PART 1
“Who are you?” I asked as soon as I opened my eyes.
Lucas Stanford remained motionless next to my bed at Saint Anthony Hospital. I had not lost my memory, as I only had a mild concussion, several bruises, and an absurd pride that always led me to turn any awkward moment into a joke. I expected my husband of three years to sigh, kiss me softly on the forehead, and say, “I am your husband, silly.”
Instead, Lucas lowered his gaze to the cold tile floor and replied, “I am your brother.”
I almost laughed out loud at the absurdity of his words. Lucas was an engineering professor at Ohio State University, a man so solemn that he barely cracked a smile even when ordering pizza on a Friday night. That was precisely why I assumed he had finally decided to drop his rigid guard and play along with my playful mood.
“My real brother?” I asked, reaching out my trembling hand toward him. “What a suspiciously good-looking family I ended up with.”
He stepped aside immediately, avoiding my touch entirely as he said, “We share the same blood, and I need you to stop messing around right now.”
That statement seemed so utterly ridiculous to me that I simply kept pretending for the rest of the week. I fully embraced the role of the amnesiac little sister while lying in that white hospital room. Lucas brought me warm soup, carefully tidied my heavy blankets, and spoke to me with a restrained tenderness that I already knew all too well. I kept waiting for him to break character and give up the act at any moment.
Until one quiet afternoon, he stood near the window and said, “There is someone you should meet, as my wife is also a patient in this building.”
I felt the foundation of our strange game suddenly breaking down into pieces. Lucas led me down a long, quiet hallway to a private room tucked away in the corner. Resting in the hospital bed was a very thin woman with incredibly pale skin and dark eyes.
“Gwen,” the woman said with a faint, gentle smile. “I am so glad you are doing well, and I am Bridgette, your sister-in-law.”
I turned my head and looked directly at Lucas, asking, “Is she really your wife?”
Lucas nodded without hesitation, looking me straight in the eyes.
Bridgette softly explained that she and Lucas had known each other since they were children, back when her father helped him pay for his college education when he had nothing to his name. They had practically grown up under the same roof, and as the years passed, that early affection naturally turned into deep romantic love.
I felt an intense, agonizing buzzing inside my ears. Our real marriage certificate was tucked safely inside a desk drawer in our brick townhouse in Columbus. Our vibrant wedding photo took up half the wall in our master bedroom, and I could vividly recall every single detail of that sunny afternoon.
“Show me a picture of your wedding then,” I demanded, staring hard at her face.
Bridgette grew visibly paler as she whispered, “I do not have any photos here with me right now.”
“Then show me any photo where anyone can clearly see that you two are actually a couple,” I pushed further, refusing to back down.
Lucas frowned instantly, stepping between us as he said, “Gwen, stop this right now because Bridgette is very sick.”
As if she had been waiting for that exact cue, Bridgette began to cough uncontrollably. Lucas rushed to her bedside in a panic, offering her a glass of water with an instinctual devotion that completely shattered my heart into fragments.
I turned around and walked out of the room without saying another word. Lucas caught up with me in the empty corridor, finally confessing a small fraction of the truth. He explained that Bridgette had advanced lung cancer, and that her father, Gregory Vance, had funded his tuition and supported his ailing grandmother decades ago. Before Gregory passed away, he made Lucas promise to take care of his fragile daughter no matter what happened.
“She only has a few months left to live,” Lucas pleaded quietly as we stood near the elevators. “I just want to be there for her until the very end comes.”
Hours later, while he was supposedly driving me toward a friend’s house in the suburbs, Bridgette called his phone over the hands-free car speaker.
“My love, have you caught up with Gwen yet?” Bridgette asked softly over the line. “Please do not worry about me tonight, because I can manage to go to the biopsy appointment all by myself.”
Lucas gripped the leather steering wheel until his knuckles turned completely white. At the next major intersection, he was supposed to make a sharp left turn to drop me off at my destination. Instead, he clicked on the right turn signal without saying a word to me. We drove straight back to Saint Anthony Hospital in absolute silence.
Before he stepped out of the vehicle, Lucas looked at me and said, “I bought a small apartment nearby so I could easily take care of Bridgette whenever she gets really sick.”
