My Ex Is Marrying My Cousin But He Still Comes To My Room At Night

Ten years. It felt like a hundred. The air in my father’s house was stale, thick with the dust of a life I no longer recognized. I’d come back to bury him, to sign papers and sell off the memories piece by piece. The town of Oakhaven felt smaller, the streets narrower, the faces of strangers more pronounced. I was the ghost here, haunting the edges of a life I had fled.

Needing to escape the suffocating silence of the house, I drove to the Saturday market. It was a pathetic attempt to feel normal, to pretend I was just a woman buying peaches and not a daughter sorting through the wreckage of a past she’d tried so hard to outrun. The familiar scent of fresh bread and damp earth hit me, a nostalgic punch to the gut. I was weaving through the crowd, my basket clutched in my hand like a shield, when I saw him.

It wasn’t a gradual recognition. It was instant. A full-body shock, like grabbing a live wire. Andrés.

He stood by a stall of heirloom tomatoes, his back to me. Even from behind, I knew the shape of him. The breadth of his shoulders had filled out, the dark hair was cut shorter, but the way he stood—solid, rooted to the earth—was the same. My breath caught, trapped in my throat. I should have turned, walked away, disappeared back into the crowd. But my feet were cemented to the pavement.

Then he turned, a tomato in his hand, and his eyes found mine.

Everything stopped. The chatter of the market, the rustle of paper bags, the sun on my skin—it all vanished. There was only the deep, dark brown of his eyes, the same eyes that had watched me, loved me, broken me. A decade had carved new lines around them, had etched a maturity into his jaw, but the intensity was unchanged. It was a physical force, a pull that yanked on something deep in my gut.

“Sofía,” he said. My name wasn't a question. It was a statement of fact, heavy and rough on his tongue.

“Andrés.” I barely breathed it out.

He took a step toward me, closing the small distance between us until I could feel the heat coming off his body. He looked down at me, his gaze sweeping over my face as if he were memorizing it all over again. A muscle in his jaw jumped. My heart was a frantic drum against my ribs, each beat a painful reminder of how alive he still made me feel. I wanted to run, but I also wanted to press my palm against his chest, just to feel if his heart was racing as fast as mine.

“You’re back,” he said, his voice low.

“For my father’s estate.” The words were clinical, cold. A defense against the heat building between my legs, the stupid, traitorous ache that had no business being there.

He nodded slowly, his eyes never leaving mine. The air between us was electric, thick with ten years of unspoken words, of anger and longing and regret. It was suffocating. He opened his mouth to say something else, but then seemed to think better of it. He just stood there, looking at me, and in that look, I saw the boy I loved and the man I’d lost. It was too much.

“I have to go,” I managed, my voice thin. I brushed past him, the fabric of his shirt grazing my bare arm. The contact was a brand, searing my skin. I didn't look back as I hurried away, leaving my half-empty basket behind. I didn’t need to. I could feel his eyes on me the entire way.

The dinner was my aunt’s idea of a welcome. It felt more like an interrogation. I sat at the heavy mahogany table of my childhood, a ghost at the feast, while Tía Carmen prattled on about how much the town had missed me. It was a lie. The town hadn't missed me, and I hadn't missed it. Across the table, Valeria watched me with sharp, assessing eyes, a thin smile playing on her lips. She had always looked at me like I was a puzzle she was eager to solve and then break.

And then there was Andrés, seated directly in my line of sight, a cruel joke played by the universe. He hadn't looked at me since I walked in, focusing on his plate with an intensity that was almost comical. The air between us was a vacuum, sucking all the oxygen out of the room. Every clink of a fork, every polite laugh from my aunt, felt amplified and grotesque. The heat from our encounter at the market still lingered on my skin, a phantom touch that now felt like a brand of shame.

“Well,” Valeria said, her voice cutting through the strained chatter. She placed her fork down with a delicate click, drawing all eyes to her. She held her wine glass, her left hand positioned just so, catching the light from the chandelier. “Since Sofía is finally back to join us, it feels like the perfect time to share some wonderful news.”

