April 23, 2025 • 22 mins
In tonight's video i read 2 truly terrifying stories about crazy exes and the length they go to making life unbearable. These stories are true encounters posted on the Let's Not Meet subreddit. You can also listen in podcast form "Scary Stories from Bad Vibes" Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6WCjzGChSiOtskaZjonvqz Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/scary-stories-from-bad-vibes/id1614005565 iHeartRadio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/53-bad-vibes-nightmares-94022380/ Deezer: https://www.deezer.com/show/3497187 Podcast Addict: https://podcastaddict.com/podcast/3868720 Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/bad-vibes-nightmares-4264713 JiloSaavn: https://www.jiosaavn.com/shows/Scary-Stories-from-Bad-Vibes/1/A7Unzn6te1Y_ Become a CHANNEL MEMBER for early access for as little as 99 cents a month: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7N-0n6MRuhtRVfCpj_oArQ/join Perhaps buy some MERCH: https://teespring.com/stores/bad-vibes-storytelling Follow me on Social Media: TWITTER: https://twitter.com/BadVibesYOUTUBE INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/badvibesstorytelling/ Send your TRUE story in: badvibes760@gmail.com Music by: "Long Note 4" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ "Quinn's Song: A New Man" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Timestamps: Intro: (00:00) Story 1: (00:07) Story 2: (07:13) Story credits: 1. https://tinyurl.com/yfh6bhrz 2. https://tinyurl.com/mwfj2ns2
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
This is going to be long. I'm sorry, So where
to start. I met them when I was fifteen, he
was seventeen. Looking back, the signs were all there. It
started with small things, us just rough housing like buddies.
We are both guys. But it would escalate to them
(00:25):
taking me behind the shed where my friends couldn't see,
and holding me against the wall, all while fake hitting me,
like pretending to hurt me while laughing the whole time.
But he actually did hurt me. I would have bruises
for weeks. One time he literally shoved my face into
stinging nettles, but my naive fifteen year old self thought
(00:46):
it was all in good fun. If only I knew
then what I know now. We started dating at the
end of my sophomore year. Over the summer, thanks escalated quickly.
He used to big me massages, and when I refused,
he'd pinned me down and tickled me until I gave in.
If I stopped before he was satisfied, he'd go right
(01:09):
back to the tickling, relentless, almost cruel. Sometimes he would
do it for no reason at all, just tickle me,
laughing while I baked him to stop, but he wouldn't,
not until I physically fought him off. It happened nearly
every time we were alone. I started to dread bean
with him, but I kept going back. I was in love, stupidly,
(01:33):
painfully in love. For context, I'm five three, about one
hundred pounds back then, he was five seven and regularly lifted.
I learned fast how to fight someone stronger than me.
But it wasn't just a tickling. He used to jokingly
beat me up, except there was nothing playful about it.
(01:54):
He'd punched me hard enough to leave bruises across my
arms and thighs. One time I sat in the front
seat of a friend's car. He wanted shotgun. He punched
me in the arm for the entire fifteen minute drive.
I kept shifting away, quietly, pleading for him to stop.
He didn't. Our friend, who was older than both of
(02:15):
us and driving, said nothing. And then there was my ear.
I just got in it pierced. He thought it was
hilarious to smack me upside the head. One hit made
me bleed. When I told him, he brushed it off,
said it didn't happen. I begged him more than once,
please don't touch my ears. His only reply, correcting my
(02:39):
grammar in the text. I was so scared to say
anything in person. Here's one of the texts I sent
him August twenty twenty one. It's not a big deal.
Just at least don't hit my ears.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
I would never you made it bleed today. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
I'm just super scared of my piercing's getting infected or something.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Sacred. Yeah, just please don't sacred? Omg, oh my god?
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Can you just.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Please have a normal conversation, loss of conservation.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
I just want you to not hit my ears like
you know, it would be nice.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Bonto's binted.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Sometimes I want to block you.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Sometimes I want you to block me, Okay, want me
to Our streak's forty If you you're not getting at
it back.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Can you just please try to respect that. I don't
think having my ears touched or head. Hey, hey, can
you stop hitting my ears like I get it? If
it's an accident. I'm not hitting your ears. I'm not
even near you, you know what I mean? Just try
not to Jimmy, who's that guy that cares more about
(03:55):
our streak than how I feel?
