My boyfriend, who never gave me flowers, picked roses for my best friend. I confronted him, but he…

The morning it rained over Seattle, I texted Caleb at 7:30 a.m. sharp.

Hey, do you want to celebrate tonight?

The three dots appeared, blinked, vanished, reappeared. Finally, his reply came back:

What holiday?

I could practically hear the annoyance in his tone, see that faint crease between his brows. It was the same look he gave when the barista forgot his oat milk or when someone interrupted him mid-sentence.

It’s May 20th, I wrote back. It sounds like “I love you” in Mandarin — kinda like Valentine’s Day. We could do dinner maybe?

I added a smiley face I knew he’d ignore. Then I tucked my phone in my bag and stepped into the elevator, balancing a half-eaten bagel between my teeth. I was late for my internship again, but the idea of seeing him tonight made my stomach flutter the way it always did.

By the time I reached the lobby, my phone buzzed.

Fine.

That was Caleb’s version of romance — three letters, lowercase, indifferent.
I stared at the screen and smiled anyway. I’d learned to translate his silences into affection.

Caleb and I had known each other since we were fourteen. He’d moved into the apartment below mine after his parents’ messy divorce. I still remember the first time I saw him: sitting by the building entrance, knuckles bruised, shirt torn, blood drying down his arm under the streetlight.

He’d looked like something wild and cornered, but when I offered him half of my beef pie, he took it.

We’d been tangled ever since.

By the time we were in college, I loved him the way you love gravity — inevitable, constant, invisible.
He didn’t say much back then either, but he was there.
When my car broke down, he came to fix it in the rain.
When I got sick, he stayed up making sure I took my meds.

That was how Caleb loved — not with words, but actions. At least that’s what I told myself.

I met Stella my sophomore year. She was everything I wasn’t — sleek, confident, and impossibly put together. Her mother ran a marketing firm, and she interned there every summer, showing up to class in tailored blazers while I was still in sweatshirts.

We met because I’d stepped between her and a pushy ex-boyfriend outside a coffee shop. She laughed afterward, said, “You’ve got guts,” and bought me a latte.

That’s how we became friends.

When I introduced her to Caleb later that week, I thought they hated each other.

He’d scowled, jaw tight, when she’d made a joke about his “intense energy.”
And she’d whispered to me afterward, “Your boyfriend’s kind of scary, isn’t he?”

I spent months trying to bridge the gap — defending her to him, him to her — never realizing how dangerous closeness could become.

Caleb started his own design studio during college. He was brilliant — obsessive, stubborn, terrifyingly driven. When he talked about architecture, his eyes burned like he could see things no one else could.

But that brilliance came at a cost. He stopped sleeping, stopped texting, stopped saying anything that wasn’t about work.

“I’m doing this for us,” he’d say.
And I’d nod, pretending the distance didn’t ache.

When I met Stella for coffee, she’d ask, “You sure you’re happy? He’s… cold, Ivy. Guys like that don’t change.”

“He’s just under pressure,” I’d say. “He’s trying to prove himself to his dad.”

She’d sigh and squeeze my hand like I was something fragile.
“You deserve someone who looks at you the way you look at him.”

That morning — May 20th — I left work early, rain misting over the city. I’d bought a small bouquet of red roses from the shop near my bus stop, the petals damp against the paper wrap.

I even laughed at myself, thinking how ridiculous it was — me, the one always chasing. But maybe, just maybe, today he’d meet me halfway.

Caleb’s office was in a renovated warehouse near Lake Union. I parked out front and texted him that I was waiting.

Then I saw him.

He was standing outside the building under the awning, a bouquet of white roses in his hand — her roses, I realized too late — smiling faintly as he handed them to Stella.

My heart stopped.

She took them with a blush, a soft “You didn’t have to, Caleb,” and he said something that made her laugh.

I froze, red roses clutched in my hand, the rain soaking through the paper wrap. My reflection in the puddle looked like a stranger — hair plastered, mascara smudged, dignity unraveling.

When I finally forced myself forward, he looked over, startled.

“Why are you off work so early?” he asked flatly, as if I were an interruption.

Stella’s eyes darted between us. “Ivy, hey! I was just—”

“It’s fine,” I said, forcing a smile so wide it hurt. “I just stopped by.”

She excused herself quickly, heels clicking against wet pavement, leaving me alone with him.

“What was that?” I asked. My voice was soft, shaking. “Why did you give her flowers?”

He frowned. “She helped with a deal. I was thanking her.”

