I Was Just His Substitute Wife

I'd been following The Last Words to the World for a long time, and that night a young girl suddenly appeared on the show.

When the host asked her who she wanted to leave her final words for,

her face was pale, and a broken smile touched her lips.

"These last words of mine, I want to leave them for my ex-boyfriend."

"Back then I unexpectedly came down with leukemia. I didn't want to be a burden to him, so I pretended to be shallow and greedy, and I broke up with him."

"After we split, his life was hard, and he ended up marrying someone he doesn't love."

"Now my days are numbered. I hope the production team will give him the recording of this show after I'm gone."

"I want him to know that, really, I've loved him this whole time, all along."

As the girl spoke, not a single person in the audience was unmoved. Even the host was brought to tears.

At the very end, the girl held up a photo of herself and her ex-boyfriend to the camera.

The moment I saw it, the hand I was using to wipe my tears froze mid-motion.

The face in the photo was one I knew better than any other.

It was unmistakably my husband of three years, Harry James.

I'd followed this show for a long time.

The whole point of it was to help people whose days were numbered pass on the words they could never bring themselves to say out loud.

Every story the guests brought was moving.

I lifted my hand and swiped it across my face. My fingers came away wet.

But now, all I felt was that I was a joke.

——

When I got home from the hospital, Harry was already there.

Seeing me come in, he stepped forward and naturally took the things from my hands.

Then he lowered his head and pressed a kiss to my forehead.

"You must be worn out from your checkup today, sweetheart. Come eat."

I didn't move. I stood in the doorway, staring straight at him.

Once, this had been the moment I looked forward to most, the happiest part of my day.

Coming home after a long, busy day, Harry would kiss me, tell me I'd worked hard, and have a warm meal waiting.

The girl's words kept circling in my head.

"He married someone he doesn't love…"

Harry didn't love me.

My eyes settled on his face without my meaning them to, searching for some faint trace, some tell.

But there was only that gentle, doting smile he always wore. I couldn't catch a single thing out of place.

Could someone who wasn't a trained actor really put on a show this good?

Trust and doubt tore at each other inside my head.

Seeing that I hadn't moved, Harry called to me from across the room by the table.

"What's wrong, sweetheart? Come eat, quick, the food's getting cold."

I walked over to the table and sat down.

Harry picked up a piece of pork rib for me.

"I made your favorite tonight, braised pork ribs. Try it, sweetheart, see if it's to your taste."

I looked at the rib in my bowl, feeling strangely far away.

A distant memory suddenly churned up in my mind.

The truth was, my favorite wasn't braised pork ribs at all. It was durian chicken stew.

But Harry couldn't stand the smell of durian.

This was our third year of marriage, our fifth year together, and it had been five years since I'd last eaten durian chicken stew.

I suddenly thought of what the girl had said on the show.

"He treated me so well. He remembered every food I couldn't eat, remembered that I like cilantro but not onions, ginger, or garlic."

"Even though one whiff of cilantro made him gag, there was always a big bunch of it in the fridge, kept just for me."

I lowered my head and took a bite of the rib. It tasted like ash in my mouth.

Harry didn't notice anything different about me.

He pulled a gift box out from behind him and smiled at me.

"An early birthday present for you, sweetheart."

"I have a business trip in a couple of days, so I might miss your birthday. I wanted to give it to you ahead of time."

If this had been before, I would have taken it, delighted.

Expressionless, I opened the box.