Speaker 2 (03:57):
I'm Czar Lord? Why you like this? I'm not? Then?
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Can you just agree not to hit my ears ever
thought of growing a mustache. What the fuck?
Speaker 2 (04:10):
I know, right?
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Three screenshots worth of me trying to explain didn't matter.
Eventually we broke up, but I stayed in his life,
spent all my free time at his house like an idiot.
He started offering me weed constantly, but never smoked it himself.
Red flag. Yeah, but at the time I thought more
(04:33):
for me. I'm telling you all this so you understand
how warped everything felt. None of it made sense and
now comes apart. I never said out loud the part
where I think he tried to kill me. I was sixteen,
he was nineteen. The day started off like any other,
just hanging out. My memory of the period is blurry,
(04:56):
but this moment is sharp. I remember him straddling me,
pitting my arms to my chest. I thought it was
another one of his games. Then both his hands wrapped
around my throat. Not playful, not sexually, full pressure on
my windpipe. I couldn't breathe, I could barely speak. I
(05:16):
clowed his arms, hit him, trying to break free, but
nothing worked. I gasped, I can't fucking breathe let go,
but he just came out in a broken whisper. You
just kept laughing. I remember thinking, is this it? Am
I going to die here? I don't even know how
I got free. I think I used my legs, twisted hard,
(05:39):
and rolled out from under him. The next day at school,
I barely remembered it until I touched my neck and
felt the bruises. That's when it all came rushing back.
I texted him, you left bruises on my neck.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Oh? Sorry, that was it?
Speaker 1 (05:57):
And no, that was the last time I saw him.
I kept going back. I forgot it even happened. And
two weeks later, when I told a friend and I
saw the horror on her face, that's when I decided
I never want to see him again. I texted him,
told him I was done. He replied, that's understandable, that's all.
(06:20):
I still wonder what would have happened if I hadn't
been able to fight him off, if I'd been just
a little weaker. I tried not to think about him much.
I'm sharing it here because I can't talk about it
anywhere else. Being a guy. Most people just said he
probably thought you were down to wrestle, but I know better.
Wrestling is mutual.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
This wasn't.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
I'm nineteen now, I can't even imagine ever threatening someone
like that. Oh and the cherry on the top. Our
whole friend group called me crazy, said I was overreacting,
cut me off for not wanting to hang out with
him anymore. Wild right, So yeah, crazy ex, let's not
meet again. This is super long, but a good read,
(07:15):
so buckle up. I will be adding headlines to each part.
The backstory. Back in junior high I started dating this guy.
He is now my husband, but we were young, so
our relationship was those typical high school on and off mess.
During one of our off phases, I lost most of
(07:38):
my friends. It was peak COVID, nothing to do, no
one to talk to, so I turned to gaming. That's
how I met them, A group of guys from my
school that I got close to online. And no, I
wasn't that girl who only hang out with guys because
they're less drama. If anything, guy groups can be worse
(07:58):
when you're the only girl one of them. Kyle wasn't
even my type, but he was funny, easy to talk to,
and after the breakup that was enough. I told him
I wasn't ready to date, but I liked him. Maybe someday.
He didn't take that well. He kept brushing me, wanting
(08:20):
to lock something down, and every time I asked for space,
he got mad, like blow up on me and kick
me out of the group chat mad. He started fights
trying to turn others against me, didn't really work, thankfully,
and was consistently checking if I still liked him, if
I took too long to reply. It was exhausting. Clingy
(08:43):
is fine, but manipulative clingy not so much. I had
a life, and he acted like I owed him twenty
four to seven attention. Despite all the drama, we kissed
a couple times, but were never ever official. Eventually, I
found out that the other guys in the group liked
me too, and the whole situation got weird. I ended
(09:05):
up cutting ties with all of them. Months later, I
got back together with my now husband. That really pissed
Kyle off. He started posting music on SoundCloud and Spotify,
basically painting me as a villain, songs about how I
led him on, how awful I was, but I was happy,
so I ignored it. A weird reunion. Fast forward to
(09:32):
about a year after graduation, my now husband had just
proposed we were thrilled posting the engagement photos the whole thing.
We got nearly seven hundred likes on Instagram as our
whole high school anticipated this happening. Almost the day after
we posted the photos, Kyle texted me asking if I
(09:53):
wanted to meet up. So my husband says why not,
and we ended up going to hang out with Kyle.
