Sweet Romance12 min read
My Ex the Dentist, My Roommate, and a Bowl of Midnight Noodles
ButterPicks14 views
I had no plan to meet Sullivan Arnold again that afternoon.
"He's my cousin's dentist," Cash Bradley said as he bounced on his heels in the clinic waiting room.
"You asked me to come," I told him, tugging on his sleeve. "You didn't have to make it dramatic."
He grinned. "But you came. You're my hero."
The reception clock clicked. The nurse called a name and the door opened. A man in a white coat stepped out.
"Sullivan?" I heard his voice before I saw his face.
My heart did a small, traitorous flip. It had been years since we split in college, but his voice was the same. He had the same easy way of looking at a room and making everything seem smaller, simpler.
He saw me and his eyes narrowed, then softened into something like amusement. "Diana, your taste has always been... unconventional."
I wrapped my arm around Cash without thinking. "Better than being a lonely bachelor, right?"
He blinked at me with that protectiveness that had always annoyed me and said, "Cash seems to need the dentist more than I need sarcasm, Diana."
"Get the paperwork sorted," he murmured to a nurse, then glanced at me again. "Pay at the front, Ms. Carr."
"Pay?" I repeated. "I'm here for moral support."
He didn't laugh. He didn't smile. He just put a paper in my hand with a clinical little flourish. "Go pay."
I left the room with my cheeks burning.
Outside the operating door Cash grabbed my hand like a child grabbing a lifeline. "Aunt said I had to see a dentist. You coming saved me."
"You owe me five thousand now," I said, remembering the message of money that had hit my bank.
"Five thousand for a toothbrush?" he scoffed, trying to be brave.
"Don't make faces," I warned, and followed him into the clinic chair room.
When the nurse handed Cash the sedation mask he hugged my hand and whispered, "Don't let him steal you again."
I caught Sullivan's gaze across the room. He didn't smile. He didn't soften. He lifted a brow like he had a taste for small cruelties.
"Your type hasn't improved," he said, perfectly loud enough.
"At least my type shows up," I shot back.
The nurse shooed me to the cashier. I sat in the hall, replaying those four years in a montage of dinners, fights, a stolen scarf, college afternoons of painting while he studied anatomy. The years we spent together had been messy and all, but somehow certain. Then one day I had broken things off. He had never forgiven me.
"Here to pick up Cash?" he asked when he followed me out after a while, white coat trailing.
He pressed the payment paper into my hand with his pen. For a strange second I wasn't sure which of us had to be more brave.
"He's fine," I said, forcing lightness.
"Good," Sullivan said, and walked away.
I didn't notice him when he led a patient out. I only noticed when he opened the apartment door.
"Why are you here?" I asked a second later, breathless.
He looked at the living room, at the boxes, at my awkward smile. "This is my place," he said.
I dropped the grocery bag.
"You what?"
"My aunt's son is actually my landlord's nephew," he said like it explained everything. "I didn't know you'd signed up for a roommate either."
"Roommate?" I echoed.
"Sign the rules," he said, producing a neat paper. "Weeknights be home by ten except me. No heavy smells. No bringing strangers. Sign."
"You can't—"
"Sign," he said, more softly. "And don't be dramatic about it."
I signed because sometimes the fight isn't worth it. And because his fingers brushed mine when he handed me the pen, and because I still remembered the way he would make soup when I imagined being sick.
That night we didn't sleep.
"Do you remember the snake plant you killed?" he asked from the couch.
"I killed it because of you," I said. "You gave me a pet and told me to water it at weird hours."
He laughed. "You are impossible."
Later, at one in the morning, there was thunder. He wrapped an arm around me and whispered, "Can I stay?"
I didn't know then he was sober. I thought he was drunk. But his voice was steady, and warmth moved through my ribs like a small tide.
"I don't want to go back to how it was," I said.
"Neither do I," Sullivan said. "But you can't just leave me without a warning, Diana."
So we took it slow. He cooked. I painted. Cash crashed into the apartment more than was polite and pretended discomfort when a nurse from his floor waved at him.
That didn't stop Sullivan from being Sullivan. He had rules. He had kitchen logic. He had a mother who lived like a shadow behind all his decisions.
One night, when a woman came over and lingered a little too long on Sullivan's smiles, I made him stew in silence as punishment. Later, we laughed over a bowl of snail noodles I cooked badly to be spiteful.
"You cook this to scare someone away," he said, looking surprised.
"Maybe I'm practicing my taste-avenger skills," I said.
