Sweet Romance11 min read
Grey Jacket, Movie Tickets, and a Second Chance
ButterPicks12 views
The sun had just split the sky into clean white when my brother, furious with drama and trying to be cooler than he was, did a flip at the school gate and twisted his ankle.
"He's fine, it's just a sprain," the doctor said, but Maddox was on a stretcher staring at me like I'd betrayed him.
I squeezed his hand. "Next life, no flips," I told him.
A man in a dark uniform moved between the cluster of reporters and the stretcher like a blade parting the air. He looked down at us and then at me. His voice was cold as snow on glass. "Next time, keep an eye on your boyfriend. Don't let him do dangerous things."
I blinked. "Okay," I said, small.
"Next time," he repeated, softer but still clipped.
The uniform fit him like a second skin, and his shoulders held a calm I couldn't touch. The journalists swarmed. A few girls in the crowd lit up when he appeared.
"Can I have your number?" one whispered like it was a secret ingredient.
I watched them go, feeling the old sting. Then I noticed the run—my stocking had a hole on my thigh, because of course it did. Someone slipped a jacket around my waist, shut over the rip.
Ellery's gaze flicked to the phone case hanging from my bag—our silly couple case from years ago, the one I had kept like a talisman. He smirked, just a breath. "Jaina," he said, with that cold, low tone he used to have. "Still trying to pick up high school boys?"
I opened my mouth and nothing good came out. "No," I lied.
"You're his girlfriend?" one of his colleagues asked, clapping Ellery on the shoulder.
Ellery looked at me, took a breath, and then released the phrase like he was tossing a paper boat into a river. "Ex—" He paused, then added, "—ex-classmate."
"Does that count?" he asked, eyes sharp as knives.
I looked at my shoes. "I guess."
He gave a small huff, barely audible, like someone hearing a bad joke. The girls swarmed him for his number. Everything was the same: him liked by everyone, and me—me stuck on the sidelines with a hung-over dignity.
The last time I had seen him properly was almost three years ago. We had been a reckless, stupid thing. I was loud, I was brave, and I thought I could own anyone's heart by grabbing it. He was a constant ice sculpture—sharp, distant, beautiful. I had cornered him in an alley once, teasing and threating, a cigarette hanging from my mouth like armor.
"I'll let you copy my exam if you kiss me," I said, half-laughing.
He'd raised an eyebrow and said, "Try me."
So I kissed him. I grabbed his wrist with a hair tie so he couldn't push me off. He went very still, eyes flicking in a way that told me he wasn't used to being grabbed. After that, he let me chase him. I let him have the high ground. For three months he was mine by a thread.
Then I told him I was "just playing." I told him to go away. It rained the night he walked into the rain like he'd swallowed an entire sky. He said, "If you don't want me, don't come back." He left, and I exchanged him for flings and bravado because that's what I did. I thought I could make someone jealous. I thought I could erase the feel of him. I was wrong.
"Do you want a ride?" Ellery asked me then, sudden and practical. "I live nearby."
I blinked. "You do?"
"Yes," he said. "It's on the way."
I said yes before I could count regrets. The car was cool inside, his jaw set in that predictable way. He barely spoke. I babbled because it was safer than the silence.
"You haven't changed," he finally said, flat. "Still loud. Still touchy."
"At least my touch is thorough." I laughed, and that made him look at me for a fraction longer.
The car jolted over a speed bump and I fell into him. For a second the world narrowed to his face and my ridiculous heartbeat. "Are you trying to fall in my arms on purpose?" he asked.
"Maybe," I said.
He looked at me, then away. "Are you trying to make me jealous? Again?"
I put my hand to my mouth. "Maybe."
"Don't make me the joke," he said.
I wanted to say, "I never stopped thinking about you." I wanted to say so many things that would have ruined the moment, so I kept them in.
At his door, my brother bounded forward like a hero. "Who are you? Stay away from her!"
Ellery stiffened, and something like a flicker crossed his face—annoyance, then something else, an odd, hot color under his collar. "You have pretty bad taste," he said to Maddox, quiet, almost amused.
Maddox bristled. "You said what?"
I squeezed them both into a thin smile. I wanted to say everything was fine; it wasn't. Ellery left, giving me a look that said, in the most efficient way possible, that I had a nerve.
That night I drank too much at a coworker dinner to forget how stupid the day had been. I texted numbers and made weak jokes and then someone took a picture of me and posted it in a group chat. I tried to stand steady and failed twice by colliding with a door.
I woke up somewhere else—Ellery's apartment. There was a glass at my mouth. He fed me bitter tea with a spoon like he was used to taking care of dumb animals. His sleeve brushed my jaw and I inhaled the cheap soap on his skin and the scent of him.
"Your boyfriend should know where you are at night," he said finally, voice dry. "He shouldn't find you in other men's arms."
It was scolding, and it hurt more than it should.
I reached for him like an addict reaching for a dose. My fingers found the plane of his stomach and remembered exactly what I had off-limits for months. He didn't slap my hand away, but he didn't welcome it either. He only said, "You're the same," and then: "Don't call me."