I know it was a dumb idea, but since my
husband was about to leave for the military, we figured
it couldn't hurt to reconnect with some people before everything changed.
Kyle picked us up. He seemed insanely excited to see us,
(10:15):
which is really weird since we didn't really talk to
him and weren't left off on a good note. We'd
drive to the mall, walk around, grab food, pretty normal stuff.
We caught up on the year since graduation. But even
during that I could tell something about him had shifted.
His smile didn't feel real, his eyes were off, like
(10:38):
he was looking through us. We get back in the
car and start driving aimlessly through town. It's late, probably
around ten pm, no traffic, everything's quiet. Then he starts speeding,
not like a fun little thrill. He's pushing one hundred
and ten in the thirty zone, flying through red lights,
(10:59):
swerving around corner like he's trying to get us killed.
I half laugh at first, thinking he was just showing off,
but he kept doing it. He casually mentioned how the
seatbelts in the car don't really work and how he
isn't a great driver. Ten come the real red flags,
he starts talking about how he thinks he's not wired
(11:21):
like other people said, he doesn't really feel anything when
people die. No sadness, no guilt, just nothing. He even said,
I think I might be a little psychotic. My husband
kind of shrugged it off with the awkward that's not good.
But I remember sitting there heart pounding, suddenly hyper aware
(11:43):
of the locked doors, the broken seatbelt, and how fast
we were going. He starts bringing up how badly I
hurt him when I was fifteen, and that he never
mentally recovered. I obviously said I was sorry and that
I was just a stupid teenager. I thought we were
past this, since we both made mistakes. The whole car
(12:05):
ride was just off. He was blasting these songs, songs
he made about me, weird lyrics, obsessive mystery, not exchange
a glance, but we let it go. Eventually, he pulls
into a massive park in the middle of town, the
one with a huge new staircase they built on the mountain.
(12:27):
No one else was around. It's pitch black. He goes,
you guys want to go for a walk. We get
out and start walking. The stairs go high, higher than
it looked from the road. I'm already uncomfortable, but I
go anyway. About halfway up, my knee starts acting up
(12:47):
old basketball injury, so I tell him I'm staying put.
Kyle stops too and starts talking again, this time about
how he feels like he's never got closure, how he
still dreams about me, how's never being able to connect
with anyone else in the same way. He says this
while my fiance is standing right there. The tension is unbearable.
(13:11):
My husband tries to keep things chill, even jokes lightly,
but you can tell he's ready to leave and he
is getting a little worked up. Eventually, Kyle keeps going.
He walks way ahead, then yells back, you guys should
come up here. It's crazy. Just look at the drop.
With glance up. He's standing at the unfinished part of
(13:33):
the staircase, near a ledge with nothing but ross cement below.
One wrong slip and that's it. My husband looks back
at me, then calls back, Nah.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
We're good.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Let's head back back in the car. It's tense. He's fidgety,
the kind of quiet that feels heavy. He breaks the
silence by saying, if I had a gun right now,
I know what I would do. Just like that, calm, cold,
no emotion in his voice. My body locked up. I
(14:07):
didn't even know what to say. My husband leaned forward
and asked if he was okay. Kyle just gave a
weird little smirk and looked away. He said, I'm good,
just making conversation. We were utterly spooked and kept mentioning
it that we were tired and ready to go home,
(14:27):
but he literally wouldn't take us. Finally, a cop car
slowly rolls into the parking lot. Normal, right, We weren't
doing anything wrong. Maybe Kyle was just a little unfiltered,
like how I knew him in high school. But Kyle
loses it, starts panicking, slamming the steering wheel, breathing fast.
(14:48):
He mutters, if he pulls us over, just say we're
having a threesome.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
What We blink at him?
Speaker 1 (14:55):
That made no sense. We weren't high, we weren't drunk,
we weren't even being loud. But he's acting like he's
running away from something, something worse. The cop doesn't stop us,
just passes by. Kyle pulls out of the lot fast,
then drives us straight home without another word, doesn't even
(15:15):
say goodbye when we get out, just speads off.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Was it just me?
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Or did it feel like he was trying to kill us?
And I didn't even hesitate, No, it wasn't just you.
After that night, we didn't talk to Kyle like at all.
