I stole a married man from his wife and 3 kids. It sounds so stark when I say it, or type it, like this. A villain’s origin story. But in my head, at the time, it felt like destiny. Like something inevitable. He found me at my loneliest, when my own life felt barren and grey. He saw me. He really saw me. Or so I thought.
He was charming, attentive, full of a quiet sadness I mistook for depth. He spoke of his wife like a roommate, a burden, a distant memory of a love long gone. Their children were mentioned with a sigh, a heavy responsibility he carried alone. He made it sound like I was saving him. He made it sound like I was giving him permission to be truly happy, truly himself. And I, desperate for love, for a purpose, for that rush of being chosen, drank it all in.
Our clandestine meetings were intoxicating. Stolen glances, hushed phone calls, hurried moments that felt more potent than any full day I’d ever spent with anyone else. The guilt flickered, a tiny, annoying gnat I could swat away with his touch, his whispered promises. They were just words, weren’t they? He wasn’t truly happy. He deserved more. I deserved more. It was a mantra I repeated until it silenced every other voice, especially the one that sounded suspiciously like my conscience.
A shocked woman staring at someone | Source: Midjourney
The day she called, I knew it was coming. His phone had been ringing incessantly. He’d looked terrified. Then relieved when I answered instead. Her voice was raw, ragged with pain. A sound I’d only ever heard in movies. She was sobbing, begging me to stop. To leave him alone. To think of her children, of the life they had built. She told me I was destroying everything.
And I? I was vicious. Love, or what I thought was love, had turned me into something ugly and hard. I remembered every slight, every moment I’d felt overlooked or unworthy. And I channeled it into her. My voice was steady, cold. “Save your whining for someone who cares. He’s mine now.” I said it with such conviction, with such venom, that even I felt a chill. I hung up before she could say another word. He looked at me, bewildered, then almost… admiringly. I felt powerful. Victorious.
Within weeks, he moved in. We started our new life. His old one, the one with the wife and the 3 kids, faded into a ghost story. We built our perfect little bubble, carefully curated, free from the messy reality we’d left behind. There were moments, quiet ones, when I’d see a faraway look in his eyes. A flicker of something I couldn’t quite place. But I’d push it away. Focus on us. On our future. On how much we deserved this.
A year passed. A year of laughter, of building, of forgetting. I was pregnant. Glowing. It felt like the universe was finally blessing me, affirming my choices. This baby was the tangible proof, the pure, untainted symbol of our love. Our real love. I went for my checkup, saw the tiny fluttering heart on the screen, heard its rapid beat. I felt utterly, completely whole. The happiest I had ever been in my entire life. I walked out of that clinic, floating on air.
When I came back to our apartment, still smiling from ear to ear, I saw it. A small, white envelope tucked neatly under the doormat. It wasn’t taped, just placed. My name, elegant and unfamiliar, written on the front. My blood froze. No. My heart started to pound, a frantic drum against my ribs. I knew, with a primal certainty, who it was from.
My hands trembled as I tore it open. It was a single sheet of paper. No pleasantries. Just her precise handwriting. And what it said…
I read it and my blood froze. It said, “He never told you, did he? That the reason I called, that I begged, wasn’t about jealousy. It was about mercy. He was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer six months before he met you. The doctors gave him a year, maybe two. I was his caretaker. His wife. His children’s mother. I was trying to save his last months, his last moments, for the kids he adored. But you took that too. He died last night. I hope your perfect love was worth it, because now you have nothing but a ghost, and a child who will never know its father, all because you were too selfish to care about a dying man’s final wish: to be with his family until the end.”
NO. I reread it. The words blurred, then sharpened, stabbing into my soul. Terminal brain cancer. Six months before he met me. A year, maybe two. Died last night. My vision swam. The clinic, the fluttering heart, my glow… it all seemed to mock me. HE WAS DYING THE ENTIRE TIME. He had sought solace, distraction, maybe even a final, selfish thrill, with me. And I, I had ripped him from his family, from his children, from the only people who truly knew the agonizing truth of his existence.
I wasn’t a victor. I was a monster. A pawn. A fool. The ultimate consequence of my viciousness. The ultimate heartbreak. The love I thought was mine was never real. It was a lie built on another lie, a cruel charade played out against the backdrop of a dying man’s final days. And I, pregnant and alone, was left with an empty future and the horrifying, undeniable truth: I didn’t steal a man. I stole a dying man’s final goodbye from his children. And now, I’m the one left with nothing. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