I left his place with a red mark on my wrist and the small armor of his jacket over my shoulders. That jacket had once been mine—left behind when I had run hot and cold like a storm. I took it anyway, the way you take small things from someone you still love.
We tried, over the next days, to return to something. I texted, "Do we have a chance?" He replied with cold efficiency: "Mutual delete."
"You're impossible." I tried to lighten it, sent a stupid line: "Touch of my fingers on your abs—possible?"
He sent back, "Delete each other." Then he added, "I'm busy this weekend." But I had already bought two movie tickets. I knew him well enough to expect a no, and hoped anyway.
On the night I waited at the cinema, gripping a tub of popcorn like a talisman, I watched him across the street with another girl—the exact sort of white dress, bright laugh, and ribbon that ate the light. Delphine Harrison. She looked pure like a poster, and Ellery looked like someone who belonged to the weather.
I threw popcorn on the ground. She didn't notice. He didn't look guilty.
That night the world shrank, but not from jealousy alone. I had been reckless, proud. I had also been cruel. I had pushed him away. I had let someone else take the small places he had been allowed to live in. Seeing them together was a kind of small recalibration: this pain fit.
I made a plan. Not a mean plan, not a legalized one—just a plan to show people who Delphine really was.
Delphine's smile had always rested like a plaster—perfectly placed. But small cracks show if you look long enough. I had heard whispers: she had texted him when we were dating, she had tried to get him away by tattling, by plain social maneuvering. She'd played the sweet girl so people would believe her. I had been blind then, because I wanted to be the one who lost something and made it someone else's fault.
I collected things. A screenshot here, a copy of a message there. A friend supplied a recording of Delphine arranging to make me look bad—a plan to be conveniently present at the right moments, to feign hurt, to take pictures that never showed the whole scene. Celeste helped. "If he's going to be cold, at least show him the reason," she said.
We didn't ambush her. We arranged a town music night—a charity event for youth safety, full of neighbors, reporters, and a line of people who liked to gossip. Ellery was on the program to speak about safety; Delphine was the smiling volunteer usher. There would be enough people to make an exposure public.
I stood in the back theater scratching at my palm until my fingers hurt. The lights dimmed. Ellery walked onstage with the same squared shoulders he had when he had scolded me at the gate. He gave a short speech about responsibility. He looked like he belonged to service and duty and quiet things. I watched the audience watch him. Then I stood up.
"Excuse me," I called, voice thin but steady. Heads turned. Cameras shifted. Delphine's smile tightened.
"What are you doing?" Celeste hissed at me.
"Just watch," I whispered.
I walked to the front, and the room buzzed with the little currents of curiosity. I took the microphone Ellery had used and I didn't even bother to ask. "I want to tell the truth," I said. "About how some people pretend to be saints while pushing others into messes."
Delphine stood up with the practiced poise of someone who'd done this before. "Is this a joke?" she said, voice sweet as frosting. "We came tonight to help."
"You came to help your image," I said. "I've got messages. Screenshots. People who heard your plan to make me look like the terrible one so you'd be the one to step in and look good."
She blinked, perfect and pale. "You're lying," she said. "I would never."
I held up my phone. "Here." I showed the messages where Delphine arranged with a mutual friend to stage moments, to be conveniently upset. I played the recording where she said, "Make sure she's seen being reckless. He can't help but protect her then he looks cozy with me." There was a smear of silence so thick you could feel it.
Delphine's face changed. At first she was composed—the queen of pale smiles. Then there was a fraction, a beat where her lips pressed like she tasted metal. She tried denial. "That's doctored," she hissed, voice lowering. "You're—"
"Look at the timestamps," I said. "Look at the people who were cc'd." I stepped closer until I could see the sweat at the edge of her brow. "You told my friend to send a picture to Ellery that made me look bad. You wanted him to come help. You wanted him to be yours."
"You're insane." Her voice rose. "You made this up to ruin me!"
The crowd shifted. The murmurs started—at first polite confusion, then a rising heat of anger. "Is this true?" someone called from the back.
"She sent that text just last week," Celeste said, voice loud and clear. "I heard her on the phone."
"Why would she do that?" another spectator asked. "Why make that girl look bad?"
Delphine's eyes darted. Denial slid into irritation, and then into a clawing fear. "You can't prove it," she snapped. "You're a liar. I'm the volunteer lead here. Ask Ellery. Ask him who he trusts."
Ellery had gone very still. He looked at the woman whose name had been on my mind for months. It took him a moment, because he is always slow to anger, and then he turned, looking at the people I had shown, at the screen. His jaw clenched.
"Delphine," he said finally, "is this true?"
Delphine's face was a page that had been ruined by rain. "No," she said, then louder, "No, he's making a scene. She must be jealous."
"No," an older woman in the crowd said, suddenly. "My niece told me last week Delphine tried to get her to take photos."
Hands lifted phones. A reporter pushed forward and started recording, and the small ripples turned into a flood. "You set her up," a teacher said, from the second row. "You told her to fall apart in front of Ellery. You thought you'd be the one to fix it."
