Surprise!

I was panicking.
Right there, on the stairs, I had kicked him square in the junk.
In retrospect, this was not the best of ideas. He was athletic, I was overweight. He ALREADY didn't like me. I had serious doubts about whether or not my friends would back me if it came down to a fistfight. But in my frustration I had made my bed, and now I had to sleep in it; maybe forever, depending on how badly he was gonna get back at me.
Needless to say, I was panicking.
I looked around, and saw ab-so-lutely nobody. Shit. In my panicked state, I forgot the most important rule in not getting your ass kicked: "NEVER BE ALONE." Sure enough, there he came up the stairs after me, quickly, angrily, looking for a confrontation. Shit. It had been maybe forty-five seconds and already things had gone completely to hell. Sometimes I have the worst luck.
He caught up to me and pushed me up against a bed of lockers. "What the HELL?" he yelled, presumably having just regained his breath.
I decided that honesty was the best policy. After all, how much worse could things possibly get at this point? "Well," I began, "you've only been bugging me ALL YEAR for no good reason."
"Still, I can't believe you'd kick me in the balls. What the hell?"
"And I'm sorry for that-"
"Damn right you are!"
"-but not sorry that I kicked you."
"Wh-"
"In general. I'm sorry I kicked you in the balls, but not sorry that I kicked you."
He looked at me for a minute then, like a bull considering charging. I stared back. Really, what did I have to lose?
After what felt like forty years, he let go of my shirt and walked away. He might've been shaking his head as he did, I was too busy being grateful for being alive. I knew in the back of my head that this reprieve was only temporary, and he'd be back soon with friends and they'd all kick my sorry ass and technically I'd deserve it too.
But, miraculously, I was wrong.
He never did come by a-reckoning, probably figuring that we were even at that point. Or that he should mess with people less inclined to retaliate. I walked away from the experience - for which I was grateful to do AT ALL - with an important life lesson: Sometimes solving your problems with violence works.