“On May twentieth?”

“What’s May twentieth?”

“Valentine’s Day in China. You knew that.”

He exhaled sharply. “You’re making a big deal out of nothing.”

That phrase — a big deal out of nothing — was a blade I’d heard before.
It meant I don’t see you.

“You’ve never given me flowers,” I whispered.

He shrugged. “You don’t need that kind of thing.”

My breath hitched. “But she does?”

He didn’t answer. Just looked at me — calm, cool, untouchable — while my world cracked quietly open.

When he reached for the roses in my hand, I thought he was going to make it right. Instead, he took them carelessly, petals breaking beneath his fingers.

“You’re dripping all over the seat,” he said, glancing at my skirt. “Let’s go home.”

It rained harder that night — the kind that makes the city blur into watercolor.
He drove in silence, windshield wipers slicing through the sound of my sobs.

When he parked outside our apartment, I couldn’t move. My hands were shaking around the crumpled tissue packet he’d given me — the same perfume Stella used.

Finally, he sighed. “You’re soaked. Let’s go inside.”

I didn’t follow. I couldn’t.

All I could see were those white roses in her arms — fresh, perfect, loved.

The next day, Stella came by the apartment, her voice all guilt and sweetness.
“I’m so sorry, Ivy,” she said, setting a huge bouquet of red roses on the counter. “I forgot what day it was. Caleb was just thanking me for the partnership. He told me you were upset.”

Her tone was light, but her eyes were studying me.

I forced a laugh. “I guess I overreacted.”

She smiled and reached for my hand. “You love him so much. I can see why you’re protective.”

As she left, I noticed the diamond necklace glinting at her throat. I’d seen that same piece on her social media a few days earlier — the one she’d captioned “My dream necklace. One day.”

When I asked where she’d gotten it, she said, “Oh, Caleb gave it to me. A thank-you gift for closing the deal.”

I didn’t reply. I just stared at her until she shifted uncomfortably.

That night, when Caleb came home, the air felt thick.
He tossed his keys on the table, loosened his tie, looked up — and froze when he saw me standing by the window.

“Did you give Stella that necklace?” I asked.

His eyes flicked away. “She helped with the project.”

I laughed — a sound that didn’t feel like mine. “You must really like thanking her.”

He frowned. “What are you implying?”

“That you’ve never thanked me. Not once. Not in three years.”

He exhaled, rubbing his temple. “You’re overthinking again.”

“I saw you,” I said quietly. “Outside your office. The way you looked at her.”

He didn’t answer. And silence — his favorite weapon — fell like a door slamming shut.

I’d spent years translating that silence into love.
But now, it just sounded like indifference…

Continue in C0mmEnt…

The morning it rained over Seattle, I texted Caleb at 7:30 a.m. sharp.

Hey, do you want to celebrate tonight?

The three dots appeared, blinked, vanished, reappeared. Finally, his reply came back:

What holiday?

I could practically hear the annoyance in his tone, see that faint crease between his brows. It was the same look he gave when the barista forgot his oat milk or when someone interrupted him mid-sentence.

It’s May 20th, I wrote back. It sounds like “I love you” in Mandarin — kinda like Valentine’s Day. We could do dinner maybe?

I added a smiley face I knew he’d ignore. Then I tucked my phone in my bag and stepped into the elevator, balancing a half-eaten bagel between my teeth. I was late for my internship again, but the idea of seeing him tonight made my stomach flutter the way it always did.

By the time I reached the lobby, my phone buzzed.

Fine.

That was Caleb’s version of romance — three letters, lowercase, indifferent.
I stared at the screen and smiled anyway. I’d learned to translate his silences into affection.

Caleb and I had known each other since we were fourteen. He’d moved into the apartment below mine after his parents’ messy divorce. I still remember the first time I saw him: sitting by the building entrance, knuckles bruised, shirt torn, blood drying down his arm under the streetlight.

He’d looked like something wild and cornered, but when I offered him half of my beef pie, he took it.

We’d been tangled ever since.

By the time we were in college, I loved him the way you love gravity — inevitable, constant, invisible.
He didn’t say much back then either, but he was there.
When my car broke down, he came to fix it in the rain.
When I got sick, he stayed up making sure I took my meds.

That was how Caleb loved — not with words, but actions. At least that’s what I told myself.

I met Stella my sophomore year. She was everything I wasn’t — sleek, confident, and impossibly put together. Her mother ran a marketing firm, and she interned there every summer, showing up to class in tailored blazers while I was still in sweatshirts.