We both agreed it was weird, too weird. My husband
said he couldn't shake off that feeling that we narrowly
avoided something awful, and honestly same the way Kyle stared
(15:44):
from the ledge blank that he was watching and waiting
for something to happen, the things he was seeing in
the car and driving still recklessly, how he freaked out.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
About the cop.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
The next weekend, we made plans to meet up with
some other old friends. The guy in the initial friend
group where Kyle and I met. Turns out they had
all cut off Kyle. I hadn't realized how serious it was.
There had been some drama. Apparently, Kyle had been dating
a girl we will call her Sarah, who cheated on
(16:19):
him with one of the guys in the group. Things
got messy. Sarah ended up pregnant but wanted nothing to
do with Kyle. Sarah claimed that the baby wasn't his.
It really does look like the guy she says as
a father. But still heavy emotional stuff. And Kyle, he
didn't seem to be coping. We told him about the
(16:42):
strange night with him, about the car ride, creepy conversation,
the ledge. They didn't even flinch. One of them actually said, yeah,
that seems like something he would do. But then they
brushed it off. Jealous maybe, but harmless. One of them said, still,
the more we talked, the darker it got. They told
(17:04):
us that when Kyle found out I was engaged, he
went off the deep end, full on drinking rampage, punching
holes in walls, tried to find another guy in the group, who,
by the way, is one of the gentlest people you'll
ever meet and is on the spectrum. Then Kyle disappeared
for a few days, wouldn't answer text, would it called back?
(17:26):
When he finally resurfaced, it was like nothing happened, just
showed up at their condo, like he hadn't dropped off
the grid after threatening one of his closest friends. Smiled, laughed,
acted normal, no apologies, no explanation. Weeks go by. My
husband ships out for training. I stay in town, but
(17:47):
move in with my parents to wrap things up before
I move when he's done. My parents live about thirty
minutes outside of town. It's a very, very small community.
They have about three acres of lane and a dirt
road leading up to their house. I always felt safe
there since we had cameras everywhere and everyone in the
(18:09):
community owns guns, including my dad. If someone was on
the dirt road, my dad would sit on the porch
with a gun, since we never had any uninvited visitors.
Then I started getting messages from Kyle said he wanted
to hang out one more time before my husband left
for the military. I told him we were busy. He
(18:31):
didn't respond after that, but then weird stuff started happening.
One night, I swear to saw his car drive on
the dirt road in front of the house. This was
insanely strange, because, like I said, we're pretty secluded. Another time,
I noticed notification from a random burner account viewing my
Instagram stories, always the first viewer. Every time I blocked it,
(18:56):
a new one would pop up. No posts, no falls,
just watching. I tried to tell myself it wasn't him,
but I knew it was. I started getting messages from
another burner account. They're not threatening exactly, but they're off
long runts about people being fake, how no one really
(19:18):
understands loyalty, and these cryptic comments like he's lucky it
could have been different, but I let it go. Let
what go? I don't respond.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
He tells me it's Kyle.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
By the way, I figure he's just spiraling, maybe going
through something. I blocked the account and sent mine to private.
We never saw him again in person. He kind of
disappeared after that. No mutual friends mentioned him, no post, nothing.
It was like he dropped off the map.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
The truth.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Six months later, I reunited with my husband, and when
we moved several states away to military base, life finally
felt calm again. Then out of nowhere, we get a
call from one of the guys from the old friend group.
A bunch of them were still roommates, so they were
all together when the call came.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
In It started like this, did you hear what happened?
Speaker 1 (20:17):
What is everything?
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Okay? Kyle tried to break into Sarah's house.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
I just froze.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Why why would you do that? He claimed the baby
was his, said she's been lying to him the whole time.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
According to them, Sarah said he showed up out of nowhere,
managed to get inside, and at some point, holding the baby,
he tried to take her. In the chaos, she said
he stabbed her. He was arrested not long after. That's
probably why no one heard from him, why he vanished.
But then it gets worse. The guy told me that
(20:52):
when he was arrested, they found a notebook. It had
our names on every page, Sarah and mine, obsessive stuff,
pages of pages of graphic violent fantasies about killing our
significant others, about our wording us in front of our husbands,
and if he couldn't have us like that, he wrote
that he'll end us all together. It's been three years.
