My Fake Death Was The Punchline To His Cruel Joke Chapter 07
“Mr. Shaw, there is no record of a marriage between you and Ms. Ortiz in the Newport City Hall system. Under HIPAA, you are not her legal next of kin and have no right to any of her medical information.”
“We had a wedding!”
“A wedding ceremony is not a legal marriage, sir.”
Bennett stood frozen.
He pulled out photos from the wedding, his ring, even screenshots of old texts where I’d called him my husband.
No one was moved.
The illusions he had used to trap me were meaningless in the face of the law.
He tried to force his way onto the ward again and again, only to be dragged back by security each time.
He was still shouting when Leo stepped out of the elevator, carrying a plain white urn.
Bennett lunged for it, his hands grabbing at the smooth ceramic.
“That’s impossible. She was alive this morning. She told me she was going to Denver. Let me see her—just one last time—”
Leo pried his fingers from the urn, one by one, his expression cold.
“Her last wish was that you never touch her again.”
Bennett’s hands fell to his sides.
A moment later, he slid down the wall and collapsed, his body wracked with sobs so violent he could barely breathe.
He finally understood.
The marriage license he had so carefully buried had become an unbreakable wall between him and the truth.
He had stripped me of the title of his wife.
And in doing so, he had stripped himself of the right to even say goodbye.