Delphine's composure cracked. First her smile faltered. Then she flushed, cold sweat dotting her forehead. "I didn't—" she began. Her voice lost its flicker of sweetness and gained a new sound: panic.
"You wanted to ruin someone else's reputation to look pure," I said. "You wanted the hero to fall into your lap."
She took a step back. Someone in the audience started to clap slowly, as if the clap would break glass. People whispered. "How could she?" "She looked so kind." "I didn't know."
Delphine's face warped through stages. At first, practiced condescension: "You can't prove—" Then stunned, as if the floor under her had collapsed: "No." Then she tried pleading denial: "Please, please, I'm telling you—" Then anger flared: "You have no right to do this to me!" Finally, the last stage: she crumpled. Her shoulders dropped; the perfect posture abandoned ship. She began to sob in front of a roomful of people.
"Don't cry," someone hissed. "You made this bed."
She shrank under the weight of the crowd's attention. Phones were held high. A chorus of voices filled the hall—accusations, disbelief, pity for the girl who had just been caught like a thief in daylight. People leaned in close to Ellery, as if he might throw a rope. He looked at me briefly, and there was something that might have been a question in his eyes. I gave him a small, private nod.
Delphine's pleas slid off the room like water off oil. "Please, I'll explain—" she choked. "I never meant—"
"You meant for me to look guilty," I told her, cold now. "You meant for him to be the hero."
The crowd's reaction was layered. Some people muttered that Delphine had to be removed from volunteering. Others recorded the scene with hungry interest. A few, especially the older ones who had seen schemers before, simply shook their heads. Someone knocked over a program stand by accident and people stamped impatiently. A young woman in the front shouted, "You used the safety charity to stage a story! You should be reported!"
"She should be fired from volunteers," a teacher said.
Delphine's face moved from red to white. She started the kind of begging that isn't really for a favor, but for survival. "I'll apologize," she said. "I'll do anything. Please don't—"
People murmured. A mother near the aisle spat, "So convenient to cry when you're exposed."
Delphine's mask had been perfect on Instagram. The room watched the mask break in slow motion. Her emotional arc became obvious: arrogance, irritation, desperation, collapse. The evidence kept showing.
Ellery, who rarely raised his voice, said, "We'll handle it officially. Right now, please step down from volunteering pending investigation."
She crumpled further. "You're—" she started, but the crowd's noise blocked what she meant.
Around us, my cheeks burned with a shame I didn't want to own. Seeing someone fall in public is harsh. But the lies had been loud for months. Watching Delphine crumble was messy and human and public, and it felt necessary.
Later, the news spread. The volunteer coordinator posted a terse note: Delphine's role suspended pending inquiry. Parents whispered in corridors. Delphine was photographed leaving under a cloak of shame; someone caught her sobbing into her hands. She had lost the trust she had cultivated with smiles and curated pictures. Her friends had fewer places to stand.
Delphine's life didn't implode like a theatrical collapse; it unravelled. Invitations stopped. People avoided her on the sidewalk. A few classmates whispered and pointed. She tried calling a mutual friend, voice small, begging forgiveness. Some forgave her in private. Most pretended not to hear.
When it all settled, there was a hollow left like the empty footprint of a shoe. Delphine had been the kind of antagonist that prefers a slow, precise plan. Her punishment was the public loss of reputation and that small, mortifying exposure. She had gone from the girl everyone smiled with at events to the girl people crossed the street to avoid.
After the event, Ellery stepped out into the cool air. He didn't look triumphant. He looked tired—like someone who had pulled a splinter from his own hand. He handed a gray jacket to me, the very one I'd woken up under. "Keep it," he said. "It's yours."
"Why?" I asked.
He shrugged. "Because you laughed at me once and then kissed me in an alley. Because you can be impossible. Because you left your phone case on my couch."
I smiled, and my chest felt small and full.
We tried again, clumsy and patient. I learned what hid in his quiet: a care that wasn't flashy, but real. He remembered I liked warm milk when I had a stomachache. He set limits because he wanted me safe. He corrected me because he loved me in small, utilitarian ways. I learned to value those things—the texts, the small rituals—over the grand gestures I had once craved.
"You remember everything," I teased once, touching his forearm.
"I remember the important things," he said.
We went on a trip and he made me wait outside while he took a shower. He came back and held out a towel like a gentleman and a partner and an ex-soldier. I caught myself watching the curve of his neck and thinking that the man who had once let me run like a comet was now the ground under my feet.
We kept the grey jacket on my sofa, and my couple phone case slowly lost its mythic power and became a quiet joke between us. When we argued, he said, "We won't delete each other this time."
And when he asked, "Do we have a chance?" I looked at the gray jacket, the movie ticket stub that I had taped into my journal, and the way his eyes softened when I cry-laughed at something stupid. I said, "This is our chance," and I kept the jacket folded on my back of a chair so I could smell him when I missed him.
The End
— Thank you for reading —