(21:15):
I still have nightmares reflection. I sometimes dread that one
day I'll have to explain the whole thing to my
kids and tell them to be careful with their high
school flings, as it can either end like my husband
and I married together for ten years, or like Kyle,
still seeking revenge from a petty kiss and a crush
(21:36):
five years later. I often think about that night on
the staircase by how he kept calling us to come up,
kept saying how crazy the drop was. What if we
had gone, What if we hadn't stopped halfway. What if
I had never had a basketball injury or from my
husband hadn't put his foot down, If that cop hadn't
(21:57):
shown up and spooked him just enough, maybe things would
have ended differently. But they didn't, and I think that's
the only reason I'm still here telling the story. The
scariest part isn't what he did. It was how close
we were to be in a headline instead
This is going to be long. I'm sorry, So where
to start. I met them when I was fifteen, he
was seventeen. Looking back, the signs were all there. It
started with small things, us just rough housing like buddies.
We are both guys. But it would escalate to them
(00:25):
taking me behind the shed where my friends couldn't see,
and holding me against the wall, all while fake hitting me,
like pretending to hurt me while laughing the whole time.
But he actually did hurt me. I would have bruises
for weeks. One time he literally shoved my face into
stinging nettles, but my naive fifteen year old self thought
(00:46):
it was all in good fun. If only I knew
then what I know now. We started dating at the
end of my sophomore year. Over the summer, thanks escalated quickly.
He used to big me massages, and when I refused,
he'd pinned me down and tickled me until I gave in.
If I stopped before he was satisfied, he'd go right
(01:09):
back to the tickling, relentless, almost cruel. Sometimes he would
do it for no reason at all, just tickle me,
laughing while I baked him to stop, but he wouldn't,
not until I physically fought him off. It happened nearly
every time we were alone. I started to dread bean
with him, but I kept going back. I was in love, stupidly,
(01:33):
painfully in love. For context, I'm five three, about one
hundred pounds back then, he was five seven and regularly lifted.
I learned fast how to fight someone stronger than me.
But it wasn't just a tickling. He used to jokingly
beat me up, except there was nothing playful about it.
(01:54):
He'd punched me hard enough to leave bruises across my
arms and thighs. One time I sat in the front
seat of a friend's car. He wanted shotgun. He punched
me in the arm for the entire fifteen minute drive.
I kept shifting away, quietly, pleading for him to stop.
He didn't. Our friend, who was older than both of
(02:15):
us and driving, said nothing. And then there was my ear.
I just got in it pierced. He thought it was
hilarious to smack me upside the head. One hit made
me bleed. When I told him, he brushed it off,
said it didn't happen. I begged him more than once,
please don't touch my ears. His only reply, correcting my
(02:39):
grammar in the text. I was so scared to say
anything in person. Here's one of the texts I sent
him August twenty twenty one. It's not a big deal.
Just at least don't hit my ears.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
I would never you made it bleed today. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
I'm just super scared of my piercing's getting infected or something.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Sacred. Yeah, just please don't sacred? Omg, oh my god?
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Can you just.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Please have a normal conversation, loss of conservation.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
I just want you to not hit my ears like
you know, it would be nice.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Bonto's binted.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Sometimes I want to block you.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Sometimes I want you to block me, Okay, want me
to Our streak's forty If you you're not getting at
it back.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Can you just please try to respect that. I don't
think having my ears touched or head. Hey, hey, can
you stop hitting my ears like I get it? If
it's an accident. I'm not hitting your ears. I'm not
even near you, you know what I mean? Just try
not to Jimmy, who's that guy that cares more about
(03:55):
our streak than how I feel?
Speaker 2 (03:57):
I'm Czar Lord? Why you like this? I'm not? Then?
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Can you just agree not to hit my ears ever
thought of growing a mustache. What the fuck?
Speaker 2 (04:10):
I know, right?
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Three screenshots worth of me trying to explain didn't matter.
Eventually we broke up, but I stayed in his life,
spent all my free time at his house like an idiot.
He started offering me weed constantly, but never smoked it himself.