We met because I’d stepped between her and a pushy ex-boyfriend outside a coffee shop. She laughed afterward, said, “You’ve got guts,” and bought me a latte.

That’s how we became friends.

When I introduced her to Caleb later that week, I thought they hated each other.

He’d scowled, jaw tight, when she’d made a joke about his “intense energy.”
And she’d whispered to me afterward, “Your boyfriend’s kind of scary, isn’t he?”

I spent months trying to bridge the gap — defending her to him, him to her — never realizing how dangerous closeness could become.

Caleb started his own design studio during college. He was brilliant — obsessive, stubborn, terrifyingly driven. When he talked about architecture, his eyes burned like he could see things no one else could.

But that brilliance came at a cost. He stopped sleeping, stopped texting, stopped saying anything that wasn’t about work.

“I’m doing this for us,” he’d say.
And I’d nod, pretending the distance didn’t ache.

When I met Stella for coffee, she’d ask, “You sure you’re happy? He’s… cold, Ivy. Guys like that don’t change.”

“He’s just under pressure,” I’d say. “He’s trying to prove himself to his dad.”

She’d sigh and squeeze my hand like I was something fragile.
“You deserve someone who looks at you the way you look at him.”

That morning — May 20th — I left work early, rain misting over the city. I’d bought a small bouquet of red roses from the shop near my bus stop, the petals damp against the paper wrap.

I even laughed at myself, thinking how ridiculous it was — me, the one always chasing. But maybe, just maybe, today he’d meet me halfway.

Caleb’s office was in a renovated warehouse near Lake Union. I parked out front and texted him that I was waiting.

Then I saw him.

He was standing outside the building under the awning, a bouquet of white roses in his hand — her roses, I realized too late — smiling faintly as he handed them to Stella.

My heart stopped.

She took them with a blush, a soft “You didn’t have to, Caleb,” and he said something that made her laugh.

I froze, red roses clutched in my hand, the rain soaking through the paper wrap. My reflection in the puddle looked like a stranger — hair plastered, mascara smudged, dignity unraveling.

When I finally forced myself forward, he looked over, startled.

“Why are you off work so early?” he asked flatly, as if I were an interruption.

Stella’s eyes darted between us. “Ivy, hey! I was just—”

“It’s fine,” I said, forcing a smile so wide it hurt. “I just stopped by.”

She excused herself quickly, heels clicking against wet pavement, leaving me alone with him.

“What was that?” I asked. My voice was soft, shaking. “Why did you give her flowers?”
He frowned. “She helped with a deal. I was thanking her.”“On May twentieth?”

“What’s May twentieth?”

“Valentine’s Day in China. You knew that.”

He exhaled sharply. “You’re making a big deal out of nothing.”

That phrase — a big deal out of nothing — was a blade I’d heard before.
It meant I don’t see you.

“You’ve never given me flowers,” I whispered.

He shrugged. “You don’t need that kind of thing.”

My breath hitched. “But she does?”

He didn’t answer. Just looked at me — calm, cool, untouchable — while my world cracked quietly open.

When he reached for the roses in my hand, I thought he was going to make it right. Instead, he took them carelessly, petals breaking beneath his fingers.

“You’re dripping all over the seat,” he said, glancing at my skirt. “Let’s go home.”

It rained harder that night — the kind that makes the city blur into watercolor.
He drove in silence, windshield wipers slicing through the sound of my sobs.

When he parked outside our apartment, I couldn’t move. My hands were shaking around the crumpled tissue packet he’d given me — the same perfume Stella used.

Finally, he sighed. “You’re soaked. Let’s go inside.”

I didn’t follow. I couldn’t.

All I could see were those white roses in her arms — fresh, perfect, loved.

The next day, Stella came by the apartment, her voice all guilt and sweetness.
“I’m so sorry, Ivy,” she said, setting a huge bouquet of red roses on the counter. “I forgot what day it was. Caleb was just thanking me for the partnership. He told me you were upset.”

Her tone was light, but her eyes were studying me.

I forced a laugh. “I guess I overreacted.”

She smiled and reached for my hand. “You love him so much. I can see why you’re protective.”

As she left, I noticed the diamond necklace glinting at her throat. I’d seen that same piece on her social media a few days earlier — the one she’d captioned “My dream necklace. One day.”

When I asked where she’d gotten it, she said, “Oh, Caleb gave it to me. A thank-you gift for closing the deal.”

