The roses arrived on a Wednesday afternoon, twelve red blooms wrapped in crinkling paper, tied with a satin bow. The delivery man smiled as he handed them over, and I smiled back, my heart fluttering. My husband, Mark, hadn’t sent me flowers in years. I carried them to the kitchen, inhaling their sweet perfume, and only then did I notice the card tucked inside. My smile faded as I slid it out. It didn’t say my name. It said hers.
“To Emily. Always thinking of you. —M.”
My hands shook so hard the card almost slipped to the floor. I stared at it, willing the letters to rearrange themselves, to turn into my name instead of hers. But no. It was clear, deliberate, undeniable. He had sent roses to another woman. And somehow, by mistake, they’d ended up in my hands.
When Mark came home that evening, I was waiting in the kitchen. The flowers sat in a vase between us, their beauty mocking me. I held up the card. “Who’s Emily?”
He froze, his briefcase still dangling from his hand. “Where did you get that?”
“From your flowers,” I snapped. “Delivered here. With this card inside.”
He swallowed, his face pale. “It’s not what you think.”
“Then tell me exactly what it is,” I demanded, my voice rising.
He dropped the briefcase, running a hand through his hair. “She’s… she’s someone I work with. It was supposed to be harmless. A thank you.”
“Harmless?” I held up the roses. “Twelve long-stemmed roses with always thinking of you? That’s harmless?”
His silence was worse than any answer.
I slammed the vase down, petals trembling loose. “You sent these to her first, didn’t you? You didn’t mean for me to see them.”
His jaw tightened. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
The truth spilled out in fragments. The late nights, the “meetings” that ran too long, the excuses that never quite added up. Emily wasn’t just a colleague. She was the woman he had been slipping away to see. And the roses, meant to be their secret, had landed on my doorstep like a cruel gift.
For weeks, I couldn’t look at flowers without feeling sick. Friends asked about the roses, admiring how beautiful they were, and I forced a smile, choking on the lie. Every time I passed the kitchen, I saw them wilting in the vase, their petals curling like whispers of betrayal.
When I finally threw them away, I did it with shaking hands, each thud in the trash like a burial for the marriage I thought I had.
Final Thought
Roses are supposed to mean love, devotion, passion. But for me, they became proof of a lie wrapped in red petals. I learned that betrayal rarely arrives with a warning—it comes with a smile from a delivery man, a ribbon tied too perfectly, a card with someone else’s name. And once you’ve read it, once you’ve held it in your hands, you can never unsee the truth.
