We Are Divided by All That Came Before

At our college reunion, I lost a Truth or Dare game and had to hand over my unlocked phone.

They scrolled straight to my texts with Charles. Years of messages filled the thread.

Classic you two, Marcus laughed. In college, you passed ten pages of notes per lecture. Six years married and still obsessed.

Read the juicy stuff! someone shouted.

Marcus tapped the screen. The past two years showed only one messagefrom Charles: Need appendix surgery. Come to the hospital?

He frowned. Got a new phone?

No cloud backup? All those memories gone, another friend said.

I looked across the room. Charles sat in the corner, drinking whiskey in silence. Beside him was Dana, the quiet girl whod chased him through college. They sat close, shoulders nearly touching.

Two years earlier, Id walked in on them together in bed.

I did replace something, I said evenly.

Not my phone.

My husband.

The heavy tension in the room instantly evaporated into nervous laughter. People started talking over each other to break the ice.

"Oh, I thought it was a software bug."

"Note to self, always back up your iCloud when upgrading."

But a few people stayed dead silent. They glanced at me, then looked over at Charles's pale, rigid face.

They definitely had their suspicions.

After all, before everything fell apart, Charles and I were joined at the hip. At every single social gathering, we were practically breathing each other's air.

Since the incident, I hadn't attended a single reunion for two years.

I only agreed to show up tonight because Charles and I had legally remarried this year, and he wired five million dollars to my bank account just to buy my presence. It was a business transaction. He wanted to save face.

But I hadn't spoken a single word to him all night.

Looking utterly defeated, he just hid in the shadows, letting the alcohol burn down his throat.

"Next round! Let's go!"

The empty beer bottle spun on the mahogany table.

Just my luck. It pointed right at me again.

"Alright, Serena, your turn for a Truth," Marcus said, sliding the deck of cards across the table.

I picked a card at random and flipped it over.

It read: [What is the boldest thing you have ever done?]

I pretended to think about it. But the only image that filled my mind was the blinding fluorescent lights of the operating room, and the feeling of the pen in my hand as I signed the abortion consent forms all by myself.

That was the baby Charles and I had spent four agonizing years trying to conceive.

I just closed my eyes, and when I opened them, the surgical basin was half full of my tears. The baby was gone.

To this day, nobody knew I had even been pregnant.

"I once ate a raw, beating snake heart on a trip to Mexico," I said, using a bright smile to bury a pain that had already turned into thick scar tissue. "Does that count?"

"Hell yeah, that counts!"

The bottle spun again. This time, the glass neck aimed straight at Charles.

"Dare time for the golden boy!" Marcus clapped his hands together.

"Charles, you have to pick someone in this room right now and sing 'Perfect' to them!"

Everybody knew the history behind that song. It was the exact acoustic track Charles had played on his guitar when he asked me to be his girlfriend all those years ago.

They all knew he had to choose me.

Marcus was intentionally trying to play matchmaker. He noticed the freezing atmosphere between Charles and me, and he wanted to throw us a lifeline.

"Charles..."

Dana reached out and gently tugged at the hem of Charles's designer shirt.

Charles suddenly stood up, the chair scraping loudly against the hardwood floor. "Something came up. I need to head home."

He looked at me.

"Let's go, darling."

Out in the dimly lit hallway, I couldn't resist mocking him. "What, couldn't bear to see Dana looking so heartbroken?"

"You're paying awfully close attention to her..."

Charles suddenly grabbed my wrist and pinned me against the wallpaper. A heavy wave of bourbon washed over my face, and I immediately scrunched my nose in disgust.

"Get off me."

"This kind of physical contact costs extra."

His mouth twisted into a bitter, self-deprecating smile. "Is money really the only thing we can talk about anymore?"

"What else is there?" I shot back.

He had used his massive wealth to force my second husband out of the picture. He had used dirty corporate tactics to back me into a corner until I agreed to remarry him.

Did he honestly believe there was an ounce of love left between us?

The crushing grip on my wrist instantly loosened. Charles lowered his eyes, trying to hide a flash of sheer devastation.

Right then, his phone vibrated in his pocket.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the notification light up the screen. It was a text from Dana.

[Dana: We finally get to see each other tonight. Can't you stay with me a little longer?]

"You should go to her," I said smoothly. "If you're worried about getting caught by the paparazzi and causing a PR nightmare, I can book a hotel for you."

"I just got Diamond status at the Hilton, actually."

I pulled out my phone, opened the app, and specifically scrolled until I found their Presidential Suite.

"This one looks nice."

"It's way bigger than that boutique motel you guys used to sneak around in. Better room service, too. If you two get exhausted from screwing all night, they'll roll a breakfast cart right up to the bed."

With every word that left my mouth, the color drained further from Charles's face.

