The Night My Wife Replaced Me With A Stranger

Matt got into a fight at school. I only realized who the other kid was when I got there: my ex-wife’s daughter. The moment she saw me, the little girl’s eyes went red, but she stood her ground, chin stubborn and head rigid. She wouldn’t speak. My ex-wife stood behind her. Five years. I never thought we’d be able to exchange polite nods, much less in a school principal’s office. Emily’s gaze fell to the healed, jagged scar on my left hand. “Does it still hurt?” she asked, her voice a low, careful whisper. My eyes dropped to her right hand, missing its pinky finger. I smiled the empty smile I’d perfected and replied, “No. I don’t feel a thing anymore.” The principal blinked, a look of profound awkwardness crossing his face. “…You two know each other?” Emily acknowledged it with a quiet nod. My tone was just as flat. “Yes. I’m her ex-husband.” The one she used as a pawn, the one she had locked away in a private asylum, the one whose hand she purposefully maimed. The madman ex-husband.

A cold drop of water slid from my hair and trailed down my neck. I’d run so fast I hadn’t even thought to grab an umbrella. The rain outside was coming down in sheets. The principal explained that the fight was over a pencil case, nothing serious. I pulled Matt into my arms, checking quickly for bruises. Only then did my eyes drift to the object on the desk. It was the pencil case I’d bought for him. A simple blue pouch, the same style most kids had. The one difference: I had personally embroidered a tiny rabbit onto the fabric. When I was still living in the house with the Emily’s family—when I was still Aaron—I’d had endless free time, which I used to sew a small rabbit onto every piece of our daughter’s clothing. Daisy, who wasn’t yet three, would always cry and turn away from me, burying her face into her mother’s skirt. Yet here she was now, years later, picking a fight with my son over that very rabbit. I felt a sting of familiar protectiveness for Matt, my son who had suffered this meaningless confrontation. Taking his small hand, I moved toward the door. “Aaron Drew,” Emily called out suddenly, stopping me just before I reached the hallway. “Have dinner with me. Daisy was wrong to hit your son. It’s only reasonable that I pay for the meal.” I didn’t break my stride. I pulled open the heavy office door, my voice cold and distant. “No, thank you, Emily.” The price of her “reasonable gestures” was always too steep for me. First, my heart. Then, my hand. Now, what does she want? I stepped out. From the corner of my eye, I saw the little girl silently wiping away tears, whispering the word “Daddy.” The door clicked shut behind me. The cold air hit my face, a welcome shock. The school was in the suburbs. Getting a ride now would be impossible, and my old moped was soaked through. I looked down at Matt. “Looks like we’re walking home today, buddy.” Matt didn’t mind. He shrugged off his own thin jacket and draped it over my shoulders. We eventually made it to Times Square. On the massive, illuminated screen, a man’s face was being projected on a loop. He was the nation’s current it-model, successful, famous, and married to the brilliant businesswoman, Emily Sterling. They had one adorable daughter. Matt saw the man and hissed out a harsh, “Bad guy.” I smoothed the wrinkle between his brows. “He looks just like me, remember? If you call him a bad guy, aren’t you calling your dad one too?” “No. It’s not the same.” Matt gently traced the grotesque, frightening scar on my left hand. “It’s not the same, Dad. He had surgery to look like you. He stole everything. He deserves to be called a bad person.” My eyelashes fluttered. Since I adopted him, I had never spoken a word about my past. No one knew I was the real Aaron Drew, the eldest son of the Sterling Group founder. And no one knew that the innocent-looking model on the screen was actually Rhodes Vance, a high school dropout who used to fly across the country for a thousand dollars. Matt looked up into my eyes, asking the question he’d held onto for too long. “Dad, why don’t you expose them? The Sterlings have so many enemies. They can’t all tolerate a fraud like Rhodes.” I stood up slowly and continued walking toward the tenement building I called home. Matt didn’t know. The Drew family died out seven years ago. My father, my mother, my sister—even the housekeeper Mrs. Zhang and the groundskeeper Mr. Wallace—they all drowned at sea, picked apart by fish until only brittle bones remained. To pave the way for Rhodes, everyone who could prove my identity was eliminated. After I escaped the basement, I couldn’t even build them a proper tombstone. I could only sneak to the coast and pour out cup after cup of whiskey to the relentless gray waves. By then, Rhodes had been acting as the Drew heir for half a year. He was loud, flashy. Using my identity, he frequented high-end hotels with Emily, and wave after wave of expensive luxury items were delivered to the Drew mansion. He even signed over the company my father had built his life around, handing it all to Emily. The entire internet celebrated their ‘enduring love.’ I was trapped in a cheap rental, unable to sleep night after night. My dreams were saturated with my parents’ bloated faces, their hands reaching out to me for salvation. Seven years ago, I was too young, too impulsive, too reckless. I’d stormed into the acquisition signing ceremony with a hoard of reporters. I was hysterical, screaming and shouting. I tried desperately to prove I was the one true Drew heir. Cameras flashed and bulbs popped. In the blinding light, I saw Emily give a subtle, dismissive smirk. She took a step forward, shielding Rhodes. Her voice cut through the chaos, cold and brutal. “I don’t know this man. My husband is the one I chose, the one I stand by.” Even my one-year-old daughter, Daisy, stood on Rhodes’s side, crying and pushing me away. “Daddy, that man copied your face! I’m scared…” While I stood there, stunned into silence, Rhodes smiled, his face exactly like mine, and swept Daisy into his arms. He had won. He had stolen my daughter, my wife, my entire life, becoming the undisputed heir. And I became the lunatic who tried to steal his identity through plastic surgery. The farce ended with the police hauling me away. In the precinct holding cell, I was manic, screaming over and over that Emily had killed my family and colluded with the imposter to steal my life. No one believes a madman. Especially since a credible police report required evidence, and I had none. I was held for a day. When I walked out, Emily’s sleek sedan was parked outside, a cigarette glowing fiercely between her fingers. “Aaron, you should have figured this out years ago. You can’t stop me from loving who I want.” She exhaled a plume of smoke, then softened her voice. “If you’d been a little smarter, a little more agreeable, I wouldn’t have had Rhodes get the surgery. You’d still be the CEO. You’d still be my husband.” She opened the passenger door. “Get in. Come home with me. You haven’t seen Daisy in six months. Don’t you miss her?” … “Dad, we’re home.” Matt’s voice pulled me out of the suffocating memory. I glanced at the dark, grimy stairwell and walked in, used to the squalor. Compared to my life back then, things were marginally better now. After Emily took me back, I became Rhodes’s permanent understudy. Any corporate dinner he hated, Emily would drag me along to, making me drink with the partners. Any party he found boring, she would bring me to, keeping me by her side as a decorative, silent puppet. During those two years, I tried to tell everyone the truth. The old Sterling board members, the friends I grew up with, the investigative journalism students I knew from college… I sought out anyone I could think of. I cried myself sick, laid out the entire truth, begged them to call the police with me, to tear off Emily’s perfect, deceitful mask. But every one of them looked at me with a strange pity. They didn’t believe me. My countless attempts to resist were simply confirmation of my supposed schizophrenia. My best friend was the one who personally delivered me back to Emily, asking her to get me help and take good care of me. From that day on, my reputation as a madman was sealed. Emily took my hand and slipped my wedding band back onto my finger. She smiled. “Aaron, no one believes you now.” “In this whole world, I’m the only person who knows your grievances and your anger. Now, let’s just have a quiet life. Don’t you want to stop being a madman?” I stared at her blankly. Tears streamed down my face, tasting bitterly of salt. After that, when I wasn’t needed as a stand-in, I was monitored by the staff and confined to the suburban compound. I would stand in the empty backyard, staring vacantly at the sky. And every time, Emily would be away on a trip, “honeymooning” with Rhodes. The private jets carrying them would streak overhead, leaving bright, painful lines across the pale blue canvas. Emily had once asked if I missed Daisy. I hadn’t been able to answer her then. Now, I could give her a clear, solid answer. No. I don’t. I led Matt up the stairs, step by step. The top floor, where the rain always leaked in, was our home. But now, two figures—one tall, one small—were standing outside my door. Emily immediately pinched out her cigarette and crushed it under her heel. She knew I hated the smell of smoke. When we were together, she never cared. Five years later, she suddenly remembered. “Aaron… you’re still living here?” I walked past her without a word. I unlocked the door, walked straight into the kitchen, and started boiling black tea. The apartment was small. With two more people, it would be suffocatingly crowded. Matt stood planted in the doorway, glaring fiercely at the pair outside, refusing to let them enter. His attitude was hostile, his small eyes filled with simmering resentment. I didn’t know how much he understood about my past. I didn’t know how deeply he felt my pain. But I did know that I couldn’t bear to see that much hatred in the eyes of a seven-year-old. I ruffled his hair, handed him the steaming mug of tea, and told him to drink it while it was hot. Then, I looked up at the two people in the hallway, my voice professional and detached. “Emily. Please leave. I won’t pursue this issue regarding your daughter stealing my son’s pencil case. I just need you to manage her and ensure she doesn’t bother us again.” At the phrase “your daughter,” the little girl’s eyes instantly filled with tears. She lowered her head, hoping I wouldn’t see her grief. I saw it. But I tightened my grip on the doorknob, ready to shut the door and send them away. Emily pushed her hand against the frame. Her eyes were fixed on the hideous scar on my left hand. She spoke suddenly. “Aaron, you don’t invite me in because you still hate me?” Hate? Seven years ago, the Aaron who scrambled out of that dark basement hated her more than anything. Two years later, the Aaron whose hand Emily personally mutilated hated her with a blood-red fury. But now, five years had passed. Time had smoothed the sharp edges of everything. The hate, truly, was gone. Emily was nothing more than a stranger