2.
1001 Words
“Things he said he found disgusting… turns out he just found you disgusting.”
The words slithered straight into her bones, chilling her from the inside out. Regina’s eyes filled again, watery and burning, but this time it wasn’t sadness. It was pure, white-hot hatred. Hatred she didn’t even know she had the capacity to feel.
Bret noticed the shift instantly.
“Get the f**k out of my office,” he snapped, waving a hand as though shooing away an annoying insect. “Your depressing aura is ruining the air in here.”
The secretary giggled, leaning back into him like a parasite. “Yeah, honey… she’s suffocating us with her pathetic energy.”
Regina stared at Bret...her husband, her partner, the man she once believed she would grow old with...and for the first time, truly saw him.
He was a monster who enjoyed watching her drown.
Bret stepped toward her, expecting her to beg like she always did whenever they had an argument. He actually smiled...smiled...like he was waiting for her to throw herself at his feet and apologize for existing.
But she didn’t.
Regina ran.
The suddenness of it made Bret’s smirk falter. He blinked, confused, as though his brain couldn’t process the idea of his wife choosing dignity over him. He muttered something under his breath but didn’t chase her. Why would he?
In his mind, she’d always come crawling back.
He turned around, grabbed his secretary by the waist, lifted her onto the table again, and resumed his sick celebration.
Regina didn’t wait to see more. She stumbled into the hallway, chest heaving, legs shaking so violently she could barely walk straight. Her hands trembled as though the betrayal was electricity running through her veins.
She wiped her tears...only for more to stream down. Her heart felt like it was slowly peeling itself apart.
She couldn’t walk through the company looking like this. Not when everyone looked up to her.
Not when she had always held her head high here, even though none of them knew she was the woman behind Bret’s entire success.
Just then, she heard footsteps.
“Mrs. Lawson!” a cheerful voice called.
Regina flinched.
A junior staff member approached with a wide, excited smile and a stack of files in her hands. “These are the contract proposals you asked me to send for review and editing! Perfect timing...since you’re here, you can check them personally. Honestly, ma’am, when will you finally introduce yourself to everyone as the brains behind every contract approval?”
The girl didn’t notice Regina’s trembling shoulders at first. Didn’t see the swollen eyes. Didn’t see the heartbreak still fresh on her skin.
Regina forced a chuckle...it came out sounding like something dead trying to breathe.
The girl finally lifted her head and froze.
Mrs. Lawson...always poised, always sharp, always confident...was standing there like a broken doll. And worse, there was a bruise on Regina’s hand. A bruise the girl hadn’t seen earlier.
Before she could ask, a familiar sound sliced through the hallway from Bret’s office.
A woman’s breathy voice hinged with laughter, "Put it in already, Daddy."
The staff member’s face drained of color not of shock but that of fear...that Mrs Lawson Regina has finally found out.
Regina narrowed her eyes. “How long?”
The girl’s lips quivered. She bowed her head, refusing to speak. Refusing to betray the truth she clearly already knew.
That was answer enough.
Something inside Regina shattered for the final time.
Her voice dropped to a cold, lifeless whisper. “From today onward… I refuse to work for a company I was never hired into.”
Then she reached out, grabbed the pile of files, and threw them to the floor. Papers scattered everywhere, fluttering like fallen feathers from a dying bird.
Gasps echoed down the hall...but Regina didn’t care. She didn’t care if the entire building watched her burn.
She stepped over the mess without hesitation, walking away as if she had just buried her old self right there among the papers.
Inside the kiosk office area, a group of interns and employees looked up in surprise as Regina stormed past. They hadn’t heard what happened. All they saw was the CEO’s wife...usually graceful, always polite...walking like a woman possessed.
One intern, a girl barely in her twenties, hurried toward her with a laptop. “Ma’am, I wanted to show you the marketing proposal you...”
CRASH.
Regina slapped the laptop out of her hands so violently it flew across the room and smashed onto the tile floor in pieces.
The room froze.
Regina’s eyes were red, her face blotched and her veins throbbing visibly under her skin.
“I’ll destroy everything,” she screamed...voice raw, cracking, barely human. “Everything! I swear to God, I’ll f*****g destroy everything!”
The intern stumbled back, terrified.
A few employees ran to the corner.
Others just stared, too stunned to react.
Regina’s breathing grew heavier, more unstable. She gripped her chest, fighting the feeling of the world collapsing in on her.
She was a volcano finally erupting after years of silence.
Bret had pushed her too far.
Her hands shook violently, her vision spinning. All she could hear was the echo of the secretary’s venomous whisper:
“Turns out he found you disgusting.”
Regina squeezed her eyes shut, but the words still echoed.
Then Bret’s voice:
“Get out. You’re ruining the air.”
“You never mattered.”
“You’re nobody without me.”
She felt her spirit snap.
Regina had spent years being the supportive wife.
The woman behind the scenes. The editor, the strategist, the one who saved his deals, rewrote proposals, fixed his messes, cleaned his image.
And for what?
To be thrown away like dirt?
Her entire body shook with rage. Not fragile rage...but something darker. Something that made even the employees feel the temperature drop.
"I'm so sorry ma," The intern apologized like her life depended on it, aggressively ducking her head
- Writer