Red flag. Yeah, but at the time I thought more
(04:33):
for me. I'm telling you all this so you understand
how warped everything felt. None of it made sense and
now comes apart. I never said out loud the part
where I think he tried to kill me. I was sixteen,
he was nineteen. The day started off like any other,
just hanging out. My memory of the period is blurry,
(04:56):
but this moment is sharp. I remember him straddling me,
pitting my arms to my chest. I thought it was
another one of his games. Then both his hands wrapped
around my throat. Not playful, not sexually, full pressure on
my windpipe. I couldn't breathe, I could barely speak. I
(05:16):
clowed his arms, hit him, trying to break free, but
nothing worked. I gasped, I can't fucking breathe let go,
but he just came out in a broken whisper. You
just kept laughing. I remember thinking, is this it? Am
I going to die here? I don't even know how
I got free. I think I used my legs, twisted hard,
(05:39):
and rolled out from under him. The next day at school,
I barely remembered it until I touched my neck and
felt the bruises. That's when it all came rushing back.
I texted him, you left bruises on my neck.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Oh? Sorry, that was it?
Speaker 1 (05:57):
And no, that was the last time I saw him.
I kept going back. I forgot it even happened. And
two weeks later, when I told a friend and I
saw the horror on her face, that's when I decided
I never want to see him again. I texted him,
told him I was done. He replied, that's understandable, that's all.
(06:20):
I still wonder what would have happened if I hadn't
been able to fight him off, if I'd been just
a little weaker. I tried not to think about him much.
I'm sharing it here because I can't talk about it
anywhere else. Being a guy. Most people just said he
probably thought you were down to wrestle, but I know better.
Wrestling is mutual.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
This wasn't.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
I'm nineteen now, I can't even imagine ever threatening someone
like that. Oh and the cherry on the top. Our
whole friend group called me crazy, said I was overreacting,
cut me off for not wanting to hang out with
him anymore. Wild right, So yeah, crazy ex, let's not
meet again. This is super long, but a good read,
(07:15):
so buckle up. I will be adding headlines to each part.
The backstory. Back in junior high I started dating this guy.
He is now my husband, but we were young, so
our relationship was those typical high school on and off mess.
During one of our off phases, I lost most of
(07:38):
my friends. It was peak COVID, nothing to do, no
one to talk to, so I turned to gaming. That's
how I met them, A group of guys from my
school that I got close to online. And no, I
wasn't that girl who only hang out with guys because
they're less drama. If anything, guy groups can be worse
(07:58):
when you're the only girl one of them. Kyle wasn't
even my type, but he was funny, easy to talk to,
and after the breakup that was enough. I told him
I wasn't ready to date, but I liked him. Maybe someday.
He didn't take that well. He kept brushing me, wanting
(08:20):
to lock something down, and every time I asked for space,
he got mad, like blow up on me and kick
me out of the group chat mad. He started fights
trying to turn others against me, didn't really work, thankfully,
and was consistently checking if I still liked him, if
I took too long to reply. It was exhausting. Clingy
(08:43):
is fine, but manipulative clingy not so much. I had
a life, and he acted like I owed him twenty
four to seven attention. Despite all the drama, we kissed
a couple times, but were never ever official. Eventually, I
found out that the other guys in the group liked
me too, and the whole situation got weird. I ended
(09:05):
up cutting ties with all of them. Months later, I
got back together with my now husband. That really pissed
Kyle off. He started posting music on SoundCloud and Spotify,
basically painting me as a villain, songs about how I
led him on, how awful I was, but I was happy,
so I ignored it. A weird reunion. Fast forward to
(09:32):
about a year after graduation, my now husband had just
proposed we were thrilled posting the engagement photos the whole thing.
We got nearly seven hundred likes on Instagram as our
whole high school anticipated this happening. Almost the day after
we posted the photos, Kyle texted me asking if I
(09:53):
wanted to meet up. So my husband says why not,
and we ended up going to hang out with Kyle.
I know it was a dumb idea, but since my
husband was about to leave for the military, we figured
it couldn't hurt to reconnect with some people before everything changed.
Kyle picked us up. He seemed insanely excited to see us,
(10:15):
which is really weird since we didn't really talk to
him and weren't left off on a good note. We'd
drive to the mall, walk around, grab food, pretty normal stuff.
We caught up on the year since graduation. But even
during that I could tell something about him had shifted.
His smile didn't feel real, his eyes were off, like
(10:38):
he was looking through us. We get back in the
car and start driving aimlessly through town. It's late, probably
around ten pm, no traffic, everything's quiet. Then he starts speeding,
not like a fun little thrill. He's pushing one hundred
and ten in the thirty zone, flying through red lights,
(10:59):
swerving around corner like he's trying to get us killed.
