The Fake Death And His Real Cancer

I saw a wedding photo pop up on my old college roommate’s Instagram feed and tapped the heart icon without thinking.

The next second, a frantic voice note came through.

“Who is this? Why are you using this account? If you don’t answer, I’m calling the police!”

I was confused, so I called her back on video.

The call connected. As soon as she saw my face, she shrieked and immediately disconnected.

When I tried again, a text message appeared on my screen.

“Didn’t you… die last year?”

1

That question hit me like a splash of cold water. I called her yet again.

It took my roommate, Gigi, a long time to pick up.

She made me do a series of ridiculous facial contortions and dramatic eyebrow raises—all high-difficulty stunts—until my face muscles were practically spasming. Only then did she say, her voice shaking with disbelief, “Anya Reed, is that really you? You’re alive?”

Gigi told me she had actually cried when she heard I was gone, posting a ton of dramatic, sentimental messages.

I scrolled through my old texts with her. Sure enough, about a year ago, she had sent a few messages.

But at that exact time, I had just given birth to my daughter, Lila, and was in no state to check social media.

For the next year, I was a stay-at-home mom, completely consumed by Lila’s needs—feeding, changing, rocking her to sleep, making baby food. I barely had time to shower, let alone socialize. The messages just got buried.

But to hear that people thought I had died? That was insane. This wasn’t some casual prank.

I demanded an apology.

Gigi insisted she was the victim, claiming she’d only heard the rumor from someone else.

She found and sent me the screenshot she’d seen.

The image was chilling. It didn’t just casually state my time and cause of death—it was a highly stylized, black-and-white headshot, complete with a professional-looking obituary detailing my supposed suicide via postpartum depression.

It explained everything. No wonder no friends had reached out, no party invitations had arrived. They all thought I was dead.

My blood boiled. I grabbed the screenshot and drafted a mass text to my friends, ready to announce my resurrection to the world.

But as soon as I hit send, I froze.

Except for Gigi, every single person was met with the same message: You are no longer friends with this user. I couldn’t chat with any of them.

Several old college group chats I’d muted because they were annoying now showed the notification that I had been removed.

I immediately messaged Gigi, demanding to know who was behind the lie.

A moment later, a voice note came back:

“Anya, I heard it from Sienna Voss. Do you remember her?”

Sienna Voss?

She was also a college classmate, same department, different major.

I remembered her because she and my husband, Owen Miller, had been close in college—she was his “girl buddy,” his platonic wingman.

After Owen and I started dating, she faded out. We lost touch after graduation and I hadn’t heard anything about her since.

“Why would she say I died?” I pressed.

Gigi sent a string of ellipses, then: “I don’t know the details. Around this time last year, Sienna posted that screenshot—the one you just saw—and said you had passed away from postpartum depression. Loads of people commented, offering her comfort, saying how loyal she was, and they even held an online memorial for you.”

My hand tightened on my phone. It started to shake.

“Send me that post. I need to see it.”

Gigi replied, “She deleted it a long time ago. Said it was too painful to look at. Anya, you honestly didn’t know about any of this?”

Know what?

My entire life for the past year had been Lila.

I was too exhausted from the endless cycle of feeding, changing, and soothing to even watch TV, much less check whose drama was trending on Instagram.

Besides, I hadn’t even followed Sienna Voss.

I had Gigi send me Sienna’s contact information and immediately sent a follow request.

I waited half an hour. Nothing.

I tried again. This time, I was instantly blocked.

The fire inside me was turning into an inferno. I called Gigi.

“She won’t add me. Send me Sienna’s phone number.”

Gigi’s voice was hesitant. “Anya, I think something is seriously off here. You need to calm down.”

“I’ve been dead for a year. Tell me how to calm down.”

A moment of silence, and then the numbers arrived.

I typed the number in. My finger hovered over the dial button. Then, I stopped.

Something was fundamentally wrong.

Why would Sienna Voss spread a rumor that I was dead?

She and Owen had been close. Did Owen know about this? I stared at the numbers for a long time, but never pressed the button.

Exiting the dialer, I scrolled to another name in my contacts: Attorney Dana Cruz.

Dana was the legal counsel at my previous company. She was the only person I knew who could help and also understood the law.

I took a deep breath and called her.

“Dana, hi. It’s Anya Reed.”

A warm laugh came through the line. “Anya! Long time no talk! What a surprise.”

I forced my voice to remain steady, explained the situation simply, and asked her what I should do next.

Dana paused for a few seconds, her tone turning serious.

“First, you need to post a clear, unequivocal statement on all your socials. Announce you are very much alive. That’s step one: clearing the record.”

“Second, you have to figure out who is spreading this and why.”

