Isn't it lovely, all alone?

Heart made of glass, my mind of stone,

Tear me to pieces, skin to bone,

Hello, welcome home.

Raw 2/11/02

"Rage"

Rage. They had felt it everywhere. Inside their bodies and their souls. How could she have done that? How could he have done that? Over and over the night replayed in their minds. So much anger. Wrath. Fury. It poured out of him. He smashed windows and doors and everything between him and the exit of the arena. She screamed bloody murder. From the ring to the ramp to the parking lot, she followed his path of destruction, screaming in rage.

It would be their first night apart.

During his rehabilitation, she had left him to help her big brother. The invasion debacle had her flying from Alabama to every part of the country. But she always caught the red-eye home. To him. He had temporarily moved them to the south to be close to his doctors. And she went with him because it didn't matter. He was her home. He would go to bed alone each night but awoke to her every morning. They hadn't been separate for a sunrise for two years, since they'd wed in a Las Vegas drive-thru.

This wouldn't occur to either of them until months later. When the ink of the pen that they'd signed the divorce papers with had dried and seeped into the contract. When his childhood hero became his manager and he still felt empty, that's when Hunter would remember. Stephanie would remember when she became the general manager of SmackDown and was forced to bare the burden of responsibility alone.

That first night, just hours after Linda had destroyed her most disastrous scheme and he intentionally put hands on her for the first time, they both just seethed with rage.

Hunter's tantrum only cooled when he got to the airport, abandoning his suitcase in the hotel room they shared. He calmed himself just enough to board a flight back to Greenwich. He was shell-shocked. His wife was conniving but never with him. He had nurtured her devious ways, helped hone her manipulative-ness. He never thought she'd turn on him. Never thought she'd hurt him like this. He could still picture the baby.

The plane's turbulence was rough and he clenched his hands into fists, but the two weren't related.

Stephanie's throat was raw from screeching by the time she returned to the hotel. Throwing his bag and clothes into the hallway, she slammed the door behind her to hastily collect her things. He never listened. She'd been saying for months that they were in trouble. He wouldn't hear it. Being pregnant was the only thing to get his attention.

He would understand eventually. She'd make him see things her way. She was wholeheartedly sure of this.

She called him close to thirty times that first night. His phone was off due to flying. She recognized the immediate voice message and didn't bother leaving a message. She called the airport. He had bought the last ticket home. She'd have to meet him there in the morning.

It was probably for the best. Their house, the town wouldn't have been able to handle the fight that would have broken out. They wouldn't have been able to handle it either. But maybe, in hindsight, that would have been for the best. Rebirth could come from ashes. If they had set fire to the house, and each other, that night, maybe things wouldn't have spiraled so terribly.

But they did. She returned to an empty house the following morning and raged onwards. Calling and texting, and refusing to back down from her mistake. His voicemail was filled with her enraged rants. Eighteen of them screamed into his ear when he checked his cell phone after hours of a silent car ride to New Hampshire. To his parents. To somewhere that wasn't associated with her or the WWF.

When his phone could no longer hold any additional rants, she sent text messages. Dozens of them.

Hunter! Answer me!

You don't understand.

Stop being stubborn.

I've called a thousand times. I know you're ignoring me!

TALK TO ME!

Seriously?!

This is why all this happened. You never talk.

Let me explain.

You're making this worse.

I'm calling again. Pick up!

Hunter read them all at a gas station. He didn't care. What she'd done… it was unforgiveable. He could still picture the baby, a miniature her and perfect. Smashing his phone on the ground, he stomped onto top of the broken shards for good measure. He'd get a new phone tomorrow, after he'd spoken to his parents. After they calmly berated him for even starting his sham of a marriage. After his sister hugged him longer than usual and quietly admitted that she'd grown fond of the heiress, and that she was disappointed in her sister-in-law.

Back in Greenwich, Stephanie was still loosing it. She smashed each of the glass cases that displayed his youth's bodybuilding trophies. She tore photographs and burned clothing. She destroyed almost everything in the house; her tantrum unparalleled to any she'd ever thrown before. Her fury was unmatched to any of her father's. It burned. From the inside out, she was aflame with rage. Her internal fire was the one thing that could mask the pain. And the fear.

Hunter felt the same. He hit 110MPH on the interstate, the windows down. It was February in New England, but the chilled wind barely cooled him. How could she? How could she do this to me?

They raged on.

Lovely by Billie Eilish feat. Khalid