My Husband Doesn’t Exist Chapter 03
My body started to tremble.
The husband in my apartment is a fabrication. A fiction.
A person who literally does not exist. How could Derek have met him?
“Where… where did you see him?”
“On the stairs, coming up.”
“What did he look like?”
“Tall guy. Blue dress shirt. Hey, you don’t recognize your own husband?”
Every hair on my body stood on end.
Because the men’s shirt I hung on the balcony this morning was blue.
“Anyway, get on home. Your husband’s up there waiting for you.”
Derek was still grinning as he closed his door.
I looked up toward my floor. Toward that familiar door. But my legs felt filled with concrete. I couldn’t move.
Waiting for me?
A person who cannot possibly exist is inside my apartment, waiting for me?
I couldn’t go home. I ran downstairs and looked up at my balcony.
The blue shirt I’d hung out to dry this morning was gone.
My knees buckled. I nearly collapsed.
I was about to call the police when a thought cut through the panic.
What if Derek was lying?
It wasn’t impossible.
Derek saw the shirt I hung out. So he made this whole thing up.
And the shirt itself could have blown off the line. Someone could have picked it up off the ground.
But why would Derek lie to me?
That polite expression on his face, the hint of nervousness in his posture. It didn’t look like an act.
My mind was a mess.
I took a breath. Steadied myself. Decided to check the building’s security footage at the property management office.
I needed to know whether Derek was telling the truth.
I went to the office and asked them to pull up the lobby camera, rewinding to that time window.
I stared at the screen. My breath caught.
There, in the footage, was a tall man in a blue dress shirt walking into the building.
He was wearing sunglasses. The camera angle didn’t capture his full face.
But looking at the contours of his features and the way he walked, something felt oddly familiar.
I didn’t have the mental bandwidth to think about that right now.
Terror filled every pore.
A person who cannot possibly exist.
Coming and going from my apartment freely.
Without me noticing a single thing.
I don’t even know how long he’s been there.
One day. Two days. Or maybe… six months.
My mind went blank.
I called Jenna with shaking hands.
“Jenna… something happened…”
But after I finished explaining, Jenna burst out laughing.