I half laugh at first, thinking he was just showing off,
but he kept doing it. He casually mentioned how the
seatbelts in the car don't really work and how he
isn't a great driver. Ten come the real red flags,
he starts talking about how he thinks he's not wired
(11:21):
like other people said, he doesn't really feel anything when
people die. No sadness, no guilt, just nothing. He even said,
I think I might be a little psychotic. My husband
kind of shrugged it off with the awkward that's not good.
But I remember sitting there heart pounding, suddenly hyper aware
(11:43):
of the locked doors, the broken seatbelt, and how fast
we were going. He starts bringing up how badly I
hurt him when I was fifteen, and that he never
mentally recovered. I obviously said I was sorry and that
I was just a stupid teenager. I thought we were
past this, since we both made mistakes. The whole car
(12:05):
ride was just off. He was blasting these songs, songs
he made about me, weird lyrics, obsessive mystery, not exchange
a glance, but we let it go. Eventually, he pulls
into a massive park in the middle of town, the
one with a huge new staircase they built on the mountain.
(12:27):
No one else was around. It's pitch black. He goes,
you guys want to go for a walk. We get
out and start walking. The stairs go high, higher than
it looked from the road. I'm already uncomfortable, but I
go anyway. About halfway up, my knee starts acting up
(12:47):
old basketball injury, so I tell him I'm staying put.
Kyle stops too and starts talking again, this time about
how he feels like he's never got closure, how he
still dreams about me, how's never being able to connect
with anyone else in the same way. He says this
while my fiance is standing right there. The tension is unbearable.
(13:11):
My husband tries to keep things chill, even jokes lightly,
but you can tell he's ready to leave and he
is getting a little worked up. Eventually, Kyle keeps going.
He walks way ahead, then yells back, you guys should
come up here. It's crazy. Just look at the drop.
With glance up. He's standing at the unfinished part of
(13:33):
the staircase, near a ledge with nothing but ross cement below.
One wrong slip and that's it. My husband looks back
at me, then calls back, Nah.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
We're good.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Let's head back back in the car. It's tense. He's fidgety,
the kind of quiet that feels heavy. He breaks the
silence by saying, if I had a gun right now,
I know what I would do. Just like that, calm, cold,
no emotion in his voice. My body locked up. I
(14:07):
didn't even know what to say. My husband leaned forward
and asked if he was okay. Kyle just gave a
weird little smirk and looked away. He said, I'm good,
just making conversation. We were utterly spooked and kept mentioning
it that we were tired and ready to go home,
(14:27):
but he literally wouldn't take us. Finally, a cop car
slowly rolls into the parking lot. Normal, right, We weren't
doing anything wrong. Maybe Kyle was just a little unfiltered,
like how I knew him in high school. But Kyle
loses it, starts panicking, slamming the steering wheel, breathing fast.
(14:48):
He mutters, if he pulls us over, just say we're
having a threesome.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
What We blink at him?
Speaker 1 (14:55):
That made no sense. We weren't high, we weren't drunk,
we weren't even being loud. But he's acting like he's
running away from something, something worse. The cop doesn't stop us,
just passes by. Kyle pulls out of the lot fast,
then drives us straight home without another word, doesn't even
(15:15):
say goodbye when we get out, just speads off.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Was it just me?
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Or did it feel like he was trying to kill us?
And I didn't even hesitate, No, it wasn't just you.
After that night, we didn't talk to Kyle like at all.
We both agreed it was weird, too weird. My husband
said he couldn't shake off that feeling that we narrowly
avoided something awful, and honestly same the way Kyle stared
(15:44):
from the ledge blank that he was watching and waiting
for something to happen, the things he was seeing in
the car and driving still recklessly, how he freaked out.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
About the cop.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
The next weekend, we made plans to meet up with
some other old friends. The guy in the initial friend
group where Kyle and I met. Turns out they had
all cut off Kyle. I hadn't realized how serious it was.
There had been some drama. Apparently, Kyle had been dating
a girl we will call her Sarah, who cheated on
(16:19):
him with one of the guys in the group. Things
got messy. Sarah ended up pregnant but wanted nothing to
do with Kyle. Sarah claimed that the baby wasn't his.
