Some love stories last forever.
Others end before you’ve even had a chance to breathe.
But mine?
Mine shattered, revived, and then destroyed me all over again.
I married the man I thought was my forever.
And three days later, I buried him.
Or so I believed.
I used to think fate was kind. That it handed you love when you were ready for it. He walked into the café where I worked, quiet and gentle, and I fell fast. Hazel eyes. Sharp jaw. A softness in his voice that made me feel safe.
How could someone like him want someone like me?
But he did. And for a while, we lived like people in a love story.
Our wedding day felt unreal—warm lights, soft music, and a promise whispered against my cheek.
Then, before the reception could even begin, he collapsed.
One moment he was laughing.
The next, my groom was on the floor, unresponsive, his body surrounded by chaos and strangers’ hands.
I watched the paramedics work on him as though I were watching a movie from somewhere far away.
Then the doctor told me the words that hollowed me out:
“He didn’t make it.”
My world split open.
The funeral was cold, his family colder. Snarling accusations. Threatening lawyers. They didn’t see grief—they saw an enemy. Me.
And I would’ve taken the blame, because grief makes you small enough to believe the worst about yourself.
Three days later, I couldn’t breathe in our apartment.
Every object whispered his name.
Every corner held a ghost.
So I called a taxi. Anywhere but here.
I slid into the back seat, numb, barely looking up.
“Seatbelt, please,” the driver murmured.
My spine turned to ice.
That voice.
THAT VOICE.
I looked up.
Hazel eyes stared back at me in the mirror.
“Calix?”
He pulled over, trembling, then turned to face me.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t die. I faked it.”
His story spilled out in pieces.
A wealthy, corrupt adoptive family.
Threats.
Blackmail.
A fixer who helped him disappear.
A medicated collapse.
An empty coffin.
All for me, he said.
To protect me, he said.
To keep us safe, he insisted.
But all I could hear was:
YOU LET ME HOLD A FUNERAL FOR YOU.
I screamed until my throat scraped raw.
He cried but didn’t defend himself.
He said he’d wait for me, no matter how long it took.
For weeks, I hated him.
Then… slowly… painfully… I didn’t.
I called.
We talked.
We rebuilt something fragile, trembling, but real.
He asked me to join him abroad.
And I did.
I gave up everything.
We married again—small, quiet, safe.
We built a life near the water, always looking over our shoulders, but together.
Together.
Or at least… I thought we were.
The twist came quietly.
A voicemail.
A woman’s voice.
Shaking.
“I don’t know who you are, but… the man you’re with… his real name is Elias. He faked his death before. With me. With another woman before me. And another before her.”
My stomach dropped.
No.
NO.
I replayed the message again and again, the voice breaking each time.
“We were engaged. He disappeared for a week. Then I saw his obituary. I went to his funeral. I mourned him. And then I saw him, alive, getting into a taxi.”
My blood ran cold.
He didn’t do it for love.
He did it because disappearing was the only thing he truly knew how to do.
Patterns.
Lies.
Multiple lives.
Multiple deaths.
A professional at slipping out of one identity and into another.
I confronted him.
He didn’t deny it.
His voice cracked when he whispered,
“I wanted a clean slate. Each time. But I loved you most.”
MOST.
As if that made it better.
I left that night.
The next morning, he vanished.
No note.
No goodbye.
Just another death without a body.
Now I live by a beach in a country that still feels foreign.
People here smile easily, like their worlds haven’t collapsed.
Sometimes I dream of hazel eyes in the rearview mirror.
Sometimes I wake screaming.
But the worst part?
Part of me still wonders if one day, in the backseat of another taxi…
He’ll turn around
and look straight at me.