I didn’t reply. I just stared at her until she shifted uncomfortably.

That night, when Caleb came home, the air felt thick.
He tossed his keys on the table, loosened his tie, looked up — and froze when he saw me standing by the window.

“Did you give Stella that necklace?” I asked.

His eyes flicked away. “She helped with the project.”

I laughed — a sound that didn’t feel like mine. “You must really like thanking her.”

He frowned. “What are you implying?”

“That you’ve never thanked me. Not once. Not in three years.”

He exhaled, rubbing his temple. “You’re overthinking again.”

“I saw you,” I said quietly. “Outside your office. The way you looked at her.”

He didn’t answer. And silence — his favorite weapon — fell like a door slamming shut.

I’d spent years translating that silence into love.
But now, it just sounded like indifference.

By the weekend, I could barely breathe around him.
We argued in whispers, in half-finished sentences, in the spaces between what was said and what was meant.

When I finally shouted, “Do you even love me?” he just looked at me — calm, detached, unblinking.
“Love isn’t about words,” he said.“Then what is it about?”

He shrugged. “Understanding.”

I laughed bitterly. “You don’t even understand why I’m crying.”

The next day, I packed my things and left.

He didn’t follow.
He didn’t call.
And when the rain started again that night, I realized I didn’t even know if he liked the sound of it — because I’d never asked, and he’d never told me.

Two weeks later, Stella posted a picture online: her standing in a field of white roses, captioned “Grateful for everything that’s blooming.”

Caleb had taken it. His reflection was faint in her sunglasses.

I deleted the app, turned off my phone, and booked a one-way ticket home.

I met Nathan at a company conference in Portland. He was kind, patient, and unflinchingly honest. When he said “I love you,” it wasn’t cryptic or conditional.

He bought me flowers every Sunday — sunflowers, daisies, wildflowers. Never roses.

When he proposed, I said yes without hesitation.

The day before the wedding, I got an anonymous letter with an address outside the city. Curiosity won.

There, beyond a stretch of country road, stood a man among a sea of roses.
Caleb.

He looked thinner, older, haunted. “I planted them for you,” he said. “All these years.”

I smiled softly, holding the bouquet of lilies in my hands — the ones I’d chosen for tomorrow’s ceremony.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “You’re too late.”

He stared at the lilies, eyes red, the rain beginning to fall again — soft, endless, forgiving.

Part Two

Three years passed like pages torn from a notebook — days folded into months, months into seasons, until the hurt dulled into something manageable.

Ivy Collins. Twenty-six. Marketing manager for a Seattle tech start-up. Engaged. Happy, or at least, trying to be.

Every morning, I’d drive along the waterfront on my way to work, the early fog hanging low over Puget Sound. Nathan would text something sweet like, “Drive safe, love you.” It still startled me sometimes — how easily he said those words.

After Caleb, I hadn’t realized how much I’d trained myself to expect less.

Nathan was the kind of man who remembered small things — how I took my coffee, which side of the bed I liked, that I always carried tissues in my bag because I cried at movie trailers.

He worked in finance, steady and warm where Caleb had been restless and cold. If Caleb was a thunderstorm, Nathan was a sunrise.

He never demanded all my attention, never punished me with silence.
When I laughed, he looked like it was the best sound in the world.

That’s what love was supposed to feel like, I thought.
Not survival. Not compromise. Just quiet safety.

It arrived one Friday, slipped under my apartment door in a plain envelope.
No return address. Just my name.

Inside was a single sheet of paper:

If you still want to know why he did it, come to the address below.

There was no signature. Only coordinates — a spot outside the city near the foothills.

I stared at it for a long time before tucking it away.

That night, Nathan cooked dinner — salmon and asparagus, my favorite — and talked about wedding seating charts. I nodded in all the right places, but my mind kept drifting back to the letter.

What could possibly be left to say?
What could Caleb explain that would undo what he’d done?

By Sunday, curiosity won.

The address led to a narrow road cutting through pine forest. Late afternoon sunlight bled through the branches like gold dust.

When I turned the final bend, the road opened into a wide field — and there he was.
Caleb.He was standing among rows of blooming roses, thousands of them — crimson, ivory, blush — stretching to the edge of the horizon.

For a second, I couldn’t breathe.

He looked thinner, older. The arrogance that once hung on him like armor was gone. His hair was longer, his eyes hollow, his hands calloused.

He turned when he saw me, surprise flickering across his face before settling into something softer.

