Chapter 2 This Marriage Must End

The video I sent to Bernard's workplace quickly spread throughout his company's forum and being shared and commented on endlessly.

"Wow, this chick's got moves! Bet she's been doing yoga for years!"

"I know her. We went to high school together. Always thought she was a bit loose. Guess I was right..."

"Wait, this is just the first clip? Where's the rest? I need the follow-up!"

The incident exploded.

For me, this was a win. The more people who saw the true faces of those two, the stronger my case for divorce would be.

I knew there was no saving our marriage after catching Bernard's betrayal. A man who cheated once would do it again-countless times, if given the chance.

Four years of marriage? What a joke. All it proved was how blind I'd been.

But as the story went viral, the fallout for the female intern became brutal.

She was doxxed-every piece of personal information about her, her family, and even distant relatives was dragged into the light.

The internet unleashed its full fury.

The comments beneath the posts grew increasingly vile and explicit. Even I found them hard to read.

But actions had consequences.

If she'd respected boundaries and avoided destroying someone else's family, none of this would've happened.

I felt no pity for her.

Yet, the scale of the backlash was staggering. Her family and even extended relatives became collateral damage, facing relentless online harassment.

The scandal continued to escalate.

And then, it ended tragically: she drowned herself in the lake.

The hate-filled comments vanished as quickly as they had appeared, replaced by waves of sympathy.

"A girl in the prime of her youth... taken too soon. She never even got to experience the beauty of life," someone commented.

People began rewriting the narrative. Suddenly, the blame shifted from her actions to her age-she was "just too young," too inexperienced to make wise decisions.

The story was reframed as her being misled by the man.

The fault lay in her immaturity.

With the intern's death, the heat of the scandal found a new target: me.

It was the person who uploaded the video who was blamed for her death, they said.

In the blink of an eye, I found myself at the center of a storm, all the blame suddenly turning on me.

The accusations were relentless.

People online and at my workplace flooded me with messages, hundreds each day. I didn't need to open them to know their contents. Even from behind a screen, I could feel their accusations, their jeering insults.

"How dare you expose those videos?" they said.

"You couldn't even keep your husband faithful, and now you're pretending to be the victim!" they said.

The irony was unbearable. The same people who had viciously attacked the intern were now demanding that I bear the responsibility for her death.

They organized a virtual memorial service and bombarded me with comments, tagging me and insisting I apologize to the late intern.

For what?

What exactly had I done wrong?

The image of her and my husband entwined on that desk haunted me relentlessly.

I was the victim here!

Things spiraled further out of control. Every day, I received threatening messages and even packages.

Inside the packages were either dead rats or dead cats - silent warnings meant to terrify me.

After the intern's death, I felt as though I had taken her place, bearing the brunt of all the vitriol and attacks.

Even I began to question myself. Was this really my fault?

Was it because I couldn't control my husband?

Was it all on me?

Did I deserve to endure this torment?

But I was human too! I felt pain and anger like anyone else.

What was I supposed to do-ignore what I saw, pretend it never happened?

No! This was not my fault.

Unlike the woman who ended her life, I refused to crumble. Death wouldn't solve anything.

But I never expected Bernard to start defending himself, attempting to justify his actions.

One evening, he collapsed to his knees before me, his hands trembling as he clutched his head.

His voice broke as he begged for forgiveness, desperation etched into every word.

But I remained resolute.

Four years of love and loyalty were wasted on him.

The humiliation and pain he had caused me couldn't be undone by a display of desperate theatrics.

He crawled to my feet, clinging to my legs like a desperate man drowning, tears and snot streaming down his face.

He pleaded, saying he had been blinded by foolishness.

He insisted the scene I had witnessed that day was a misunderstanding. He claimed he had been drunk at a midday gathering and, in his intoxicated state, mistook the intern for me.

No matter what he said, I stood unmoved.

Still, for a fleeting moment, doubt crept into my mind. After all, we had shared four years together. And I thought I knew him...

But no. How could he explain the hotel bookings?

Shaking off his grip, I stormed into the bedroom and locked the door. His apologies and pleas from the other side of the door fell on deaf ears.

I had made up my mind: this marriage had to end.

Those days were a blur. I lived in a haze of confusion and despair, going through the motions like a shell of myself.

At work, my colleagues' judgmental stares made the office unbearable. Even my manager noticed my deteriorating performance. After discussions with corporate, they suggested I take some time off to recover.

Even the project that was supposed to be mine was handed over to someone else, which was a huge blow to me.

Though unspoken, I knew what this meant: my career here was over.

No matter how competent I was, I'd hit a wall. The stigma was too great.

That evening, I packed up my belongings, cramming them into a large cardboard box that weighed down my arms and chest. It felt crushing, mirroring the suffocation I felt in my life.

I couldn't understand how my life had spiraled into such chaos. Everything felt like it was falling apart.

For a moment, regret crept in. Had I made the wrong choice by exposing those videos? If I hadn't shared them, would I have avoided this mess? Would people have treated me differently? Would the world have been kinder?

As I trudged along, my thoughts wandered back to Bernard. The idea of divorce tugged at me with a strange mixture of relief and sorrow. Four years of marriage couldn't just vanish overnight. Could they?

I loathed the chaos my life had become. What if... we tried again? Could we find a way back to the way things were?

Consumed by these thoughts, I made a decision: I would give Bernard another chance. I would try to start over.

But just as I was preparing to take that step, a new revelation shattered everything.

I discovered that on the day the intern had thrown herself into the lake, it was Bernard who had called her and arranged for her to meet him there.