My Fake Death Was The Punchline To His Cruel Joke Chapter 01
As I was choking to death from anaphylactic shock, my fiancé of three years said over the phone, “She’s just being dramatic.”
In that moment, any last shred of hope I had for him died.
For the past three years, they had secretly filmed me, turning my life into their running gag. This was the ninety-ninth time.
Even our wedding had been a lie.
He had deliberately never filed the marriage license we’d both signed. He didn’t want a wife; he wanted a legally binding punchline.
In the ambulance, I changed my emergency contact to my brother, Leo, and set a timed text message.
By the time Bennett finally rushed to the hospital, loudly announcing he was my husband, the nurse gave him a single, curt answer:
“Under HIPAA, I cannot confirm or deny any patient information. There is no marriage on record for you in our system. You have no right to visitation or inquiry.”
Just before dawn, the text I’d scheduled was sent.
“Joke #100—you finally killed the woman who thought she was your wife.”
Three days later, Leo placed an urn in front of him and refused to answer a single question.
Clutching the box, Bennett completely fell apart, demanding to know how I had died.
But by then, I had already landed in Denver.
I wanted every thought he had of me to be haunted by the fact that he’d killed me with his own two hands.
…
A week earlier, I was still in our kitchen, preparing a special dinner for what I thought was our first wedding anniversary.
Then Bennett’s iPad lit up. I reached over to dim the screen and my finger brushed against a notification, opening a shared album.
The title read: “Let’s See If She Makes It to 100.”
The album’s members were Bennett, Camille, and his whole Newport crowd. Inside were ninety-six videos, arranged by date, documenting every humiliating moment I had endured over the past three years.
The earliest comment was from Camille.
[Test her a hundred times. If she fails, you come back to me.]
I opened the first video.
It was from a charity gala. Bennett claimed the sapphire brooch his mother had left him was missing. Wearing a pair of ill-fitting Jimmy Choos he’d bought me, I scoured the entire venue until my heels were rubbed raw.
On the other side of the camera, Camille was wearing the brooch. “Five hundred says she gives up in half an hour,” she said to someone off-screen.
Bennett laughed. “She won’t. She’s terrified of disappointing me.”
The second clip was from the day of the most important job interview of my life.
Bennett had called, lying that he’d gotten into a fight in the Hamptons and been arrested. I blew off the interview, spent two hours crawling through traffic on the LIE to “bail him out,” and found myself pleading with the actors they’d hired.
The camera shook with their suppressed laughter.
I lost the job that could have changed my entire career.
In the third clip, the custom cufflinks I’d bought him after saving for three months were being tossed to Camille’s younger brother. Bennett had told me he’d cherish them forever.
“With taste like that,” the brother sneered, “it’s no wonder she’s stuck at some no-name firm.”
Bennett didn’t defend me. He just said, “Don’t let her see.”
The most recent upload was labeled “Preview of #97.”
Camille waved the guest list for the Newport Yacht Club’s annual gala.
“I’m putting my name down as his partner. When she shows up, we’ll have security treat her like a crasher and throw her out.”
Bennett was silent for a moment, then nodded.
Just then, my phone buzzed. A message from Bennett.
[Baby, will you be my date for the club’s annual gala on Friday?]
Not a word about who he’d registered as his guest.
I stared at the screen and typed back: [Of course. I’ll find the perfect dress.]
The truth was, I already knew about the hidden Venmo account on his phone. He called it the “Toy Fund.”
The password was 1224—Camille’s birthday.
Bennett had always told me it was the day we first met. On that date last year, he’d made me stand on a pier in the freezing wind for three hours, waiting for an “anniversary surprise,” while he was actually at Camille’s house, celebrating her birthday.
I used that password to unlock their chat history.
Every day, Bennett sent Camille updates on his “tests” like he was filing progress reports.
[She’s stopped looking for better jobs.]
[Her brother called. I told her to hang up.]
[Just a little longer and I’ll be the only one she has left.]
At the very bottom was a video from our wedding day.
In the church, he held my hand and said, so seriously, “From this day forward, you are Mara Shaw.”
Ten minutes later, he sent the video to Camille.
A chorus of laughter erupted in the background.
“She really thinks a Vera Wang dress makes her a Shaw? That’s hysterical.”
…
The night of the gala, Bennett walked into the main hall with Camille on his arm.
And I, of course, was stopped at the door by two security guards built like linebackers.
“Sorry, Miss Ortiz. Mr. Shaw’s registered partner for the evening is Miss Mercer.”
Heads turned. Through the floor-to-ceiling glass, I saw Bennett holding a champagne flute, not even glancing in my direction.
The guards politely escorted me out through the staff entrance.
Test number ninety-seven was complete.
On the ride home, I called Leo.
“I need a Plan B.”
He was quiet for a moment. “What are you thinking?”
“I need you to look into something for me. How does a woman who isn’t legally a wife completely detangle herself from a relationship without leaving any loose ends?”
Leo didn’t ask any more questions.
“Send me what you need. I’ll handle it.”
When I got home, the apartment was dark.
Bennett wrapped his arms around me from behind, his embrace tight.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, his voice rough with what sounded like regret. “Mara, I hate who I am right now.”
He handed me a folder.
Inside was a business plan for a design studio, complete with budget sheets and photos of a beautiful street-front space. It was the future I’d dreamed of, the one I kept shelving every time he told me he needed me.
“I’ve already put a hold on the space,” he said softly. “Once test number one hundred is over, we’ll leave all this behind. We’ll start our own life.”
For a second, my resolve wavered.
Maybe he did love me.
Maybe he was just too weak to stand up to his friends.
The next day, I called in sick and drove to Newport City Hall.
The search terminal cast a cold, impersonal glow.
I typed in my name: Mara Ortiz.
Then his: Bennett Shaw.
My fingers trembled as I hit enter.
A single sentence appeared on the screen.
[No marriage record found.]
A clerk ran the search again for me. The result was the same.
“We never received a signed license for filing after the ceremony. Without that, the marriage was never legally registered. I’m sorry, but it’s not valid.”
I stared at the screen, remembering how Bennett had taken the paperwork from me on our wedding day, promising he would handle everything.
So the wedding itself was just another test.
Number ninety-eight.
The studio, the new life, the future he’d just promised me—it was all predicated on the fact that I wasn’t his wife at all.
Maybe he had feelings for me.
But he loved himself, and the status his circle gave him, more.
Our marriage had never even begun.
Late that night, when I walked into our apartment, Camille was sitting on the sofa as if she owned the place.
She was sipping from my favorite mug, looking perfectly at home.
“My birthday’s next week,” she said, smiling. “Time for test number ninety-nine.”
Bennett stood by the window, his back to me. He didn’t stop her.
Camille stirred her coffee, the spoon clinking against the ceramic.
“I know you have a severe walnut allergy, Mara. So, I’m curious. Will Bennett choose your life, or will he choose my birthday cake?”
I let no surprise show on my face.
I’d already seen the plan laid out in their chat history.
They thought this was joke number ninety-nine, the one that would finally break me.
But for me, it was a godsend. A perfect, plausible accident that would land me in a hospital and give me the legal cover I needed to disappear.
The marriage certificate Bennett had buried would become the very wall that shut him out.
I lowered my eyes, pulled out my phone, and sent a text to Leo.
[It’s happening. Find me an apartment in Denver.]