“You came,” he said quietly.

“What is this place?” I asked.

He looked around, almost shyly. “I bought the land two years ago. Thought I’d learn to grow something beautiful.”

“You were never good at keeping plants alive.”

“I got better.”

The air smelled like rain and soil, the kind of scent that carried memory.

He picked a rose carefully, held it out to me. “It’s called the Ivy Pearl. White with pink edges.”

I didn’t take it. “You named it after me?”

He nodded. “I wanted to plant something that didn’t die when the season changed.”

I laughed softly — not cruel, just tired. “You really think flowers can fix what you broke?”

His voice cracked. “No. I just wanted you to see them before you married him.”

For a long moment, neither of us spoke. Wind moved through the field like a sigh.

He finally said, “After you left, everything fell apart. The studio collapsed. I tried drinking, working, nothing helped. I thought if I built something with my hands, maybe I could understand what I destroyed.”

“Destroyed?” I repeated. “You didn’t destroy something, Caleb. You destroyed someone.”

He flinched. “You think I don’t know that? Every day, I wake up and hear your voice. I walk through this field and remember how you used to beg me to stop working, to take a break, to just look at you. And I never did. I thought you’d always be there.”

I looked at him, rain stinging my eyes. “I was there, Caleb. You were the one who left.”

He swallowed hard. “I didn’t leave. I just… got lost.”

It started raining again, light but steady.
I remembered another rain — May 20th — the night he’d walked away holding my ruined roses.

I remembered the perfume on the tissues, the diamond necklace on Stella’s throat, the way he’d said, You’re making a big deal out of nothing.

I remembered crying in the car while he stood outside, dry, distant.

“Do you still talk to her?” I asked.

His jaw tightened. “No. She sold my company. Moved east. I haven’t seen her in years.”

“She said something to me once,” I murmured. “At the hospital.”

He looked away sharply. “I know.”

“She told me she got to you first. That you were ‘not bad.’”

He closed his eyes. “Ivy, please—”

“No,” I said, voice rising. “You don’t get to ask me for kindness. You cheated. You lied. You made me think I was crazy for wanting flowers. For wanting love.”

Rain soaked through my hair, down my cheeks, but I didn’t move.

He whispered, “I was scared.”

“Of what?”

“Of needing someone. Of being like my mother — depending on someone who could leave.”
“And in the end, you made me her,” I said. “You made me the one who begged.”He stepped closer, careful, as if afraid I’d vanish.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and it wasn’t the first time he’d said it. But it was the first time it sounded real. “I know I can’t change what I did. But I wanted to tell you before you start a new life that it wasn’t your fault. You gave me everything I couldn’t give myself.”

My throat tightened. “Why now?”

“Because you deserve peace,” he said. “And maybe if I said it out loud, I could forgive myself too.”

I looked at him for a long time — at the man who had once been my whole world, now just a ghost standing in a field of roses.

The rain had stopped. The air smelled of wet petals.

I finally said, “I forgave you a long time ago, Caleb. I just didn’t know it.”

He smiled faintly — the same crooked smile that had once undone me.
“So you’re really marrying him?”

“Yes.”

“Does he love you the way I didn’t?”

“He loves me in ways you never understood.”

He nodded slowly. “Then I’m glad.”

He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a single rose — pure white, no thorns.
“For you,” he said. “The last one I’ll ever give.”

I hesitated, then took it.
It was warm from his hand, the stem damp with rain.

“Goodbye, Caleb.”

He didn’t stop me when I walked away.

Behind me, I heard him whisper something that the wind carried off before I could catch it.

Two days later, I married Nathan under a sky so blue it looked painted.
The air was thick with the scent of lilies and rain-washed grass.

As I stood at the altar, I thought of all the versions of myself I had been — the fourteen-year-old girl handing a boy a beef pie, the college student chasing someone who never looked back, the woman learning how to stand still.

When Nathan said “I love you,” I said it back without hesitation.

After the ceremony, a white rose fell from my bouquet — the one Caleb had given me.
I let it go.

The wind caught it, carried it over the garden fence, and into the distance.

Months later, a postcard arrived with no name, no address, just a photo of a rose field under sunrise. On the back, a single line:

Thank you for teaching me what love was, even if I learned too late.

I tucked it in a drawer, between pages of an old photo album.

Sometimes, when the rain falls just right, I think of him — not with pain, not with longing, but with something softer.

Because some ghosts don’t haunt to hurt.
They just remind us we survived.

THE END