I went to city hall, my heart pounding, ready to marry the love of my life. But the words I heard there froze me cold.
“Sir, according to our records… you’re already married,” the clerk said.
I blinked. My mind stalled. “What? That’s impossible. I’ve never—ever—been married.”
Her eyes were sympathetic but firm. “I’m just telling you what the system says, sir. There’s a certificate here. You were legally married two years ago.”
Two years ago. That was right before I met Clara. Right before life started to make sense again.
I stood there, speechless, while Clara’s hand found mine, trembling.
“What does this mean?” she whispered, her eyes wide. Her fear mirrored my own.
“I swear, I have no idea what’s going on. But I promise you, we’ll figure this out,” I said, my voice shaking.
It had all begun earlier that day, at a place much quieter than city hall: the cemetery. I was standing before my parents’ graves, holding a small velvet box. The grass was still damp from the night’s rain, the smell of earth heavy in the cool morning air.
“I’m going to ask her,” I whispered to the headstones. “I’m finally doing it.”
My voice sounded strange out here in the open. I’d been visiting this spot every few weeks since I was eighteen, never knowing exactly what to say. But today was different. Today, I needed them to hear me.
Clara and I had been together for over two years by then.
“She’s my anchor,” I said softly to my parents. “My best friend. She can make me laugh when I feel like crying. She makes silence feel comfortable when words feel like too much.”
Just thinking about her brought a smile to my face. Life had finally started to feel right.
My parents had died years earlier during an expedition somewhere in South America. They were the kind of archaeologists who couldn’t resist a mystery—and one day, the mystery won. I was lost when it happened. If it weren’t for Tom, my father’s old friend, I don’t know what I would’ve done.
Earlier that year, when I turned 27, something changed. I got access to my inheritance—a large sum, bigger than I’d ever imagined. Suddenly, I could picture a future with Clara, one that went beyond daydreams.
“I’ve been thinking about proposing for months. Maybe longer… maybe since the day we met,” I murmured, opening the velvet box. The diamond caught the light, scattering tiny rainbows across my palm.
“I hope you’ll bless this marriage. I think you would have really liked her,” I said, voice barely above a whisper.
The wind rustled through the trees, and I chose to take that as a yes.
I had asked Clara to meet me at city hall that day. Not the most romantic setting, I know—but we had talked about marriage a lot. We both wanted this. She’d even joked about skipping the big wedding and just making it official.
I arrived with a bouquet of white roses and pink peonies, the ring in my pocket, and every ounce of courage I could muster. She was on the steps, wearing that blue dress I loved. She smiled at me, but there was a question in her eyes.
“Andrew,” she asked softly, “what’s going on?”
I dropped to one knee right there. “Clara, will you marry me? Right now. Today.”
Her hands flew to her mouth. Tears glistened in her eyes. She nodded rapidly, whispering yes over and over, and pulled me up into a kiss while some teenagers whistled and an old lady clapped.
Hand in hand, we walked into city hall, hearts racing. After all the loss, the loneliness, and the years of just surviving, I was finally getting something good.
We found the marriage license office on the second floor.
“Hi, we’d like to get married,” Clara said confidently, typing our names into the system.
Then she froze. Her eyes narrowed. She looked at me, then at the screen again. Slowly.
“Sir,” she said, her voice steady but shocked, “according to our records, you’re already married.”
Time stopped.
“What?” I said. “Impossible. I’ve never—ever—been married.”
“You’ll need to resolve this first. I can’t process a marriage license if you’re legally married to someone else,” she said, gently but firmly.
Clara’s hand gripped mine tighter. “Was there… someone else before me? You can tell me if there was…”
“No, I swear I have no idea what’s going on! But I’m going to get to the bottom of it!” I said.
We left city hall in stunned silence. I clenched a copy of the supposed marriage certificate. Everything felt wrong, backwards, broken. How could I be married to someone I’d never met?
The next morning, I went to work, hoping routine would calm me. My boss, Tom, had been a steady presence since college. He was my father’s old friend, the one who had offered me a job and guidance after my parents’ deaths.
I told him everything. He listened silently, his face growing serious.
“Let me call my lawyer,” he said finally. “See what can be done.”
Later that afternoon, he called me into his office. As I reached for the paperwork he slid across the desk, his phone buzzed. The name on the screen made my chest tighten.
“Oh my God,” I whispered. Marla. The woman I was supposedly married to.
Tom’s jaw tightened instantly. “That explains everything.”
He answered the call, putting it on speaker. A woman’s voice rang out, cold and triumphant.
“After all these years, I finally got my revenge!” she laughed, the sound crawling under my skin. “You tried so hard to protect that boy from me, Tom. But you failed.”
“What are you talking about, Marla?” Tom said.
“I paid someone to steal all the information I needed from your employee files. Then I went after the money.”
My hands shook. “What… what are you talking about?”
“Oh! The boy is there with you? Even better! Listen, Andrew. I have ruined you,” she said, her voice almost singing with joy.
“You forged the marriage certificate! But why?”
“Payback. Your parents made sure I lost everything, so I did the same to you. I can’t touch the money directly, but I can take out loans in your name. Credit cards. Personal loans. A second mortgage on a house you don’t even own. It’s beautiful, really.”
The line went dead. Tom sank into his chair.
He explained: Marla had blamed my parents—and him—for losing everything years ago. She had waited until I inherited their money to strike, forging a marriage certificate and trying to ruin my life.
“There wasn’t enough evidence to arrest her back then,” Tom said. “She swore she’d get revenge someday. Looks like now’s her moment.”
I stared at him. “How do we stop her?”
Tom pointed to the papers on his desk: petitions, copies of the certificate, notes about forged signatures. “My lawyer was already preparing to challenge the record. Force a review. Buy us time.”
Within a week, it worked. The marriage was ruled fraudulent. The loans were canceled. My credit would recover. And Marla was arrested.
The day after the legal battle ended, Clara and I returned to city hall. I felt my heart pound as I spoke to the clerk.
“We’d like to get married,” I said, my hand finding Clara’s.
“Congratulations,” the clerk said. “Names?”
Clara squeezed my hand, and I squeezed back.
This time, everything went perfectly.
Finally, after all the loss, fear, and confusion, we were exactly where we were supposed to be. Hand in hand, ready to start our life together.