His Regret, My Forgotten Ten Years

“My ten-year marriage to Jordan was over. I went back to our old college campus to dig up the time capsule we buried, ready to erase every memory of the man who broke me. But inside, an old Nokia phone suddenly rang. The voice on the other end was bright, hopeful, and unmistakably my own from ten years ago. "Are we married to Jordan? Are we happy?" she chirped. I had to tell her the brutal truth. "We're getting divorced." I told her how he cheated with his assistant, Bristol. I told her how, in the car crash that cost us our baby, his first instinct was to shield her, not his pregnant wife. Her heartbroken sobs echoed the pain I no longer had the strength to feel. The final humiliation came when he forced me to apologize to Bristol after she faked a suicide attempt on a cliff. He chose her, again and again, destroying the woman I used to be. "I won't marry him," my past self finally said, her voice firm through the phone. "I'm taking the scholarship to London." As she made the choice that would erase my entire life with him, my vision faded to black.”