By the time I looked up at him, his expression was so dark it looked like a storm was about to break.

"Are you really that desperate to push me into another woman's bed?"

"Serena, I have explained it to you a thousand times. That night was an accident."

"I had too much to drink, and I just..."

I played dumb. "Well, you've had plenty to drink tonight, too."

"The alcohol will definitely make things more fun for you guys."

"Go on. I'll drive over and pick you up in the morning. Half a million dollars for the chauffeur service. Make sure it hits my account by dawn."

I reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out the keys to his car, and turned on my heel, walking away without a backward glance.

The custom matte-yellow Maybach stood out like a beacon in the underground garage.

It was a pathetic gesture. After we remarried, Charles had the entire car wrapped in my favorite color, desperately trying to cater to my tastes.

I drove the luxury car out into the freezing night, speeding down the empty avenues.

While waiting at a red light, my gaze drifted to a row of sticky residue marks lining the passenger side dashboard.

That spot used to be covered in those cheap, ugly little figurines Dana loved so much.

The glove compartment used to be overflowing with her lip glosses and trinkets.

The passenger seat used to be draped in a fluffy pink lambskin blanket, with her fuzzy slippers resting on the floor mats.

And back then, I was probably the one clinging to the outside of the window, screaming like a lunatic, chasing after their car as it drove away.

A loud honk from the vehicle behind me ripped me back to reality.

When I finally got home, the moment I pushed the front door open, a gust of wind knocked a sticky note off the entryway wall.

It fluttered to the ground. It read: Welcome home, $20,000.

The entire penthouse was covered in them.

On the stainless steel refrigerator: Having dinner together, $50,000.

On the flat-screen TV: Watching a movie together, $30,000 an hour.

Right on the master bedroom door: Sleeping in the same bed, absolutely no physical contact, 0-050,000 a night.

Sometimes he threw money at me so randomly that I couldn't be bothered to keep track. Eventually, I just gave him a flat rate.

Spending one full day with him cost one million dollars.

My phone suddenly chimed with a massive bank transfer notification.

It was from Charles. The memo attached read: [You booked the hotel room for me, but you didn't order the ultra-thin condoms?]

A wave of pure nausea hit the back of my throat. I gripped my phone so tightly my knuckles turned white, taking several deep, shaky breaths before I opened an overnight delivery app.

I typed in his specific size, added a box to the cart, and hit purchase.

Watching the GPS tracker show the delivery driver getting closer to the Hilton, I threw my phone onto the marble counter and sprinted into the bathroom. I pumped handfuls of antibacterial soap, scrubbing my hands raw under the scalding water.

I scrubbed until the flesh was bright red. I scrubbed until the skin started peeling off. The stinging pain throbbed all the way up my arms.

My brain was trapped in an endless loop, flashing the image of my hand ripping the duvet off their naked bodies that night.

Disgusting.

Absolutely disgusting.

It felt like I was back in that cramped, suffocating bathroom from two years ago, with Charles pounding frantically on the door from the outside.

He was begging for forgiveness. Dana was weeping hysterically. And I was inside, dry-heaving over the toilet, desperately trying to wash my hands in the bowl just to feel clean.

Crash.

My elbow knocked into the glass display shelf.

More than a dozen imported perfume bottles Charles had bought for me shattered across the tiles, the overpowering mixture of floral and musk suffocating the air.

I simply stepped out, pulled the bathroom door shut, and left the mess for him to clean up whenever he crawled back. I picked my phone off the counter. The screen showed the delivery was complete.

My fingers flew across the keyboard, typing out the very first text I had sent to Charles all year.

[If one box isn't enough, you can always pay me to order more.]

I never in a million years thought Charles would end up sleeping with Dana.

Back in college, she was completely invisible.

She was painfully introverted, possessed absolutely zero talents, and had totally mediocre grades.

She shrank away from everything and everyone, yet she had stubbornly trailed after Charles like a lost puppy for three years.

But Charles was secretly in love with me. He found Dana's relentless pursuing utterly pathetic and even considered it a stain on his reputation.

Once, when Charles coldly tossed a homemade breakfast Dana had baked for him straight into the campus trash can, I dragged him aside and tore into him.

"You do not treat a girl like that."

"You don't have to date her, but you can't just humiliate her in public. It breaks people."

Only then did Charles soften his attitude toward her.

Eventually, Charles and I made things official.

The night he confessed his feelings to me, Dana stood at the edge of the cheering crowd. She was clutching a stuffed bear she never got the courage to give him, crying so hard she could barely breathe.

The very next week, she transferred to another university.

What I didn't know back then was that she and Charles had exchanged private numbers, and they kept in secret contact the entire time.

By the time I saw Dana again, eight years had passed.