It really does look like the guy she says as
a father. But still heavy emotional stuff. And Kyle, he
didn't seem to be coping. We told him about the
(16:42):
strange night with him, about the car ride, creepy conversation,
the ledge. They didn't even flinch. One of them actually said, yeah,
that seems like something he would do. But then they
brushed it off. Jealous maybe, but harmless. One of them said, still,
the more we talked, the darker it got. They told
(17:04):
us that when Kyle found out I was engaged, he
went off the deep end, full on drinking rampage, punching
holes in walls, tried to find another guy in the group, who,
by the way, is one of the gentlest people you'll
ever meet and is on the spectrum. Then Kyle disappeared
for a few days, wouldn't answer text, would it called back?
(17:26):
When he finally resurfaced, it was like nothing happened, just
showed up at their condo, like he hadn't dropped off
the grid after threatening one of his closest friends. Smiled, laughed,
acted normal, no apologies, no explanation. Weeks go by. My
husband ships out for training. I stay in town, but
(17:47):
move in with my parents to wrap things up before
I move when he's done. My parents live about thirty
minutes outside of town. It's a very, very small community.
They have about three acres of lane and a dirt
road leading up to their house. I always felt safe
there since we had cameras everywhere and everyone in the
(18:09):
community owns guns, including my dad. If someone was on
the dirt road, my dad would sit on the porch
with a gun, since we never had any uninvited visitors.
Then I started getting messages from Kyle said he wanted
to hang out one more time before my husband left
for the military. I told him we were busy. He
(18:31):
didn't respond after that, but then weird stuff started happening.
One night, I swear to saw his car drive on
the dirt road in front of the house. This was
insanely strange, because, like I said, we're pretty secluded. Another time,
I noticed notification from a random burner account viewing my
Instagram stories, always the first viewer. Every time I blocked it,
(18:56):
a new one would pop up. No posts, no falls,
just watching. I tried to tell myself it wasn't him,
but I knew it was. I started getting messages from
another burner account. They're not threatening exactly, but they're off
long runts about people being fake, how no one really
(19:18):
understands loyalty, and these cryptic comments like he's lucky it
could have been different, but I let it go. Let
what go? I don't respond.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
He tells me it's Kyle.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
By the way, I figure he's just spiraling, maybe going
through something. I blocked the account and sent mine to private.
We never saw him again in person. He kind of
disappeared after that. No mutual friends mentioned him, no post, nothing.
It was like he dropped off the map.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
The truth.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Six months later, I reunited with my husband, and when
we moved several states away to military base, life finally
felt calm again. Then out of nowhere, we get a
call from one of the guys from the old friend group.
A bunch of them were still roommates, so they were
all together when the call came.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
In It started like this, did you hear what happened?
Speaker 1 (20:17):
What is everything?
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Okay? Kyle tried to break into Sarah's house.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
I just froze.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Why why would you do that? He claimed the baby
was his, said she's been lying to him the whole time.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
According to them, Sarah said he showed up out of nowhere,
managed to get inside, and at some point, holding the baby,
he tried to take her. In the chaos, she said
he stabbed her. He was arrested not long after. That's
probably why no one heard from him, why he vanished.
But then it gets worse. The guy told me that
(20:52):
when he was arrested, they found a notebook. It had
our names on every page, Sarah and mine, obsessive stuff,
pages of pages of graphic violent fantasies about killing our
significant others, about our wording us in front of our husbands,
and if he couldn't have us like that, he wrote
that he'll end us all together. It's been three years.
(21:15):
I still have nightmares reflection. I sometimes dread that one
day I'll have to explain the whole thing to my
kids and tell them to be careful with their high
school flings, as it can either end like my husband
and I married together for ten years, or like Kyle,
still seeking revenge from a petty kiss and a crush
(21:36):
five years later. I often think about that night on
the staircase by how he kept calling us to come up,
kept saying how crazy the drop was. What if we
had gone, What if we hadn't stopped halfway. What if
I had never had a basketball injury or from my
husband hadn't put his foot down, If that cop hadn't
(21:57):
shown up and spooked him just enough, maybe things would
have ended differently. But they didn't, and I think that's
the only reason I'm still here telling the story. The
scariest part isn't what he did. It was how close
we were to be in a headline instead
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