I hired an actor to stand beside me at my high school reunion because I couldn’t face my bully and my ex-husband alone. I thought I was only buying myself one night of courage, but when my bully recognized him, the story she’d told about me finally started to fall apart.
That afternoon, I erased the words ‘Unreliable Narrator’ from the whiteboard as my last literature student filed out of the lecture hall.
“Don’t forget,” I called after them, “the person telling the story isn’t always the person telling the truth.”
A few students laughed, and for one quiet minute, I felt like myself.
Then my phone buzzed.
I glanced down.
“Come to our reunion. All our friends will be there, and even your ex, Mark, now my fiancé. We’re really looking forward to seeing you. XOXO, Miriam.”
Just like that, I was 17 again.
I erased the words ‘Unreliable Narrator’ from the whiteboard.
***
I sat down hard and read the message three times.
The words didn’t change.
Miriam had made my life unbearable all through high school. She mocked my thrift-store sweaters, my library books, and my careful answers in class.
She called me “Miss Perfect” until people stopped using my name.
Years later, she found Mark, my husband, and fed him a new version of me. Cold. Judgmental. Hard to love. The kind of woman who made a man feel small.
The words didn’t change.
Mark believed her.
By the time I understood what was happening, my marriage already had Miriam’s voice in it.
For two weeks, I stared at that reunion message every night.
My friend Claire found me in my office one afternoon.
“Delete it,” she said after reading the message. “You’re not going.”
“If I don’t, she’ll tell everyone I was too scared to show my face.”
“You’re not going.”
“So let her talk.”
“That’s the problem,” I said. “I always did.”
Claire softened. “Then don’t go alone.”
That night, I opened my laptop and did the only thing that made sense to my tired, wounded brain.
I hired an actor to be my plus-one. Not a boyfriend, not an escort.
An actor, through a real talent agency, for a social event. I didn’t need romance. I needed one person beside me who hadn’t already been handed Miriam’s version of me.
“Then don’t go alone.”
His name was Norton, and we met two days before the reunion in a coffee shop near campus.
He arrived in a gray blazer, handsome enough to make me consider fleeing through the back door.
“You’re Daphne?” he asked.
“Unfortunately.”
His mouth twitched. “That bad?”
“I’m hiring a stranger to help me survive a high school reunion. What do you think?”
“Fair.” He sat across from me. “Your booking notes were clear. No fake romance, no kissing, no jealousy act.”
“You’re Daphne?”
“I’m an English lecturer,” I said. “I hate cheap fiction.”
He laughed, and I relaxed a little.
“So what exactly is my role?” he asked.
“A steady witness,” I said. “Miriam bullied me for years. Then she helped end my marriage by telling my ex-husband the same kind of lies. Now she’s invited me to watch her stand beside him.”
Norton’s face changed. It wasn’t pity. It was attention.
“So what exactly is my role?”
“That’s cruel.”
“She’s very good at cruel.”
“Do you want me to pretend we’re together?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t want to lie more than we have to. I just want one night where I don’t feel like I’m apologizing for existing.”
Norton nodded. “Then look back when she looks at you like she won.”
My eyes burned. “You make that sound easy.”
“She’s very good at cruel.”
“I didn’t say easy. I said possible.”
He signed the contract.
“Steady witness,” he said. “No grand romance. No lies we can’t walk back from. We have a deal, Daphne.”
***
On Friday night, I changed dresses three times before choosing the navy one with the silhouette that made me feel seen.
When Norton knocked at 7:00, I opened the door before I could lose courage.
In the car, he glanced at my shaking hands. “Want to rehearse?”
“No. If I rehearse, I’ll sound rehearsed. I was horrible at drama.”
“We have a deal, Daphne.”
At the high school, music spilled from the gym. The reunion banner hung over the doors.
My hand tightened around my purse.
“I can’t do this.”
Norton turned off the engine. “You can, but you don’t have to pretend it’s easy.”
I looked at the bright gym doors. “She wants me to walk in small.”
“Then don’t.”
So I got out.
Norton offered his arm.
“I can’t do this.”
I took it.
The second we stepped inside, people turned. A few whispered, and my 17-year-old self reached for the nearest exit.
Then Miriam appeared.
She moved through the crowd like she owned the air. Mark followed half a step behind her, older than I remembered and less sure of himself than I expected.
“Daphne,” Miriam said, spreading her arms. “You actually came.”
The second we stepped inside, people turned.
“I did.”