Dana paused. “But Anya, I need to manage your expectations. The standard for defamation lawsuits is high, especially if there hasn’t been significant material damage. If we just prove she lied, the best-case scenario is a public apology and some compensation for emotional distress.”

My heart sank. “So what? I just let her tell everyone I’m dead?”

“Absolutely not. You gather evidence. Screenshots, chat logs, everything. Then, you confirm who the real puppet master is.”

After hanging up, my palms were sweating.

I’d been running on pure adrenaline, but talking to Dana cleared my head.

The advice was sound. But Sienna was an old college friend, and she had been close to my husband.

If this was a misunderstanding, I didn’t want to burn bridges unnecessarily.

After wrestling with it for a while, I decided to call Owen first.

As soon as he picked up, he asked, “What is it, Anya? Is Lila giving you trouble again?”

I told him the whole story, expecting him to be as outraged as I was.

Instead, Owen sounded completely dismissive. “You’re taking some stupid prank seriously? Look, I’m busy here, working late. I need to hang up.”

I immediately pushed back. “It’s not a prank. The screenshot is dated last June—right after I had Lila. The person who posted it is Sienna Voss. You remember her?”

Owen hesitated. “Sienna? It has to be a mistake, or maybe someone hacked her account. Don’t overthink this. It’s nothing to worry about.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “I was rumored to have died, and you think it’s ‘nothing to worry about’?”

He sounded irritated. “That’s not what I mean. I mean, why give these ridiculous rumors the time of day? People will figure out it’s false eventually.”

“I’m going to clarify right now. I’m posting an update that I’m alive.”

Owen told me not to bother. “That kind of thing is bad luck, Anya. Just wait until tomorrow. If there’s nothing else, I’m hanging up.”

He hung up before I could reply.

Furious, I called him back, ready to argue, but he maintained his casual, bored tone, and then stopped answering my calls altogether.

Fine. If he wouldn’t care, I wouldn’t care about keeping the peace.

I quickly drafted a simple statement clarifying the rumor and hit post.

Almost instantly, a notification flashed:

[Your account has been logged in on another device. You have been forcibly disconnected.]

I stared at the screen, stunned.

My phone was in my hand. Who logged into my social media? My fingers trembled as I took a screenshot and sent it to my own text message thread.

But that wasn’t the end of it. I noticed a hidden app disguised as a calculator.

It’s a common privacy app. I tried the few passwords I knew, but none worked.

The sound of the shower stopped.

I quickly replaced his phone and sat back down next to Lila, my heart hammering against my ribs, my palms drenched with sweat.

Owen walked out, towel-drying his hair, and glanced at me. “Your face is pale. Are you feeling sick?”

“No. Just tired, maybe.”

He grunted, picked up his phone, scrolled through it casually, and then went out onto the balcony for a cigarette.

I watched his back, seeing a complete stranger for the first time.

I didn’t sleep that night.

Once Owen’s breathing grew deep and steady beside me, I picked up his phone again.

I tried the hidden app password a few more times. On the very last try, a wild thought struck me: I typed in Sienna’s birthday.

She’d bought a round of drinks for her birthday back in college; I vaguely remembered the date.

The app opened. Inside was a private photo album.

I clicked on it and instantly felt the icy shock of betrayal.

The photos were all of them, together. Each one a punch to the gut.

One photo was dated last year, around the time I gave birth to Lila.

Sienna was sitting on a window seat, her stomach clearly rounded with pregnancy.

Owen’s caption read:

“Our little sweetheart, we’ve been waiting so long. Grow up healthy.”

A year ago, I was at my most vulnerable, recovering from childbirth, needing him more than ever.

He was busy transferring money to another woman, planning for another child’s future.

I bit down hard on my lip to stop the cry that wanted to escape.

Anya, you cannot panic.

Dana’s words echoed in my ears: Gather the evidence.

Shaking, I picked up Owen’s phone again and meticulously photographed every one of the transfer records, the intimate photos, and sent them all to a hidden, encrypted folder on my own device.

It was then I stumbled upon a deeper secret.

In Owen’s cloud backup, I found a detailed medical report.

My eyes jumped immediately to the final conclusion:

[Mass occupying lesion of the liver, size approximately 3.5 x 4.2 cm. Primary Hepatocellular Carcinoma possible. Further core needle biopsy recommended.]

Owen had liver cancer.

And judging by the dates, he had known about it for at least three months.

For the past three months, he had gone to work, come home, and never said a single word.

A cold dread shot up from my feet to the top of my head.

He wasn’t just cheating. He was systematically transferring our marital assets to provide for his child with Sienna.

And my staged “death” was simply to clear the way for their future.