She had already been working at Charles's corporate headquarters for six months. She was his executive secretary, spending every waking hour glued to his side.

"She applied for the job, and I figured I'd help out an old classmate," he had explained smoothly over dinner.

"Plus, I was a real jerk to her back in college. Consider this me making amends."

Charles, a man who was arrogant to his very bones, was actually reflecting on his past mistakes.

I didn't think much of it.

Not until I noticed that Charles was taking longer and longer to text me back.

I was the kind of person who wanted to share everything with my husband. A blooming flower on the sidewalk, a weirdly shaped cloud, I sent it all to him. Usually, he replied within seconds. We easily sent a hundred texts a day.

But then, messages I sent at dawn wouldn't get a reply until midnight.

I sent him eighty texts. He replied with a single, cold "Yeah."

Gradually, it shifted from one reply a day, to one reply every three days. Eventually, our chat log was just a wall of my green speech bubbles crying out into the void.

I drove down to his office, only to be told by HR that he and Dana had gone on a 'business trip.'

It wasn't a business trip. It was a month-long vacation in the Maldives.

He lied to my face, spending thirty days in paradise with her. I later found the hidden, encrypted album on his laptop. It was entirely filled with candid shots of Dana laughing on the beach. And at the bottom, a note he had typed out:

If I hadn't been so cruel to you back then, would everything be different now?

When I confronted him with the evidence, we tore the house apart.

Charles didn't even try to deny it. Reeking of expensive scotch, he pointed a shaking finger right at my face and roared, "I am so sick of this!"

"Why do I have to spend my whole life bowing down to you?"

"Back in college, I followed you around like a dog! You whistled, I came running. You told me to get lost, I vanished! Do you really think you're some kind of royalty?"

"If I hadn't spent years inflating your massive ego, you wouldn't have the guts to stand here and scream at me!"

After that earth-shattering fight, I locked myself in the house and cried for three days straight.

During those three days, he took Dana on a private jet to see the Swiss Alps.

So, the second he walked back through the front door, I handed him divorce papers.

That was when the reality set in for Charles. He panicked. He dropped to his knees, clutching my legs, sobbing and apologizing.

"I was drunk! I was just saying hurtful things to win the fight, I swear!"

He slapped himself across the face, over and over, swearing on his life he would cut Dana off completely.

"Then fire her," I demanded.

Charles froze.

"Darling, I can't do that to her."

"You were the one who taught me. A ruthless rejection like that... it breaks people. Besides, she hasn't made any mistakes at work."

The very words I had spoken to protect her all those years ago had turned into a poisoned blade, driving straight into my own heart.

Dana was soft. She was yielding. She stayed by Charles's side, wrapping around him like warm water, pulling him deeper and deeper until he was drowning in her, completely unable to escape.

After surviving that first major crisis, Charles just grew bolder.

He permanently gave Dana the passenger seat of his car.

He bought her diamond necklaces, completely renovated his executive office to match her aesthetic, and even brought her to our house. He would look me dead in the eye, say they had urgent corporate matters to discuss, and then lock the study door right in my face.

They became each other's pinned contacts.

He showed her the world. He took her to see the oceans and the mountains. And sitting around a roaring bonfire on a private beach, he sang "Perfect" to her.

Yes. The exact same song he used to win my heart.

Now, the melody belonged to Dana.

I had been standing in the shadows behind the crowd that night. The ultrasound report slipped from my trembling fingers, falling into the sand, where it was trampled to shreds by the passing tourists.

Catching them in bed together was only a matter of time. I knew it was coming.

I just didn't expect it to happen so fast.

The very next day, he flew back to the city. He took me out for a lavish anniversary dinner, kissed my cheek, and said he had to go back to the office to finish a merger.

I felt a sickening knot in my stomach. I secretly followed his car.

And I walked right into a nightmare that would brand itself into my brain until the day I died.

That night, it felt like I shed every tear my body was capable of producing. My memories warped and twisted into a suffocating loop. One second, it was the teenage Charles promising to love me forever. The next, it was the cold, distant Charles calling me an overbearing bitch.

Six years of dating. Six years of marriage. Twelve years of history, slaughtered in a single night.

I hated him with every fiber of my being.

I swore on my own life I would never, ever forgive Charles.

When I woke up the next morning, my muscle memory kicked in. I unlocked my phone to check if Charles had transferred the daily allowance.

Instead, I saw forty missed calls from him, all placed between 2 AM and 4 AM.

When I didn't answer, he left one single text: [You're truly heartless.]

Below that were frantic messages from his best friend, Blake.

[Blake: Serena, please! You gotta help. Charles locked himself in a hotel room and he's drinking himself to death. I can't stop him!]

[Blake: He's got severe alcohol poisoning! I'm sending you the hospital address!]

Five hours had already passed since those texts.