He watched me, then said the thing I had feared both my whole life and embraced for just as long. "What if we tried again? Properly."
I didn't answer him then. I wanted promises tied to words, but I wanted better things than soft vows. So I looked at him and said, "Make me believe it."
We tried. He came to family dinners with me. He fielded my father's questions about jobs. He came with a bouquet of hand-made dumplings once and my mother declared him charming. His hands smelled like flour and hospital antiseptic.
"And your mother?" I asked once, searching Sullivan's face.
He shuttered. "She is... complicated."
He told me when a thunderstorm came rolling through our kitchen and the light caught his face. He told me about the visit when his mother cornered me in a restaurant during finals, about the cut on my hand that had never been a small thing to me. He had not witnessed it then, but she had carved words into my skin with a knife and laughed because she thought she had proof.
"Why didn't you tell anyone?" he asked.
"I didn't want to make your life harder," I said.
He put his forehead to mine and promised the world I wanted. "I'll fix it," he said.
We fixed a lot. Then life pulled at us — a misread letter, a family storm, threats whispered in his ear by people who meant to get their way. He didn't defend me hard enough when it counted, and I left.
Now we were mouths apart again and trying to breathe.
Months later, he asked me to marry him in a clumsy way that made my knees weak.
"Will you?" he said, offering a ring. He fumbled and it looked like someone else's dream but also mine.
I said yes because someone had to be brave.
The wedding was small. Grayson Pedersen, a soft-spoken colleague of Sullivan, handed me a flash drive in a napkin while we were switching rooms. "Check this when you can," he whispered.
Back in the changing room, my fingers trembled as I slid the drive into a laptop. The video was of Sullivan, drunk and laughing, playing at being silly. He rolled on the floor. He kissed me with the clumsy devotion I had missed. My face flushed. I felt foolishly delighted.
Then my past came wearing a coat and loud shoes.
Magdalena Guerrero walked into the hall like a storm. She wasn't on the guest list but she had been an uninvited, fossilized judge for a long time.
"Look who still clings to us," she said, leaning heavily on a cane more for show than support.
She sniffed at my dress and the room stilled. Faces that had been bright with toasts dimmed. The woman who had once sliced my hand open with a knife turned her head to the assembled crowd and said, loud and cruel, "You always thought him yours, didn't you? Pathetic."
I felt heat rise, but it wasn't just anger. It was cold and calculating. People were already looking to Sullivan, eyes asking what he'd failed to control.
He kept staring straight ahead. His jaw locked. Magdalena laughed like she owned the room. "You ruined a boy for me. I will not stand it."
I remembered the old restaurant, the knife, the shame. I remembered waking to blood on my palm and the old question: "Is it better to let people know, or to survive quietly?"
That night I chose to not be quiet anymore.
"Enough," I said.
Everyone heard me, because I had a microphone and because Sullivan had been handed another toast and because a small crowd had gathered. I walked to the center of the room and plugged Grayson's drive into the event projector. Faces shifted from curiosity to recognition.
"You're not the only one with stories," I said. "And I think it's time someone remembered how we looked at what you did."
The video I played was not the one Grayson had given me. Grayson had given me trust; I had used it to put together a package of things: old photos, the scarred kitchen table, a hospital record, and a clip from a local news report from years back — the one that had recorded a scene and included witnesses. I had also recorded a short live testimony from the chef at that restaurant who had seen Magdalena grab me.
On the screen, the old restaurant noise washed over us like a film. The chef's voice, steady and angry, said, "She cut her hand and laughed; she called the girl a liar. I told them to stop."
Magdalena's face paled. She tried to clap, to scoff. "I never—" she said, then stopped because the room had shifted.
"Tell them what you told my parents," I said. "Tell them you said I was a slut in the street with a megaphone. Tell them the words you used."
She shook her head, denial sprinting into sight. "I did not—"
Sullivan finally stepped forward. "Mother," he said. "Stop."
She looked at him with the ancient coin of contempt she had used all his life. "You always took things from me," she spat. "Even this."
The crowd began to hum with the sound of judgment.
"You told them I was immoral," I said, voice steady. "You cut me to scare me. You humiliated my family. You drove my parents from our home. You used a knife and a rumor."
A young nurse near the stage stepped forward. "You threatened my sister when she told us the truth," she said.
Another face, the once-protective colleague, nodded. "I remember that day."
Sullivan's mother, who had been smiling, began to twitch. Her charm was flaking in public.
