The roses arrived just before lunch, twelve blood-red stems wrapped in crisp paper, tied with a velvet ribbon. My coworkers gasped, their faces glowing with envy as the receptionist carried the vase into our office. “For you,” she smiled, setting them on my desk. For a moment, my heart swelled. My boyfriend, Mark, had never been the grand-gesture type. This must mean something big. Maybe even a proposal soon. But when I pulled out the card, my stomach lurched. The name scribbled inside wasn’t mine.
It said: “To my beautiful Anna, love always — M.”
Anna. Not my name.
I froze, staring at the little white card as if the letters would rearrange themselves into something less cruel. Around me, the office buzzed with chatter. My friend Tara leaned over my cubicle wall. “Well? What’s it say?”
I snapped the card shut and forced a smile. “Just… sweet things.”
My throat burned as I tucked the card back into the roses.
I’d been with Mark for almost three years. We’d weathered rough patches — his long work hours, my insecurities, the occasional arguments about commitment. But he’d always sworn I was the only one. “You’re my future,” he told me. “I’m just waiting for the right moment.”
Well, apparently the right moment had arrived. For Anna.
All afternoon, I couldn’t focus. Every tap of my keyboard felt like nails on glass. Tara kept shooting me curious looks, and eventually I excused myself to the bathroom just to breathe. I locked myself in a stall, pulled the card from my pocket, and read it again. “Love always.” Not a casual slip. Not a mistake. A promise.
By the time I got home, I’d worked myself into a storm. The roses sat heavy in my arms, their perfume cloying. When Mark walked in later that evening, I shoved the vase at him. “Care to explain?”
He blinked, caught off guard. “Wow, roses. Nice touch. Who’re they from?”
“Don’t play dumb,” I snapped. I yanked the card out and shoved it into his chest. “They’re from you. To Anna.”
His face drained of color. He opened his mouth, closed it, then ran a hand over his jaw. “It’s… not what you think.”
I laughed bitterly. “It’s exactly what I think. You sent flowers to another woman. With a love note. While I’m sitting at work like an idiot, showing off my roses from a man who can’t even get my name right.”
“She’s just a friend,” he insisted. “A coworker. It’s complicated.”
“Complicated?” I hissed. “You don’t send twelve red roses to a ‘friend.’ You don’t sign ‘love always’ unless you mean it.”
The argument exploded from there. He tried to twist it — said he was helping her through a rough time, that she misunderstood. But the truth was written all over his face. I could see it in the way his eyes darted, in the guilty slouch of his shoulders.
Finally, I whispered, “How long?”
Mark pressed his hands to his temples. “Six months.”
My chest hollowed. Six months. Half a year of lies. Half a year of dinners where I thought he was working late. Half a year of holding his hand while he texted her under the table.
I threw the roses into the trash, glass vase and all. It shattered, water spilling across the floor. Mark flinched, but didn’t move to stop me.
That night, I didn’t sleep. I lay awake, staring at the ceiling, replaying every moment we’d shared. The vacations, the whispered I-love-yous, the nights I fell asleep on his chest. All of it felt counterfeit now, like props in a play where I’d been cast as the fool.
The next morning, I called in sick. I couldn’t face the whispers at the office, the knowing looks. Instead, I sat on the couch scrolling through Mark’s social media, my hands shaking. And there it was — a photo from last month. Him, smiling at a rooftop bar. And just at the edge of the frame, cropped but not quite invisible… her. Anna.
My vision blurred. He hadn’t even been careful.
When he came by that evening to “talk,” I was ready. “There’s nothing left to say,” I told him. “You made your choice.”
He tried to grab my hand. “I want you, not her. I’ll end it.”
But I shook my head. “You already ended us. The second you signed your name to that card, you killed whatever future we had.”
Mark left, slamming the door. I crumpled onto the couch and sobbed until my chest hurt.
It took weeks to feel like I could breathe again. Every time I saw a florist shop, my stomach clenched. Every time my phone buzzed, I half expected another betrayal. But slowly, something inside me shifted.
One Saturday, Tara showed up with takeout and a bottle of wine. She plopped onto my couch and said, “You know what? Those roses did you a favor.”
I laughed through my tears. “How?”
“Because now you know the truth. And you’re free. Imagine marrying him and finding out ten years down the line. This? This is the universe ripping off the band-aid.”
I sipped my wine and realized she was right. The roses weren’t a gift. They were a revelation.
Final Thought
When the man you love betrays you, it feels like your entire world is collapsing. But sometimes betrayal is the gift you didn’t know you needed. Mark’s roses hurt like hell, but they saved me years of wasted love. Love should never come with someone else’s name on the card.