the past… Then one name caught my eye. Aidyl.
There was no last name, no description linked to it, making it look like a pseudonym. A-I-D-Y-L. How strangely familiar. Thoughts twirling, I looked away from the screen to think, my gaze accidently hitting the bathroom mirror. Through the small gap between the ecstatic actors, I saw the same letters reflected in reverse from the glass. A sense of dread crept up my spine. L-Y-D-I-A. Lydia.
Oh God.
Horrified, my face contorted in fear and desperation as I looked up to Rebecca, still wearing her signature, warm, radiant smile. “The gig got old a few years ago; people stopped betting that much, and we were looking into getting someone new. However, the founder of our show, Aidyl, was especially fond of you and wanted us to continue. Honestly, I was surprised at how oblivious you were, but even I couldn’t stand how repetitive it was. So, I pushed you to give her a phone call, to insult her again, and now you’ve found out! Now we can properly end the show! It took you so long, and not without a little hint from us, but look at this big reveal! It was all worth it. Look at how many people are watching right now — 20 thousand! Thank you, Chris. Really.”
My eyes were burning. “She did all of this, all of this, just to get at me?”
She chuckled.
“Don’t be so serious, darling; you’re victimizing yourself. Just treat it like a joke!”
Three days later, Bella, Rebecca, or whatever her real name was, left, taking James with her. I suppose that was fair; he wasn’t my real son in the first place. Alongside her were my colleagues, my bosses, and my friends, disappearing into thin air like they’d been purged from this Earth. Helpless, I searched for the show, but nothing came up. The entire company I had worked at was fake, supposedly funded by the show itself, and the show was nowhere on my search engine. I even tried getting on the dark webs; still, nothing. But I know those videos were real, and there will be sickos watching them at night, roaring in laughter at my misery.
Lying on the double bed, staring at the bleak ceiling, surrounded by the empty house, it felt as if none of this was real — like the past ten years of my life was nothing but a fever dream. And Lydia was right. Never will I ever forget what happened.
That is how a joke ruined my life.