Memories
Ben
I can’t remember if it’s supposed to be three fingers or four fingers of whiskey in a good pour. Either way, I fix myself a good five fingers as Veronica huffs behind me, obviously pissed I’m not helping.
Fuck her and her luggage. She can pack herself, carry her own damn bags, and shove the whole lot of them up her ass before I’ll help her load them into the Mercedes we bought last Christmas after she totaled the Range Rover because she drank too much wine.
God, my wife is awful. Foul. The very essence of evil.
I could ask for pity from the friends I have left after being married to the woman, but they’d tell me they hated her from the start. Even my family, who basically arranged the marriage since Dad’s business partner is Veronica’s uncle, gives each other secretive looks, like they also know she’s disgusting. Thankfully, Dad figured out that my wife’s uncle was skimming off the top around the same time I found our pool boy’s dick in my wife’s mouth. My family took the divorce news much better because of it.
I should have known it would end like this. Hell, part of me has always known that this stupid marriage has been destined for disaster since day one. I never really loved her. In my mind, she was a bad choice that my family approved. It may sound weak and pathetic, and it kind of is, but when you’re ignored and sent to boarding schools your whole life, you just want approval. I blame being young and not fully understanding what marriage would entail.
I didn’t understand what I would give up.
I look at my reflection in the window overlooking Central Park and really study myself as I raise the glass to my lips. Rumpled white dress shirt? Check. Loose silk tie draped down each side of my chest? Check. I turn to the side and can still see the pink outline on my jaw where Veronica slapped me five minutes ago, her finger outlines still on my skin. I blink as I study it, mesmerized by the shapes and how green my eyes look against the glass that’s dark from the cloudy sky outside the window. Running a hand over my face and tracing the mark, I palm my jaw and move up to my curly dark hair in need of a haircut.
“You could help,” Veronica snarls, tossing expensive leggings into one of the open suitcases. Her bright red nails that are as long as talons shine under the lighting. God, I fucking hate those nails. “You’re the reason I’m even going to my parents’ cabin, Benjamin.”
I sigh and take a drink, throwing back at least three fingers of the glass in one gulp. “And I told you that you could stay. I don’t want this fucking townhouse.”
“The lawyers will handle it,” she says. “You’re leaving. I’m leaving. We’re selling it. We agreed.”
I turn away from the window and glare at her. Bad move.
Her blue eyes glaze over, darkening to almost black, and she stomps closer, picking up a picture frame off a nearby table. Expensive. Gold rimmed. I defensively put my arms up as she pummels me with it, hitting so hard that her long, dark hair is everywhere. Strands of it are in my face. It’s only on the third hit that I realize it’s our wedding photo. The glass cracks, and she casts it aside. I hear the glass fully shatter on the floor several feet away as those damn nails rake through the skin on my neck. I feel none of the pain she inflicts, the alcohol already dulling my senses.
Then again, I haven’t felt anything for a long time.
Grabbing her wrists, I push her back onto the bed, a wide-eyed, surprised look on her face. “You pushed me!” she yells.
“I pushed you back from me onto the bed.” I pat at my neck and stare at the blood on my fingers. “Just go, Veronica. Neither one of us wants this. Stop making this hard. I never physically cheated on you. That was you.”
She sneers at me and raises an eyebrow along with her lip. “Physically? Does that mean you cheated emotionally?”
“Stop.”
“Was it her?” she asks. “Have you been in contact? Because if you have, that changes things, Ben. It was in our prenup that you couldn’t contact that trash. I’ll find out and take your shit, too.”
“Shut up!” I yell, jabbing my finger in her direction. “Don’t you ever mention her. I held up my end of the bargain since the day we were married. I never called her. Like you asked. Never texted. Never emailed. Never sent a God damn, fucking pigeon, Veronica.” I spit her name like venom. Literally. A drop of spit comes out of my mouth when I say it. “I did everything you asked. I blocked her and all our mutual friends on social media and have never sniffed around. You were my wife. I tried!” I pound on my chest. “And you won’t talk about her that way. She never did a fucking thing to you.”
Veronica smiles an evil grin. “Did you think of her? When we were together?”
Yes. Every fucking time I slid into my wife. I closed my eyes and fucked Courtney in my mind, praying there’s a parallel universe where I’d really be fucking her, where we were happy, and I’d never married Veronica to appease my family.
