I Was Their Inside Joke

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Douglas had just stepped into the bathroom when his iPad lit up on the bedside table. A SnapChat notification popped up.

Aurora: What mushy message did she send you today? Forward it, Im waiting for a laugh.

I reached out and tapped SnapChat. The pinned chat wasnt mine, it was Auroras.

At the top of the chat window was a screenshot of the message Id sent Douglas that afternoon.

Me: A kid at the kindergarten told me I have a pretty smile today, and my first thought was to tell you.

Below it was Douglass added comment when he forwarded it to Aurora.

Douglas: Shes like this every day, has to report every little mundane thing.

Aurora: Does she have no friends or something?

Douglas: Pretty much. All kindergarten teachers are the same, simple-minded.

I sat on the edge of the bed, my finger sliding further down the screen.

There was a selfie Id sent Douglas, wearing a pink apron, flour smudged on my face, taken while I was making him a birthday cake.

I had asked him at the time: Douglas, don't I look like the perfect wife?

Douglas had sent the photo to Aurora.

Douglas: Its an absolute aesthetic disaster.

Aurora: Then how do you manage to kiss her?

Douglas: Doesn't matter, its all the same with the lights off.

My fingertips started to tingle.

The sound of water in the bathroom stopped. I immediately turned off the iPad and placed it back on the bedside table.

The door opened, and Douglas came out, drying his hair, a towel wrapped around his waist.

He walked over, hugged me from behind, and rested his chin on my shoulder.

"Alice, is it your ovulation period today?"

His hand wrapped around my waist, wandering, and he kissed my earlobe.

I instinctively recoiled. Douglas paused.

"What's wrong?"

I leaned down to pick up his pajamas from the bed, then walked around him to the dressing table.

"I'm tired, we had an event at the kindergarten today."

Douglas stared at me for two seconds, then didn't ask again.

He went straight to bed, turned off the lamp on his side, and started playing on his phone, his back to me.

I also got into bed and lay on the other side, listening to his breathing gradually deepen.

At 1 AM, I got up.

I gently pulled the iPad from under his pillow, then carefully got out of bed and went to the living room.

I sat on the sofa, opened that chat window, and scrolled from the very beginning.

The timeline started a year and a half ago, when Douglas and I weren't married yet.

He had just switched to his current company, was under a lot of pressure, and worked overtime every day.

I brought him meals daily, waited for him downstairs, and stayed up with him as he worked on projects.

He had screenshotted my message, "Don't work too hard, I made you some soup," and sent it to Aurora.

Douglas: Shes so boring, never says anything else.

Aurora: Still pretty suitable for marriage, at least shes low-maintenance.

Douglas: Yeah, stable.

So he married me for stability, not love.

I kept scrolling.

The first time I tried on my wedding dress, I asked him if it looked good.

He replied: "Beautiful, Alice, youre the prettiest." Then he immediately forwarded it to Aurora.

Douglas: The studio's photo editing is brutal.

Aurora: Even with the edits, Alice looks pretty ordinary. How did you settle for her?

Douglas: I was at a low point back then, and she stuck by me. So I just settled.

I stared at the word "settled," my stomach cramping.

I clicked on the photo attachment. Inside were private bedroom photos Id sent him, not meant for anyone else to see.

I had sent them to Douglas, out of complete trust.

But he forwarded them to Aurora.

Aurora: That's quite a figure, you must be enjoying yourself.

Douglas: Come on, its nowhere near yours.

I screenshotted every single chat record, one by one, and sent them to my email.

My hands were shaking, but I didn't stop.

At 4 AM, I returned to the bedroom and put the iPad back in its original place.

Douglas rolled over and mumbled something.

"Alice, why aren't you sleeping yet?"

I didn't answer, just stood by the bed, looking at him coldly.

He didnt wake up.

I lay back down, my eyes open until morning. The next morning, Douglas sat at the dining table eating breakfast as usual.

I fried eggs and toasted bread.

When I placed the plate in front of him, he looked up at me.

"What's wrong with you today? You seem like you're in a bad mood."

My hand paused as I poured milk.

Before, every morning, I would smile and say to him, "Good morning, hope you have a happy day!"

He would never say anything else, just a simple "Mhm."

But that would make my whole day happy.

I pushed the milk mug toward him. "Nothing."

Douglas took a bite of toast.

"It's early in the morning, what's got into you? Why are you sulking?"

I sat opposite him and took a sip of milk.

"I'm not sulking. I'm in a perfectly good mood."

He put down his mug.

"Alice, you've been off since last night. Tell me, how did I offend you?"

I looked up. "You're the one who's off, paying attention to my 'little moods' now?"

Douglas frowned. "Don't be so snarky. Just tell me what's wrong."

I placed my phone on the table. It showed the first screenshot I'd taken last night.

The message I sent him: "A kid complimented my smile today, and I wanted to tell you."

Below it, his reply to Aurora: "She's like this every day, has to report every little mundane thing."

Douglas's expression froze for a moment, then suddenly darkened.

"You dared to go through my phone without permission?"

I said, "How do you explain this?"

"I'm asking you, how dare you snoop through my chat records on your own initiative?"

I let out a cold laugh.

"I was looking at your iPad. You didn't set a password, so I was looking at it fair and square."

Douglas threw the toast back onto his plate.

"Alice, do you know what privacy is? What invasion is? What boundaries are?"

I couldn't even bother to react anymore.

"Shouldn't I be asking you that? My chat records, my photos, being forwarded by you to another woman for her to comment onwhat do you call that kind of behavior?"

Douglas stood up, his chair scraping back a few inches.