to me. Under my placid, indifferent stare, Emily’s eyes slowly filled. She bowed her head, her voice trembling. “Aaron, how can you not hate me?” After escaping the basement, I was Rhodes’s stand-in for two years. I was numb. But Rhodes apparently wasn’t satisfied. He resented that Emily would still bring me gifts after a business trip or sit silently with me on my birthday. After two years, he couldn’t take it anymore. He came to the suburban compound and gleefully told me a cruel truth. He said that when I was locked in the basement, my parents were still alive. It was Rhodes, using my identical face, who had lured them onto a boat and taken them to the international waters. He laughed. “Aaron, you should have seen the look on their faces as they went into the water. It was hilarious. Right up until the very end, they thought you were the one who killed them.” The words hung in the air for a long time before I slowly lifted my head. A dense, sickening pain began to crawl through my dead heart. I remembered learning to ride a bike—my father postponing a critical meeting just to hold the seat and steady me. My mother filming every clumsy second, then scooping me up after I fell, gently inspecting my scrapes. The past flashed before my eyes. I shattered. I grabbed the fruit knife from the counter and lunged at Rhodes like a madman. He was prepared. He ran directly for the door and dove behind Emily, sobbing and shaking as he cried out. “Emily, he’s trying to kill me! D-did I do something wrong?” The bodyguards behind Emily easily intercepted my attack, their eyes cold. “Aaron. Do you want to go back to the hospital?” She had the guards drag me toward my room while she soothed Rhodes. I saw red. I snatched the knife off the floor and swung wildly at Rhodes. Blood splattered across my face. Emily stepped in front of Rhodes, taking the blow. My knife severed her pinky finger. Blood gushed out. I ran. That afternoon, many people saw the Drew heir running through the streets, bloodied and frantic. Afterward, Emily personally checked me into a private psychiatric facility. She was missing a finger, but she also took a knife to my hand, deliberately ruining it. “Aaron, you shouldn’t have run that day,” she said, calm and collected. “People saw two Aaron Drewes—one safe in the hospital with me, the other fleeing hysterically in the street.” “Rhodes can only live because of that face. You don’t need it. Once your hand is healed, I’ll bring you home.” I spent six months in that asylum. I was forced to take medication daily; if I resisted, I was given special “treatments.” My mind was constantly hazy. Emily’s attitude toward me, ironically, softened. I would often lean against her shoulder, staring blankly at the smooth, pale band of skin on my left ring finger. From eighteen to twenty-eight—a decade—that finger had worn the same simple ring. No one knew that Emily was a child I had essentially saved. She was the illegitimate daughter of the Sterling founder, thirteen years old, with nowhere to go. She had come to me, begging for a place to sleep. My mother, seeing her desperation, took her in. She was my companion, the most fiercely loyal person I knew. If someone picked on me, she was the first to fight them, not stopping until they were on their knees, crying for mercy. When I was kidnapped once, she found me, covered in blood, gripping a stained knife, her eyes full of the terror of nearly losing me. When I turned eighteen, she gave me a ring. A commitment, and a tracker. That kidnapping had terrified her so much that she designed it herself. My sister had laughed, patting Emily’s shoulder. “Your possessiveness is intense. Aren’t you afraid my brother will get bored and find a more agreeable girl?” No one knew that lighthearted comment would turn into a curse. The one who grew bored was Emily. The woman who would have died for me became obsessed with a male escort flying across the country for a few hundred dollars. She then used him to destroy my family. I fought her. I screamed, I begged, I tried every strategy I could think of. But Emily neutralized every move with unnerving ease. The pain in my hand was once so profound, so sharp. But as the scar tissue grew, the feeling simply went away. I looked at Emily standing in the rain, my gaze utterly vacant. She had lowered her head, much like her daughter, to hide her tear-filled eyes. I saw them. I just didn’t care. “Emily. Let’s just leave it at this. Whether you regret it or you feel guilty, we can’t go back to what we were.” I kept my hand on the knob, forcing her and Daisy back into the rain. The rain hammered down harder, spotting the walls with fresh mildew. In the kitchen, I could hear the drip, drip, drip of the leak. Matt sweetly handed me a cup of black tea. He looked at the water-streaked walls and let out a happy cheer. “Dad! It’s raining! Does that mean Sloane is coming over?” Sloane was the woman I was seeing—or, the woman I was almost seeing. She was a cold but genuinely good person who always appeared when I was in a crisis, never asking for repayment. Sometimes, when I couldn’t pick up Matt, she would be waiting in her black SUV outside our complex. She was usually quiet and reserved around me, but Matt claimed he’d seen her dressing down a contractor once, so intimidating that no one dared speak. Almost immediately, there was a knock on the door. Sloane had arrived. She was about to step in, just as she always did, when a hand shot out and stopped her. Emily’s face was utterly pale. She pointed at Sloane, her voice incredulous, ragged with shock. “Aaron Drew! Who is she?!”