I Was Never Really His Wife

Talia's POV

Going somewhere, little sister?”

The words came from Marcus as he stepped out of the elevator first, his voice smooth like it always was when he wanted to control a room. I stared at the luggage behind him and Elliot, those suitcases with Bianca's gold-stitched initials staring back at me like a confession I couldn't unread. My brothers looked surprised for only a second before their faces shifted into that familiar mix of concern and calculation, the same expressions they'd worn at every family gathering where I was the one left out of the real conversations. The hallway felt smaller suddenly, the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead like they were mocking the silence that followed.

Marcus tried again, all charm and concern. "Talia, you look upset. What happened?"

"You tell me." My voice came out like steel, colder than the oil still drying on my shoes from the apartment above. "Where are you going?"

Elliot shifted his weight, his hands stuffed in his pockets like he could hide the truth there. "Business trip."

"With Bianca's luggage?" I asked, and the silence that followed confessed everything without a single word. It stretched between us, heavy and thick, filling the space where explanations should have been. I could feel my pulse in my throat, the same way it had pounded when I slammed the door on Damien's arm minutes earlier. The brothers I had trusted with every secret since childhood stood there with proof that they had chosen sides long ago.

A flashback hit me then, sharp and unwanted. Five years ago, at Bianca's so-called funeral. The closed casket had been draped in white lilies, the church filled with people murmuring about the tragedy of a young woman gone too soon. Marcus and Elliot had sobbed openly, their arms around me as they whispered promises that they'd always protect me, that family meant sticking together no matter what. I had believed them, crying into their shoulders while the priest spoke of eternal rest and the loss that would never heal. Lies, all of it. They had known she was alive, had probably helped her disappear with whatever man or scheme she had cooked up. The memory twisted now, turning their tears into performances and their comfort into a shield for the real story they kept from me.

I laughed, and the sound was ugly, broken, real in a way that made Elliot flinch. "She's alive. You knew. All of you knew."

Marcus reached for my shoulder, his fingers hovering like he could still play the big brother role. I flinched away like he was fire, the contact too much after everything that had already burned me that day. "Talia, it's complicated—"

"Complicated?" I stepped into the elevator with them, pressing the lobby button hard enough that my nail bent. "Uncomplicate it for me. Now."

The doors closed, trapping us in that small metal box with the suitcases and the weight of years of deception. Elliot cracked first, his voice low and defensive. "Bianca made mistakes. She left, okay? She ran off with someone Damien was involved with. It was messy. She needed time. We gave her time."

"Five years," I said, the number tasting like ash. "You gave her five years while I cooked meals and believed I had a husband and a family that cared. Five years of thinking she was dead, of visiting her empty grave on holidays because that's what sisters do for each other."

"She's our sister too," Marcus said, his charm cracking at the edges.

"And I'm not?" The elevator stopped with a ding, the doors sliding open to the lobby full of people hurrying through their normal lives. I stepped out, turned back to face them one last time. "I was your sister first. I was his wife first. And you all chose her. Every single day for five years, you chose her over me, keeping her secrets, covering her tracks, letting me live a lie while she lived the life that was supposed to be mine."

I walked through the lobby without waiting for an answer, the click of my shoes on the tile echoing like accusations. Outside, rain had started, cold and sudden and drenching. It soaked through my clothes in seconds, but I didn't care. I walked. Blocks turned into miles, my feet carrying me through puddles and past strangers who glanced away from the soaked woman with red eyes and nothing left to lose. No destination mattered, just the movement, the way each step put distance between me and the apartment, the elevator, the brothers who had smiled at funerals they knew were fake.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, the vibration insistent against my hip. I pulled it out, rain blurring the screen as I read the messages. Damien first: ‘Come home. We need to talk.’ Like home was still a place that existed for me. Then my brothers, their texts piling up: ‘Where are you? Let's discuss this rationally.’ As if rationality could fix the hole they had carved into my life. And then a new number, one I didn't recognize but knew instantly. Bianca: ‘I know you're upset. But I'm not the villain here. He never loved you. He told me. From the beginning, it was me.’

I stopped walking, standing in the middle of the sidewalk as rain streamed down my face and mixed with the tears I couldn't hold back anymore. The worst part was that I believed her message. I had always suspected it in the quiet moments, the way Damien looked at old photos in the drawer he thought I never opened, the way he went quiet whenever Bianca's name came up in conversation, the way our so-called marriage felt like a waiting room where I was just passing time until the real thing arrived. I wasn't a wife. I was a placeholder, a stand-in for the sister who had left and come back to claim what she wanted.

The rain pounded harder, soaking into my skin until I shivered, but the cold inside ran deeper. Five years of cooking meals from recipes my mother had taught me, five years of falling asleep next to him and wondering why his touch sometimes felt like an obligation. All of it for nothing. The city moved around me, cars splashing through intersections and people ducking under awnings, but I stood there frozen, the phone screen dimming in my hand as another message from Bianca popped up. She didn't need to say more. The truth was already there, sharp and final.

My feet started moving again without my say-so, carrying me across another block where the lights turned red and green in a rhythm I didn't follow. I thought about the bookstore where it all began, how Damien had smiled at me like I was the only one who mattered, how he had bought that copy of The Remains of the Day and walked with me for hours talking about regret and unspoken words. Had he been thinking of her even then? Had every promise he made been a rehearsal for the day she returned? The brothers had known, had helped keep the secret, and now they were heading off with her luggage like it was the most natural thing in the world. I had been the fool in the middle, the one who paid and cooked and believed while the real family played out their plans elsewhere.

The rain blurred everything, turning streetlights into smears of color, but I kept walking, each step heavier than the last as the weight of it all settled in my chest. A car swerved. Tires screamed. I looked up, but it was oo late. Headlights. Impact. Darkness.