When he unlocked the front door to show me the place, I noticed two pairs of slippers sitting by the mat, one bright pink and one dark blue. Inside the bathroom, two toothbrushes rested side by side, and the modern kitchen was stocked with items that Lucas would never buy for our own home.
I had merely pretended to forget my husband for a few days to lighten the mood. Lucas had taken cruel advantage of that temporary joke to invent an entirely separate life where I was not even his wife anymore.
PART 2
As soon as Lucas hurried back to the hospital to check on Bridgette, I quietly slipped out of the apartment. I rushed to our actual townhouse in Columbus, grabbed my personal phone, and secured my original marriage certificate from the desk.
Outside, the gray sky opened up into a torrential downpour. I tried my absolute best to arrive on time for an important job interview that I had been painstakingly preparing for over the past month. Unfortunately, an aggressive driver caused a massive commotion right in the middle of the avenue, causing me to trip on the curb, tumble hard into a muddy puddle, and show up late with soaked clothes.
The position had already been offered to someone else by the time I walked through the door. I was standing near the building entrance on the verge of tears when a sharp-dressed man approached me. It was Zachary Miller, a tech founder whose picture I had previously spotted on Lucas’s phone.
Zachary had witnessed part of the chaotic street argument earlier, and he chuckled gently as he offered to buy me lunch. When he learned that I was actively seeking employment in marketing, he offered me a formal job interview at his firm for the following morning.
“I am certainly not doing you a favors,” Zachary clarified with a reassuring smile. “I saw you pull yourself out of the mud today without asking a single soul for help, and that is exactly the kind of grit I need on my team.”
For the first time in weeks, a genuine laugh escaped my lips.
However, that fragile peace was short-lived. That very evening, I returned to the temporary apartment near the hospital. Lucas had prepared a hot bowl of chicken soup, which happened to be my absolute favorite meal. Seeing me completely drenched from the rain, he wrapped a thick wool blanket around my shoulders and pulled me into a warm embrace.
I opened my mouth, fully prepared to confront him and reveal that I remembered everything. Before I could speak a word, Bridgette emerged from the guest bedroom wearing silk pajamas that Lucas had bought for her.
“We are just about to sit down for dinner,” Bridgette announced cheerfully. “Lucas brought me here so I could rest comfortably before I try the biopsy procedure again tomorrow.”
I immediately pulled myself away from his arms, keeping my distance.
The very next morning, I accepted the job offer at Zachary’s firm and immersed myself in work. Weeks passed quickly, and during a casual afternoon conversation, Zachary inadvertently revealed a painful detail that Lucas had kept buried for years. Bridgette was far more than just the daughter of his wealthy benefactor, as she and Lucas had been deeply involved in a romantic relationship during their college years. When Lucas eventually broke off the romance, Bridgette sank into a dangerous depression, pursuing him relentlessly for years while threatening to harm herself if he ever walked away forever.
In that sobering moment, I finally understood the full scope of my husband’s web of deceptions. Throughout our three years of marriage, Lucas had frequently talked about a troubled graduate student who was hopelessly obsessed with an ex-partner. He claimed he had to rush out at odd hours to rescue this young man whenever he threatened to jump from a building or swallow pills.
That fragile male student had never existed at all. Every single one of those desperate late-night stories had been about Bridgette. On the very afternoon of my car accident, Lucas had not rushed off to help a struggling student either, but had abandoned me to attend to her urgent drama instead.
My foolish game of fake amnesia had simply handed him the perfect escape route. He could easily treat me like a sweet younger sister, allow Bridgette to play the role of his devoted wife, and convince his own mind that he was not betraying anyone in the process.
While I was slowly reclaiming my independence by excelling at my new corporate job, Lucas began to obsessively monitor my everyday movements. He insisted on driving me to work every morning, waited outside my office building every evening, and grew visibly irritated whenever Zachary happened to stand nearby.
One late night, Lucas quietly walked into my room and wrapped his arms around me from behind.
“I miss you so much even though you are standing right here in front of me,” he whispered softly into my hair. “I feel like you are slowly drifting away into the distance.”
My throat tightened, and tears welled up in my eyes as I whispered back, “Are those really words you should be saying to your own sister?”
Lucas froze instantly at my words, dropping his hands before walking out of the room in total silence.