"Don't try to change the subject. It's your own fault for being nosy. If you hadn't secretly looked, you wouldn't have known, and then none of this would be happening, would it?"

Douglas reached for my phone. I took a step back and put my phone back in my bag.

"Don't touch it."

Douglas's hand stopped mid-air. "Alice, you look really awful right now."

I looked at him. "However awful I look, it's not as awful as what you did."

He tugged at his tie.

"I just casually vented a bit. Do you have to make such a big deal out of it?"

"Are my private photos 'venting' too?"

Douglas was silent for a second.

Then he said, "If you bring this up to argue, you'll only be embarrassing yourself."

I didn't say anything else.

Because I realized, he wasn't unaware that he was hurting me.

He just thought I wasn't even worthy of being angry.

After that, we gave each other the silent treatment for three days. I never shared any more of my daily life with him.

That evening, Douglas came home from work, carrying a paper bag.

I was sitting on the sofa, preparing my lessons.

He tossed the paper bag in front of me. "I bought this for you."

I opened it. Inside was a scarf, a discount item from the mall, with the tag still on.

One hundred ninety-nine dollars.

I had once admired a cashmere scarf, over eight hundred dollars, and he said it wasn't necessary.

"Why wear something so expensive to work at a kindergarten? The kids will just get it dirty."

But in his chat records with Aurora, I saw he'd bought her a perfume that cost over three thousand dollars.

Aurora had asked: "Won't Alice get angry if she finds out?"

Douglas replied: "She wouldn't understand these things."

I put the scarf back in the paper bag. "Return it."

Douglas's action of unbuttoning his cuffs paused.

"Alice, don't be so dramatic. I buy you something and you give me attitude? Adults should know when to stop."

I closed my lesson planner. "So, what do you consider 'stopping'?"

He sat opposite me, his expression showing a hint of impatience.

"You're too clingy usually. What's wrong with me complaining to a friend?"

I looked at him.

"Then how would you feel if I sent videos of you picking your nose, crying after failing a promotion, and kneeling in the bathroom throwing up and having diarrhea when drunk, to my male colleagues for their enjoyment?"

Douglas's face completely darkened. "You wouldn't dare."

I said, "So, you know it's not okay."

He picked up the glass of water on the table and took a sip.

"Alice, whether you get over this or not, it is what it is. What you're saying now is pointless. Are we just not going to live our lives anymore?"

I was extremely calm. "Yes, we're not."

Douglas, however, scoffed coldly and turned to walk back into the bedroom.

Before he forcefully slammed the door shut, a sentence leaked out from inside:

"She's completely crazy, utterly unreasonable."

The next afternoon, just after I'd finished giving the children their snacks, my phone vibrated in my apron pocket.

It was a friend request notification: "Alice, it's Aurora. I wanted to talk."

I hesitated for a few seconds, then accepted.

She quickly sent her first message.

Aurora: Alice, don't misunderstand Douglas and me. We're just chat buddies.

I didn't reply. She sent another.

Aurora: I don't know why he would send me your chats. Maybe he just sees me as a friend.

Aurora: Men, you know, most of them just like to talk big.

Aurora: Douglas told me he really likes your innocence, even if you're a bit dull and unromantic.

Aurora: Honestly, I'm quite envious of you. Your qualities are pretty average, but you still managed to marry such an excellent man.

I stood by the classroom's back door. The children were napping, and the air conditioner vent hummed softly.

I typed.

Me: Are you messaging me just to say all this?

Aurora replied instantly.

Aurora: No, not really. I just wanted to explain everything clearly. Please don't argue with him because of me. His project is very crucial right now, and his emotions can't be affected.

Me: And what standing do you have to manage my husband's emotions?

Me: Also, if my qualities are average and I married an excellent man, why can't you? Is it because you're even worse than me?

There was a half-minute pause from the other side. The chat window continuously showed "typing..."

After a long time of typing, there was no message.

I put my phone back in my pocket and continued covering the children with their blankets.

At 6 PM, I went home.

The door opened, and Douglas was sitting on the living room sofa, looking down at his phone.

His first words when he looked up were: "Did you insult Aurora?"

I placed my bag on the entryway cabinet. "She added me first."

Douglas stood up.

"She was just kindly trying to explain things to you, worried about our relationship changing. And you took it out on her? How can you be so ungrateful?"

I changed my shoes and closed the shoe cabinet door. "She came to show off to me."

Douglas walked up to me.

"Alice, can you stop treating every woman like an enemy? Aurora isn't the type of person you're describing."

I looked up at him.

"How do you know she isn't? Have you slept with her? Are you that familiar with her?"

He suddenly choked, then his face filled with anger.

"Go look in a mirror at that face of yours. You're truly spiteful and venomous."

My lips curved into a slight smile.

"That's right. After all, I have no friends, I'm unworldly, an aesthetic disaster, and simple-minded. Most importantly, I'm the woman you 'settled for' during your low point."

Douglas's face changed. "How much did you actually go through?"

"Enough to make me sick for the rest of my life."

He took a step forward. "Did you screenshot everything? Delete the screenshots."

I stepped back, my back hitting the door panel.

My phone was in my bag, and my bag was on the entryway cabinet, within his reach.

I picked up my bag first, hugging it to my chest. "What are you afraid of?"

Douglas lowered his voice. "I don't want things to get blown out of proportion."

"You weren't afraid of things getting blown out of proportion when you forwarded them?"

"I told you, it was just casual talk between friends."

To this point, he still used the same excuse.

I didn't want to say anything more to him.

Opening my bag, I pulled out the divorce papers I'd printed at lunch.

I handed them to him. "Sign them."

Douglas looked down. "Divorce papers?"

"Yes."