“Your mind was never on me, so don’t act like you’re so much better.”
“Oh, I don’t have to act, Ben. I know I’m better.” She stands up from the bed and straightens her sweater, sticking her paid-for nose in the air in an effort to look down on me. “I never should have married you. I deserved a better provider.”
I squint in confusion. I guess a couple hundred million isn’t enough. Who the hell does she want?
“I’m sure you’ll find someone to meet your financial needs, Veronica, but there are only so many billionaires who will put up with you fucking half the staff.”
She sniffs and turns to throw a few more items in her suitcase. I supervise, not turning my back on her again. I don’t want my skull bashed in today.
I watch as she empties most of her closet, calls for the porter to bring a luggage cart, and packs her cosmetics into two suitcases all for them. All the while, I sip what’s left of my drink and thank fuck we never had children. It’s not like we didn’t try, but the universe had the good sense not to bless us with progeny to fight over. Our divorce will already be a blood bath of poking holes in the prenups. Kids would have added to the stress. I want no ties to this woman as soon as the ink on the papers is dry. Seeing her at a child’s wedding or birthday parties would be fresh hell I’m glad I’m avoiding. We’ll have no shared grandchildren.
When she’s packed, she gives me the finger and one last flip of her hair before she’s gone. Only then do I get a dustpan and broom and pick up what’s left of the frame. This time, I scoop the whole picture into the trash with the glass.
Once I’m finished, I walk through the rooms of the townhouse, touching the items we’ll sell. There’s not one item I feel attachment to. No art pieces I even enjoy. I pick up wine glasses I feel no connection to nor fond memories of from past dinner parties. Even the couch feels stiff and unused as I sink into the cushions, hanging my head while staring at my finished drink glass. I could pour another, but that would only give me a headache on top of my current situation.
If only I’d never married Veronica. If only I’d never put my family first. If I had put myself first and what I wanted, I could have been happy.
I could have tried with Courtney.
Courtney Millrose was my college girlfriend. We met at Brown, where we were both economics majors. She was from a small town in Maine, a middle-class, girl-next-door type with strawberry blonde hair and freckles. I was from Philadelphia money with tailored suits. I grew up on yachts when I wasn’t in my family’s dark mansion, passed down through generations. It was a story as old as time, and our mutual friends compared us to Prince William and Princess Kate.
My family only saw her as common and an obstacle I should move past to be successful.
I chose wrong. I left her. With a letter. Who the fuck writes letters anymore? I did when I left her two weeks before my marriage to Veronica. I slept with Courtney up until then because I couldn’t let her go. I knew it was cruel to her, but I couldn’t be cruel to myself by leaving. After our last night together, I kissed her forehead while she still slept and left that fucking letter on the nightstand. I know exactly how that sounds in my head because I’ve thought about it every day since.
Why a letter? With today’s technology, it seemed safer. No texts for Veronica to find in my phone. No email chain that I knew she was checking. What Gen Z wife ever thinks her fiancé is writing letters?
Sure, Courtney could have scanned it and made it public, but I knew she wouldn’t. It kills me that I know she suffered that hurt privately, but I knew it would be private. Her suffering. She’d go on and probably marry a nice Maine boy. Maybe someone like her high school boyfriend, who had just started managing the local grocery store. She was planning to be a trader, but she would do it from home so she could help her mom with her elderly grandmother. It’s just the kind of person she is. She bites her lip and does the hard work. I got into Brown on my parents’ money. She got into it by having the grades and the best essays. She’s strong.
Unlike me. I was once weak and easily swayed by money and influence. I know these things about myself.
I take deep breaths and run my hand through my hair. This sad shit stops now. I’m done being the entitled hedge fund manager who reaps the benefits of everyone else’s hard work. I’m done being Howard Wittington’s son and will start being Benjamin Wittington, a man who works hard in his own right, gets his shit together, and starts being the man he should be.
It starts with what I should have done over four years ago. It won’t solve my problems. I don’t even think she’ll listen. But I’m going to try. I’m turning over a new leaf, and just like Alcoholics Anonymous, that requires making amends with people I’ve hurt along the way, the carcasses I’ve left strewn across the battlefield of my posh and coddled life.
I owe her a very big apology.
Cool cover