On Valentine's Day, I threw every last wedding invitation I'd handwritten into the trash.
“Miss, are you sure you meant to toss those?”
The old man who came to collect the garbage at his usual hour stared at the invitations in disbelief.
At that very moment, my boyfriend was confessing his love to the one that got away.
Fireworks bloomed in the distance, tracing the shape of a heart around two names.
Julius Henson. Sarah Harding.
My phone screen lit up, a message flashing and gone.
【Working late tonight. Won't be home.】
I scrolled up. Our last conversation was from two weeks ago.
He'd asked me:
【What flowers do you want for Valentine's?】
I said gardenias. What I got was a bouquet of cotton roses.
The blossoms were bruised and ragged, like leftovers picked over and passed on. The wrapping paper had gone soft with wrinkles.
Julius's text had arrived right on schedule.
【Got there too late. This was all they had left. Make do.】
No sweet words. No holiday confession.
Just: make do.
It hit me then that I'd been making do with him for years.
Meals we never agreed on. Schedules that never lined up.
Even his inability to let go of Sarah Harding.
I didn't want to make do anymore.
——
On the way home from work, I ran into his assistant.
The assistant mentioned the company had given everyone the afternoon off.
No overtime at all. Another lie.
The next day, Julius still didn't come home.
Same four-word text. Working late. Won't be home.
The day after that, two words changed. Working late. Home later.
I did the math. In the past six months, there had been fifty late nights. Thirty "won't be home"s. Twenty "home later"s.
Julius walked through the door past midnight.
“Still up?”
he asked.
“Waiting for you.”
He noticed the cotton roses, long since dried and dead, picked up the bouquet without a second glance, and tossed it into the trash.
The way you'd throw away a relationship that had already withered.
“Julius.”
I said his name. My voice came out steadier than I expected.
“Sarah's back?”
“Yeah,”
he said, his tone perfectly even.
“Got back to the States last week.”
A lie. On New Year's Eve, I'd smelled cotton roses on his skin.
I waited for him to keep going.
Watched him, wondering what pretty excuse he'd come up with next.
“The names on the fireworks,”
I said, my voice calm, a dull ache pulling tight behind my ribs.
“I saw them.”
The fireworks weren't all I'd seen. I'd also found the standing order he'd placed at the flower shop.
Six months' worth. Twice a month. Each delivery scheduled three days after the order date.
A different love note on every card.
I thought about how, not long ago, I'd brought him a handful of wedding vows other people had written and asked him to pick one.
He'd pointed at random, like pulling a prize from a grab bag.
The ache in my chest tightened.
“She said the guy who was supposed to confess to her stood her up.”
“So I stepped in.”
While he said it, he turned his head away, too guilty to meet my eyes.
“So what exactly are you and Sarah now?”
I asked, keeping my voice low.
He finally turned to face me.
His gaze carried a cold distance, as if to say: I already gave you an explanation. Why are you still digging?
“What do you want to hear?”
Irritation edged into his voice.
“We're just brother and sister from the orphanage……”
Brother and sister. Really?
Driving across the city in the middle of the night to keep her company? A fireworks confession visible from every rooftop in town?
“It's late.”
He stood and walked toward the bedroom.
“Go to sleep.”
