When I came home from a week-long work trip and found a hundred roses covering my front porch, I assumed someone was trying to steal my wife. Then I found the note that changed everything.
I knew something was wrong before I even turned off the engine.
For seven years, whenever I came home from a work trip, my wife, Jane, was always on the porch before I finished pulling into the driveway. Sometimes she waved with both hands like I had been gone for months instead of five days. Sometimes she stood there barefoot in one of my old sweaters, smiling as if the entire house had been waiting to breathe again.
“Jane?” I muttered, leaning forward over the steering wheel.
Then I saw the flowers.
At first, I thought there were maybe five or six bouquets scattered near the front door, which would have been strange enough. But as my car rolled closer, I realized the porch was covered in roses. Red ones, pink ones, yellow ones, white ones, all wrapped in paper, ribbon, and clear plastic that glistened in the afternoon sun.
There had to be at least a hundred.
I parked too sharply, grabbed my suitcase from the passenger seat, and stepped out slowly.
“What the hell?” I whispered.
The sweet smell hit me before I reached the steps, thick and overwhelming, the kind of fragrance that should have felt romantic but instead made my stomach tighten. Bouquets were stacked against the railing, lined near the welcome mat, and tucked along the porch swing where Jane usually sat with her coffee before school.
Jane appeared in the doorway wearing jeans, a faded cardigan, and the tired expression she had been carrying for months. The moment she saw me, her face brightened, but before she could step forward, her eyes dropped to the porch.
She froze.
“Mark,” she breathed. “What did you do?”
Her voice was half wonder, half confusion.
I stared at her. “What did I do?”
She took one careful step outside and looked around as if the flowers might somehow explain themselves.
“You didn’t send these?”
“No,” I said, sharper than I meant to. “I just got home.”
Jane blinked, then looked from me to the roses. “Then who sent them?”
I tried to laugh, but it came out thin. “I was hoping you could tell me.”
Her mouth opened, then closed. I watched her face closely, searching for something I did not want to find, but all I saw was shock turning slowly into panic.
What happened next changed everything… continues on the next page.
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