The candidate I had to interview for this week was my high school bully.

I work for a fairly large company in the tech industry. I've been with them for over 9 years and have held my current position for 4 years. I do not discriminate in interviews; every candidate who comes in is given an equal shot. This week I had to interview a woman for a position in our department. Her resume was spotless and she had excellent references, and she immediately stood out as a strong candidate. I said as much in my report, and her onboarding is to start next week.<br><br>It wasn't until after she was already set up for training with our team leader that I discovered she was the same girl who bullied me in high school, tormenting me for being the only kid in my grade whose parents were divorced. I remember the first day of school in my sophomore year, when I was sitting on a block of wood at the front of my biology class because I was so terrified of my new teacher. It was during that second period anatomy class that I discovered humanity had created a creature whos sole purpose was to make everyone hate their own race. She had this goofy, cheerful smile plastered across her face when she introduced herself to me, and I remember the sheer disgust that flashed across her eyes when I told her I was divorced and my parents lived separate households. I remember the pure, unadulterated contempt she filled me with when she told me she came from a family of devout fundies. I remember his fist flying through the air towards me at the end of that day, a chair crashing to the ground behind him as he pushed his way past two teachers and out of the classroom, ripping the neck open on my white cotton biology shirt as he grabbed for me. I remember the sense of impotence that filled me as I sat in a hospital bed for three days waiting for a patchwork quilt of surgeons to finish repairing tendons in my hands. I remember the guilt that filled me as all my work turned in late, the failures I'd made on a test I couldn't write because I couldnt hold a pen, and the constant looks of concern my parents gave each other as we all sat around my bedside, waiting for me to wake up. I remember how she was always the one encouraging others to do her dirty work. I remember the sense of relief when she was finally kicked out of that biology class for assaulting me, and how I was moved to a different group for the rest of the semester. <br><br>When she started training last week, I had to fight the urge to laugh whenever I saw her cheerful face. She was the human equivalent of a golden retriever who had once bitten my face off, and I couldn't even hint to my manager that I knew her. I had to keep my mouth shut and play dumb as my former high school bully got to know my coworkers, as she learned more and more about the inner workings of the company, as she got closer and closer to being able to access company information without supervision. <br><br>I'm just so fucking irated that, after all these years, here I am playing nice with the monster that bit me. Last week I had to introduce the two at our Christmas party, and I did it with a smile on my face. I feel so humiliated that I was so willing to put past horrors aside, so willing to forgive someone who never showed me an ounce of remorse. I should have stood my ground back then, I should have refused to let her push me around, and now here I am as an adult, forced to be nice to the girl who made my high school a living hell.