Reflection Chapter: The Villains in Some Stories

The villains in our story.

Most of us have them, and I had them too.

The people that hurt us, whether they did it on purpose or not. It hurt. It made us bleed, and some still bleed, while others sometimes scratch the scar, making it bleed again. Others healed, and the scars faded.

Me personally, I am somewhere between healed and scratching.

I think most of you know what I’m talking about when I mention the villains in our story. It could be as simple as an ex-romantic partner where things simply didn’t work out because you wanted different things, or an ex that cheated on you. Friendships that didn’t work out for whatever reason.

I’m bringing this up because I didn’t realise how universal and common this really is, how many people are still bleeding even after so much time has passed, and for some, the wounds even festered.

For me, it was a group of friends.

Not because there was one big dramatic betrayal, but because I expected them to be there during the hardest periods of my life. And when they weren’t, or at least not in the way I needed them to be, it felt like abandonment, rejection.

And for a while, they were my villains.

I don’t see them that way anymore.

But for a while, I did. I hated them, blamed them, hated what happened, and missed them at the same time.

In my case, that hatred lasted for a fraction of a second before it turned into pain, then sadness, then regret, and eventually returned to love and longing.

Right now, long past this villain phase, this is what I wonder about.

Those friends, people that hurt me more than I had been hurt in a very long time. Close friends that were supposed to be there for me through thick and thin. The people I thought would still be there for me no matter what.

Where are they now?

Why haven’t they reached out after all this time?

The answer I eventually came up with was this:

Because maybe I am the villain in their story. Like they once were in mine.

Maybe I am hated.

Maybe they are still angry.

Maybe they simply stopped caring and moved on.

Maybe they are finally at peace now that we are no longer in each other’s lives.

And maybe that peace is valid too.

But after a while, my perspective changed. Or maybe expanded would be a better word.

And then the questions slowly changed.

So why weren’t they there for me? => Was I there when they needed me? Was I still the me they once knew?

Where are they now? => Where am I now?

Why haven’t they reached out? => Why haven’t I?

Maybe we started to drift apart long ago, and I didn’t realise until it was too late. I often still ask myself these questions.

I don’t believe my friends did what they did on purpose. I believe we reached a point where we wanted different things, they couldn’t help me more than they already had, and the physical distance made it harder for them to help me.

I’ve noticed that many blame their villains constantly. Sometimes for very good reasons, I’m sure.

But some just think they did nothing wrong. They refuse to even consider that they may have played a role too.

But I think that more often than not there are no villains at all. I think sometimes it’s simply good people reaching the end of a relationship, whether platonic or romantic, and realizing nobody was truly the enemy.

Those endings can be changed and blossom again, like I often hope my story would end.

And sometimes there is no happily ever after. The story ends.

Sometimes people simply reach a point where they no longer know how to speak to each other.

We avoid conversations because they make us uncomfortable. We avoid admitting that maybe we became the villain in their eyes because our ego doesn’t want to accept that maybe, just maybe, we are the bad guy.

We all like to believe we are "the good one".

And most of us stay with that belief, unwilling to see otherwise, unwilling to see the other side.

I’ve met several people lately who are still stuck blaming their villains. But sometimes, when we hold on to blame for too long, we stop looking at ourselves too. We stop asking if we also played a role. We stop asking if the story is more complicated than we want to admit.

And that is dangerous because blame will make you bitter.

It will cripple you. It will prevent your growth. It will prevent you from being fully free and happy.

You need to learn to forgive them, but also yourself.

So if you have villains in your story, ask yourself if maybe you are one in theirs too.

Maybe they truly were evil and intended to hurt you. In that case, your battle is harder than mine.

But more often than not, it’s just people who got hurt and blame each other for the hurt, and we end up as the enemy in each other’s stories.

I know someone who literally no longer trusts anyone after being disappointed several times.

She is terrified of repeating past friendships. She keeps saying, “See? They gave up on me. People are all the same.”

And I do understand where that fear comes from. When people hurt you before, of course you start protecting yourself. But sometimes that protection becomes a wall. You start assuming the worst before anything even happens. You become harsher, more demanding, and without even meaning to, you push people away.

She refuses to move on or open her heart again because of the villains in her story.

And recently, I realized I don’t know how to get through to her anymore. I’m not even getting the chance to prove her wrong.

Her case is simply the most extreme.

The truth is, whether we want it or not, we are all someone’s villain eventually. Even if we never intended to be.

We don’t get a say in that.

It’s their story.

I think most of us know there are people we hurt, people whose forgiveness or friendship we may no longer deserve. And because of that, we become afraid of rejection. Afraid of being met with silence or a simple “no.”

I found myself in that exact situation many times.

I lost count of how many messages I wanted to send to that old friend group. Messages that were already written. All I had to do was press send. But sometimes it isn’t that simple, is it?

But if I’m the villain in their story, as I started to believe I am, then what right do I have to reopen the chapter?

Beyond saying a superficial “happy birthday” or “hope you’re doing well,” I rarely ventured further.

I don’t know how, and maybe they don’t know how either.

I think a lot of us want to reconnect with old friendships where we might have been the one who caused pain. Where we realized they are not the enemy, but we simply lack the courage and knowledge to do so because it asks us to be vulnerable.

And vulnerability is terrifying.

We would rather avoid pain and disappointment than risk the possibility of a positive outcome.

Pain keeps us paralyzed.

And maybe that is why so many stories stay unfinished.

Not because nobody cared.

But because both sides became too afraid to speak anymore.

Maybe some people were never villains at all.

Maybe they were just people who got hurt, people who hurt back, people who slowly stopped understanding each other.

The villains in our stories are often just people. Flawed, human, and sometimes just as lost as we were.

And sometimes, years later, all that remains are messages that were never sent and the hope that the other person found peace and is living happily.

I adore this picture, but explaining why is harder than it should be.