A 29-year-old woman was left baffled after she received an unexpected message from a former high-school classmate.

Laura Picadillo from Georgia (@laurapicadillo) read aloud the note in a clip on TikTok, explaining how it arrived years after graduation. “Hey, I’m sorry for reaching out all these years later,” the message began. “But I am haunted by the way I bullied you in high school. I am filled with so much regret over it. I’m so sorry, my behavior was awful and heinous. I really hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me.”

The confession, however, didn’t land the way the sender might have expected. “The thing is, I don’t have any recollection of being bullied by this person,” Picadillo said. “In fact, I have really fond memories of them. I thought we were really good friends.”

Picadillo told Newsweek she was initially very confused by the whole thing. “I thought I was being pranked, or this was a viral trend that hadn’t found its way onto my feed yet,” she said.

Still, the apology stirred up deeper reflection. Picadillo said she hasn’t kept in touch with a lot of friends from high school.

“I always rationalized this by saying that we were all just friends because of the forced proximity and nothing else, with the exception of a few,” she added. “It was hard to confront that that’s maybe how the friends I treasured see me, or that they secretly harbor negative feelings.”

Picadillo eventually did respond to the message, but not in the way TikTok commenters were urging.

She posted an update video on her profile and wrote back: “Thank you for this. No hard feelings between us. Wish you the best with everything.”

The exchange didn’t end there. The former classmate replied with more context—confessing that they had deliberately sabotaged Picadillo’s college applications.

“I didn’t reveal this in my update video, but … I ended up not responding to that message,” Picadillo said.

“I don’t care to play the ‘what if’ game,” she added. “I’m currently in a very good place. I met the friend who would introduce me to my current partner 10 years later at that college. My career in research started taking off at that college. It all worked out for the best; I wouldn’t trade my current life for the chance to study at a different school.”

The viral story has been viewed over 215,000 times. The comments section quickly filled with hundreds of suggested comebacks.

Many others guessed that the note was the result of the sender being enrolled in a 12-step Alcoholics Anonymous program, specifically referring to step nine, where the person is encouraged to make amends.

“I have heard from all sorts of people, the bullied and the bullies,” Picadillo said of the online reaction. “One commenter is 65 years old and still carrying guilt about it. A few said that if their victim didn’t remember being bullied, they would feel devastated. Those people are weird.”

In the end, Picadillo chose compassion. “We don’t know what this person is going through,” she said. “I was always going to respond to this person with compassion and grace, because, clearly, they are dealing with something difficult to be confronting their actions from [over] 10 years ago.”