I felt a cold dread snake its way up my spine. Tía Carmen beamed, clearly in on the secret. Andrés finally looked up, but his eyes didn't meet mine. They were fixed on Valeria, his expression tight and unreadable.

Valeria’s smile widened, a triumphant, predatory thing. She extended her left hand over the table, a brilliant diamond winking on her finger. It was a beacon of everything I had lost.

“Andrés and I are getting married,” she announced, her voice dripping with saccharine sweetness.

The words didn't just land. They detonated. For a second, the world went silent and blurry. The faces around the table warped, their voices turning into a dull, distant roar. All I could see was that ring on her finger. My cousin. His fiancée. The man whose body I still knew better than my own, the man who had looked at me just hours ago with a decade of longing in his eyes, was going to marry her.

A wave of nausea washed over me. My lungs seized, refusing to draw in air. Congratulations erupted around me. My aunt was crying happy tears. Valeria was glowing, her gaze finally locking with mine, a clear message of victory in their depths. I felt Andrés’s eyes on me then, a heavy, suffocating weight. I refused to look. If I looked at him, I would shatter.

“Sofía, isn’t it wonderful?” my aunt prompted, her voice sharp.

I had to smile. I had to speak. I could feel the muscles in my face straining, pulling my lips into a grotesque imitation of joy. The smile felt like cracking glass.

“Congratulations,” I choked out, the word tasting like poison on my tongue. “I’m so happy for you both.”

I escaped as soon as the dessert plates were cleared, mumbling a pathetic excuse about jet lag. No one tried to stop me. I think they were all relieved. My presence was a crack in their perfect family portrait. Back in my father’s house, the silence was a physical weight. I walked through the dark rooms, the phantom image of that diamond ring burned onto the back of my eyelids. Every breath was a shard of glass in my lungs. I needed to do something, anything to keep my hands from shaking, to keep my mind from replaying the triumphant look on Valeria’s face.

His study was the one room I had been avoiding. It was the most him. But tonight, I needed the distraction. I flipped on the desk lamp, illuminating a neat, orderly world of stacked papers, labeled files, and pens arranged in a ceramic mug. It was a stark contrast to the chaos churning inside me. I sat in his worn leather chair and pulled open the top drawer, determined to lose myself in the mundane task of sorting through a dead man’s life.

Bills. Old bank statements. A half-finished crossword puzzle. My fingers moved numbly through the artifacts of his last years. I was about to close the drawer when my knuckles brushed against something rough on its underside. I felt along the smooth wood until my fingers found the edge of what felt like tape. I knelt on the floor, craning my neck to look up into the dark cavity. There, taped firmly to the bottom of the drawer, was a thick envelope.

My name was written across the front in his familiar, sharp handwriting. Sofía.

My heart hammered against my ribs. My hands trembled as I worked the tape loose, the sound ripping through the dead quiet of the house. I tore open the seal, my breath held tight in my chest. A single folded sheet of paper was inside.

My Dearest Sofía,

If you are reading this, then I am gone, and I have left you with a burden I was too much of a coward to carry myself. Forgive me for that. There are things you need to know about this family, truths that have been buried under years of polite smiles and bitter silence.

Nothing is what you think it is. Your Tía Carmen’s loyalty was never to her sister. She committed a betrayal long ago, a secret that involves Valeria and changed the course of all our lives. It is the reason for the distance between us, the reason for the anger I could never explain.

Do not let their version of the past dictate your future. Before you make any decisions—about this house, about this town, about him—you must find the rest of it. The whole, ugly truth. It’s in my safe deposit box. The key is where I always kept my promises to you.

Be careful. The truth doesn’t always set you free. Sometimes, it just shows you the size of your cage.

All my love,
Dad

I read the letter once, then twice, the words swimming before my eyes. Betrayal. Tía Carmen. A secret involving Valeria. The cryptic message felt like a key to a lock I never knew existed. The sharp, immediate pain of Andrés’s engagement dulled, replaced by a cold, prickling sense of dread and purpose. My father’s words were a warning, a map left behind by a ghost. And as I sat on the floor of his silent study, clutching the letter in my hand, I knew I couldn’t run this time. I had to follow it.