I Was Never Really His Wife

Talia's POV

"She's not my wife. She never were." The words hit me like ice water.

I stood in the doorway of our apartment with the grocery bags still hooked over my forearms, staring at Damien's back. He was on the phone, laughing in that low, easy way I hadn't heard from him in years. The sound scraped against my ribs, pulling at old wounds I hadn't even known were there. The hallway behind me felt colder suddenly, the air thick with the scent of the building's old carpet and the faint trace of rain from outside. I had just come up from the market two blocks away, my arms aching from the weight of everything I thought we needed for a special dinner. Five years together, and I still planned these things like they mattered, like they built something solid.

"No, Bianca, listen," he said. "She thinks the anniversary is next week. I pushed the date forward so she'd be out of the house today." A pause while he listened. Then, "Of course I'm sure. I never registered the marriage. It's not legal. It's not real."

My fingers went numb. The bag slipped. Glass shattered across the floor, olive oil spreading in a dark pool that smelled like my mother's kitchen, the recipe I'd been saving for our anniversary dinner. The sound echoed in the small space, sharp and final, like something breaking that couldn't be fixed. I watched the golden liquid seep out, mixing with bits of shattered jar, and thought about how my mother used to pour it over fresh bread while telling stories about her own life back home.

Five years of believing his word was enough, of cooking for him, of sleeping beside him, of calling him my husband in my head and out loud. I had bought the ingredients that morning with a lightness in my step, humming to myself in the aisles, imagining his face when he tasted the meal. Now it all pooled at my feet, ruined and spreading.

Damien spun around. His face drained of color. "Talia—"

I didn't move. The oil crept toward my shoes. I watched him set the phone down without ending the call, the screen still lit with her name. Bianca. My dead sister. Alive and on the other end of the line, laughing with the man I'd given everything to. The phone's glow seemed too bright in the dim room, casting shadows on the walls we had painted together one weekend, choosing the color from swatches at the hardware store like it was the start of something permanent. I remembered how he had held my hand that day, his grip firm, promising we would fill these walls with memories. The lie of it all pressed down on me now, heavy and suffocating.

The bookstore came back to me in a rush, the day we met. I had reached for the same copy of The Remains of the Day, my fingers brushing the spine just as his did. "Great taste," he'd said, smiling that slow smile that made the air feel thinner. I fell right there, in the aisle between fiction and history, because he looked at me like I was the only person in the room. He bought the book for me. We walked out together into the afternoon sun, talking about the story's quiet sadness, how it captured the ache of unspoken things. We spent the rest of that day wandering the city streets, stopping for coffee at a small cart where he paid and insisted on carrying my bag.

Five years later and I was still the woman who believed every promise he made without paper or witnesses. I had moved in with him after six months, leaving my small studio behind, telling myself that love didn't need legal stamps to be real. We built routines: Sunday mornings with the paper, his hand on my back as I cooked, late nights where he would pull me close and whisper that I was everything. All of it without question, because his word had felt like enough.

Now the oil reached my toes, cold and slick. Damien stepped forward, hands raised like he could catch the moment before it broke further. "Let me explain."

"Explain what?" My voice came out quiet. Terrifyingly quiet. "That our marriage is fiction? That my sister—my dead sister—is alive? That you've been planning this behind my back while I cooked the meals and waited for you to come home?" The questions piled up in my mind, each one sharper than the last. How long had Bianca been back? Had she called him, or had he sought her out? What other secrets filled the gaps in our days together, the evenings he came home late with excuses about work or traffic?

"How do you know about Bianca?"

"I heard. I heard everything."

He moved closer, and the smell of his cologne hit me, the same one he'd worn on our first real date. I had thought it meant he wanted to impress me. Now it just meant he had routines he kept separate from me. The cologne mixed with the oil on the floor, creating a sickening blend that turned my stomach. I could see the faint lines around his eyes, the ones that crinkled when he laughed at my jokes, now tight with panic. His shirt was the one I had ironed that morning, the blue one he liked for its softness.

"Talia, please. It's complicated. Bianca and I... we were over years ago. She left. I thought she was gone for good. Then she came back and I didn't know how to tell you. The marriage thing, it was never about you. It was paperwork, taxes, all of it. I was going to fix it."

My mind raced through the last five years. Every excuse, every delay, every time Damien said a wedding ceremony wasn’t necessary. Love is enough, he’d told me. We don’t need paperwork to prove what we have. And I had believed him. God, I had believed.

“Five years,” I murmured. “You let me believe I was your wife for five years.”

“I never said—”

“Don’t.” The word was sharp enough to make him flinch.

“You called me your wife,” I said, voice rising slightly. “You introduced me as your wife. You let my family call you their son-in-law.”

Damien rubbed his temples. “It was easier that way.”

The words landed like a slap. “Easier,” I repeated.

“For everyone.”

“No, for you,” I corrected quietly.

I looked at him, really looked, and for the first time in five years the love I had carried like a second skin felt like dead weight. Calculation took its place. I saw the apartment behind him, the life I had built inside these walls, and I saw how little of it was actually mine. The lease was in his name. The savings were in his account. Even the name Talia Voss had never been changed on anything official because there had been no ceremony, no certificate, nothing except his word. I turned and walked out.

The door was already open from when I came in. Damien grabbed my arm above the elbow, fingers digging in. “Remove your hand.”

Damien frowned. “Talia, you’re overreacting.”

Her voice didn’t change. “Remove your hand.”

“No.” I slammed the door on his arm, hard. The wood connected with bone and he yelled, a raw sound that echoed down the hallway. He released me. I was already running, groceries forgotten, oil still spreading behind me. The elevator button lit up under my thumb. I pressed it again and again, heart hammering so loud it drowned out the sound of him calling my name from the apartment.

The doors slid open. Inside stood my brothers, Marcus and Elliot, both of them looking surprised to see me. Behind them sat two suitcases. The tags faced outward, clear enough in the fluorescent light. Bianca's initials were stitched into the leather in neat gold thread. And suddenly I realized something terrifying. Everyone in this building—Damien, mer brothers, the luggage, Bianca. They had all been expecting someone today. Just not me.