it was late afternoon when you returned from the bakery, your hands full of warm pastry bags, the scent of sugar and butter still clinging to you. As you walked past the small room separate from the main house—the one Benedict always kept locked—you stopped. That room had always been forbidden, a place you were never allowed to enter.

Benedict, your husband, always said it was nothing but a dirty storeroom, a dumping place for old, forgotten things he no longer cared about. But today, the door was slightly ajar. Just enough for curiosity to slip through before you could stop yourself.

That was when you heard his voice—soft, trembling, thick with longing.

“I managed to turn her into you. She resembles you so much now. She’s so beautiful… just like you.”

Your breath caught. Slowly, you peeked through the gap, and what you saw hollowed you out.

He was crying, shoulders shaking, while holding a photo frame of a woman who looked eerily like you. The same eyes, the same gentle features… the only difference was her short hair. Charity—his first wife. The woman he had loved deeply. The woman who died six years before he married you.

And suddenly, everything clicked into place.

You remembered how much he hated your original self—how every time you laughed too loudly, spoke too freely, acted too much like you, his anger flared. His temper burned. His hands left marks—on your skin, on your spirit.

He never wanted you. He only wanted the shadow of who she had been.

He married you because you resembled her. And then he molded you, reshaped you, erased you piece by piece. He forced you to cut your hair whenever it grew long. He dictated how you dressed, what perfume you wore. He didn’t just control your life—he replaced your identity.

He taught you how to mimic Charity’s voice, her smile, the way she talked, walked, breathed. He taught you to embody a woman who no longer lived.

“I miss you so much,”..he whispered to the photograph, tears dripping onto the glass....“If only you were still alive… I wouldn’t have had to marry her.”

You stood frozen outside the door, pastry bags trembling in your hands, your heart splintering like brittle glass. And in that moment, you realized the truth:

He never loved you. He only loved the ghost he forced you to become.