It Struck a Nerve
In fifth grade, at 10 years old, I met two guys, Luke and Peter, with whom I’d become good friends. Fast forward to high school—Luke was dating this girl for most of our senior year. Finally, she broke up with him and several weeks later, Peter started dating her.
The day before graduation, Peter got into a physical confrontation with Luke, slamming him to the ground and kicking him in the face hard enough to lift him up.
Luke then attended graduation with concealing makeup and sunglasses. But the truth came out eventually.
It turned out that, at some point, Luke got aggressively physical with the girl over a really petty issue. When Peter found out, he confronted Luke and Luke got lippy with him about it.
Some relevant background here—Luke grew up with divorced parents and a wealthy father who threw money at him to “make up” for the parental split, basically giving him what he wanted, when he wanted it.
He had a souped-up sports car his senior year that he did street drag racing with. Peter’s parents were also split, except his dad severed all ties with him and his mom, and his stepdad was not a good man.
Once Peter was old enough and strong enough, he decided he would never put up with that sort of action from anyone, Luke included.
So, his reaction to Luke’s actions toward the girl struck a close nerve, especially because it was someone he’d known for so long. He knew Luke before I did. The last I saw of Luke, he was selling vacuum cleaners for “his business.”
I’m still good friends with Peter, who is now a lawyer and did child advocacy for a number of years. Story credit: Reddit