When I woke up that morning, my phone buzzed nonstop. Notifications stacked one after another—likes, comments, tags. I thought Eric, my boyfriend of three years, had finally done it: he remembered our anniversary.
I smiled, pulling the covers tighter. Then I opened Instagram. The post was there—a beautiful photo of us at the beach, captioned with words that should have melted my heart.
“Three years with the love of my life. I’d choose you again and again.”
Only when I looked closer, my breath caught.
He tagged the wrong woman.
Eric wasn’t perfect, but he tried. At least, that’s what I told myself. He was forgetful, distracted, always “busy.” Birthdays? Sometimes overlooked. Valentine’s Day? Last-minute flowers. Our first anniversary? A pizza delivery and Netflix.
I made excuses—work stress, bad memory, not the “romantic type.”
But this? A full post, public, carefully written. He remembered the date. He put effort in. He told the whole world he was in love.
Only… not with me.
At first, I thought it was a glitch. Maybe autocorrect, or Instagram’s algorithm messing with me. I tapped on the tag, expecting it to lead back to my profile.
But it didn’t.
It opened to hers. Madison.
Her profile was private, but her display photo was enough: a brunette with a smile so confident, so familiar, I realized I’d seen her before—on his coworkers’ posts. She was new at his office.
My hands shook as I scrolled through the comments flooding his post:
“Aw, you guys are perfect!”
“Congrats, Madison and Eric!”
“Power couple vibes!”
I felt like the ground was splitting beneath me.
I waited for him to wake up. He strolled into the kitchen, yawning, hair a mess, acting like it was just another Tuesday.
“You saw my post?” he grinned. “Finally nailed it, huh?”
I shoved the phone in his face. “You tagged her.”
His expression dropped. He blinked, swallowed hard, then reached for the phone. “Babe, it was a mistake. Just a mix-up—”
“A mix-up?” My voice trembled. “You typed her name. You had to scroll through a list of names. You chose her.”
He rubbed his face, muttering something about “being tired.”
But then I asked the question that mattered: “Why does tagging Madison come naturally to you?”
He froze. That silence again—the kind that doesn’t need words. His shoulders sagged. He didn’t confess outright, but he didn’t deny it either.
And sometimes, silence is the loudest truth.
I didn’t delete the post. I didn’t fight him over it. Instead, I left it there for everyone to see. A digital scar, proof of where we ended.
Later that night, I packed a bag. Eric tried to stop me, begged me to believe it was just a mistake, but the truth was already written for the world to see—he hadn’t chosen me, not really.
Now, when I look back, I think about how ironic it was. For years I had begged him for recognition, for effort, for a public declaration of love. And when he finally gave it, he gave it to someone else.
But here’s what I’ve learned: sometimes the mistake isn’t in who someone tags online. It’s in who we tag as our partner in life when deep down, we already know they’re not worthy of the role.
