No Longer His Ghost: My Life Begins

Cassie Baird POV: I stared at the bleeding red warning on the screen. One attempt left. The heavy thud of the elevator mechanics echoed through the walls. My spine turned to ice. A cold sweat broke out across my back. I whipped my head toward the half-open study door. Silence. No footsteps. Just the frantic hammering of my own pulse in my ears. I looked back at the keyboard. My brain scrambled, digging through five years of memories, searching for a combination of numbers that mattered more to my husband than his own company. A flash of memory hit me like a physical blow. A college graduation party. The smell of stale beer. Blake, completely wasted, gripping a plastic cup so hard it cracked. He had mumbled four numbers over and over that night. I thought it was a flight number. I thought he was just rambling. My shaking fingers drifted over the keys. I pressed zero. Then eight. One. Four. I squeezed my eyes shut and smashed the enter key, bracing for the harsh beep of a data wipe. Instead, a soft click chimed through the speakers. A green unlock icon bloomed on the screen. A hidden folder named "The Archives" exploded open, taking up the entire monitor. Hundreds of high-definition photos loaded instantly, tiling across the screen in a massive, suffocating grid. My pupils contracted. The very first thumbnail was Blake standing in an unfamiliar kitchen, stirring a pot of soup. I clicked it. The image enlarged. Blake was wearing a ridiculous pink apron. He was looking at the camera with a soft, unguarded, boyish smile. A smile I had never seen in five years of marriage. Blake hated cooking. He hated the smell of grease. I scrolled down frantically. The next photo was a blonde girl sitting on his lap, her head thrown back in laughter. My stomach violently cramped. I knew that face. Isabelle. His college girlfriend. His first love. The polished foundation of my marriage cracked straight down the middle. Bile rose in my throat. I clicked on a sub-folder titled "Letters to Her." It was filled with scanned, handwritten pages. I opened the first one. "My only muse, Isabelle. Without you, I cannot draw a single line." I stopped breathing. When Blake proposed to me, he slid the ring on my finger and said, "Cassie, you are a suitable partner." I forced myself to keep scrolling. I clicked a photo of Isabelle standing under the Eiffel Tower. She had her back to the camera. She was wearing a vintage, burgundy velvet dress that clung to her waist perfectly. I looked down at my own body. I was wearing the exact same burgundy velvet dress. Blake had given it to me last week. A bucket of ice water crashed over my head, snapping me into a state of brutal, freezing clarity. I shoved the chair back, sprinted out of the study, and ran down the hall to the master walk-in closet. I ripped open my wardrobe doors. I stared at the rows of expensive clothes Blake had personally selected for me over the years. The white silk blouses. The khaki trench coats. The specific brand of vanilla perfume on the vanity. Every single item was a replica of what Isabelle wore in those photos. My knees gave out. I crashed onto the plush carpet. I slammed both hands over my mouth to trap the agonizing scream tearing up my throat. I wasn't his wife. I was a meticulously funded, perfectly tailored stand-in. A ghost he dressed up to play house. I forced myself off the floor. My legs shook, but I stumbled back to the study. My eyes burned red, but I refused to shed a single tear. I grabbed the mouse. I clicked the search bar in the top right corner of the archive folder. I typed my own name. Cassie. The system loaded for two seconds. A cold, gray line of text appeared on the screen. 0 results found. "Turns out, I don't even deserve a name."