The shovel hit the metal box with a dull thud.
“Found it!” Mark grinned, wiping sweat from his forehead. He looked handsome in the late afternoon sun, the same way he had looked ten years ago when we buried this box in the backyard of our first home.
It was our tenth anniversary. We had saved this moment for a decade. We dug up the time capsule we buried at our wedding. It was supposed to be romantic—a message from our younger selves to our future selves, full of hope and predictions about our children, our careers, and our gray hairs.
We carried the muddy box to the patio table. I popped a bottle of champagne while Mark pried the lid open. Inside, there were dried flowers from my bouquet, a menu from the reception, and two sealed envelopes.
“Ladies first,” Mark said, handing me mine.
I opened it and laughed. I had written about hoping we had a dog (we did) and hoping Mark finally learned to cook (he hadn’t). It was sweet, naive, and full of love.
Then, it was Mark’s turn.
He picked up his envelope. He hesitated. For a split second, a shadow crossed his face—a look of genuine confusion, as if he couldn’t quite remember what he had written.
He tore it open. He pulled out the single sheet of lined paper.
He started to read it silently. His smile vanished. His face went pale. He tried to fold the paper back up. “You know what,” he stammered, his laugh sounding brittle. “It’s silly. Just dumb jokes. Let’s not—”
“Read it,” I teased, reaching for it. “Come on, I read mine!”
I snatched the paper from his hand before he could stop me. I looked down at his handwriting, ten years younger, sharp and clear.
“‘To my future self,’” it began.
I smiled, expecting a joke about his hairline.
“‘I hope you finally found the courage to leave her.’“.
The world stopped. The birds in the trees went silent. The champagne bubbles in my glass seemed to freeze.
I read the next line, my breath catching in my throat like a shard of glass.
“‘You never really loved her anyway.’“.
I looked up at Mark. He wasn’t looking at me. He was staring at the table, unable to meet my eyes.
“Mark?” I whispered. “What is this?”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. The truth was written in ink that had dried a decade ago. While I was walking down the aisle, heart bursting with joy, he was already planning his escape. While I was saying “I do,” he was writing a reminder to his future self to undo it.
He had written his exit strategy on our wedding day.
The last ten years—the vacations, the Sunday mornings, the “I love yous” before bed—replayed in my mind, warping and twisting. They weren’t memories anymore; they were performances.
I was living a lie for a decade.
I dropped the letter onto the table next to the dried flowers that had witnessed the start of the lie. I realized then that the time capsule hadn’t preserved our love; it had preserved the evidence of a fraud. And the man sitting across from me wasn’t my husband; he was a hostage taker who had finally been caught by his own ransom note.