"Stop this," she tried to say. "You have no proof."
I had proof pinned like a bouquet on the projector. Photos of that night. Messages from people who had comforted me. The chef's recorded words. A copy of a letter she had penned denied but which bore her shaky handwriting.
"You will pay for what you did," she cried, and tried to storm the stage.
A crowd of guests rose at once. Phones lifted; some flashed. "Magdalena," someone hissed. "Sit down."
She tried to twist the blame. "She seduced my son!" she cried. "She left him! She ruined our family!"
That was the sound before the fall. She had spent years telling the story to anyone who would listen, and now her narrative met new flooring: witnesses, evidence, faces she could no longer charm.
Her tone cracked. "I—" she began, then faltered.
"Would you like to explain why you screamed about a knife in the middle of a public restaurant?" I asked.
There was a long silence. Her face contorted — the fierce mask sliding to reveal panic. For a second she looked like the old woman who had been left on trains and told to forget. "You don't understand," she murmured. "I did it because—"
"Because you needed to control my life with terror," I finished for her. "You almost destroyed my parent's life. My father sold what he had and left. My mother suffered the shame you planted."
People murmured. A few guests stepped closer to Sullivan and me.
"You wanted to own him," said a nurse in a tight voice. "You wanted us to believe it was his fault. We believed you, and you used that believability like a weapon."
Magdalena's mouth opened and closed. Her eyes darted; she realized the room had turned into a court of common people, carrying the verdict within them.
"It wasn't like that," she hissed. "He was my son."
"And he is my husband now," Sullivan said quietly. "You don't get to hurt people and expect silence."
She went through stages right there: smugness, when she thought she could maneuver the gossipers; surprise when the video played and people glanced at one another; denial when she tried to rewrite the night; and then cracking.
"No one told me," she whispered. "They lied. They lied and I—"
Sullivan's face had a hardness I'd never seen. "You do not get to put knives into other people's lives," he said. "You do not get to decide whose life is ruined."
Her hands started to shake. She looked around the room for a rescue. None came. Her old friends who had smiled at her before found reasons to look away. The hospital administrators who had treated her as a golden client shifted in their seats.
A woman near the table stood up. "She pinned me at my job," she said. "I was ashamed until now."
Sullivan's sister-in-law — a cousin I barely knew — said, "You made me fear for my sons."
Someone in the back filmed the entire exchange as it moved from confession to collapse. Phones clicked. A few people clapped sharply, not in mockery but in fierce approval of truth being told.
Magdalena dropped into a chair as if a wind had carried the floor from under her. Her mouth worked. "Please—" she began, then sobbed.
She had been taken from teeth-gritting arrogance to naked pleading in under five minutes. Her voice went from commanding to small. "I didn't mean—"
People leaned in. Some hissed. A few shook their heads. "We saw," the chef said. "We saw what you did. We saw the girl running with her hand gone red."
Magdalena's shoulders quivered. "I wanted him to be mine," she said in a broken whisper. "I didn't want to lose him."
Sullivan shook his head. "You lost him the day you chose fear over kindness," he said. "And you lose respect now as everyone sees."
At that, a woman at the front table spoke up loudly. "If you harmed someone, you must answer. We will not let you use our silence."
An assistant hospital director stepped forward and said, "We have received complaints about your behavior. We will be investigating. Please come with me."
She tried to stand, to plead, to reclaim her throne. Her face crumpled. A few guests stood to leave; others took photos. Magdalena looked at Sullivan with a pleading he did not return. Her eyes moved to me and fell like lead.
Her last reaction — the one that made my stomach hollow — was a quiet, animal sobbing sound. She clutched at a napkin like a talisman and begged, "Please, Sullivan."
People gathered around like a tide. Some threw words. "Shame." "How could you?" "You were cruel."
A group of nurses I had befriended in the hospital surrounded her physically, as if she might bolt. Others turned their backs. "Do not come near us," one nurse said, shaking her head.
The assistant director gently guided her toward an exit, and she looked like a small person being escorted out of a life that had been all posture and command.
She left with less than she had owned in reputation. Her name would be a story now — a cautionary tale tossed between friends' mouths. The woman who had once crushed me with a knife and rumors left the scene diminished in a way that felt like a kind of justice.
When the door clicked shut behind her, people exhaled like a chorus.
Sullivan sank into his chair and put his head in his hands. I crouched beside him and touched his arm.
"You did that for me," he said, voice raw.
"I did it for all the women who couldn't," I said.
We didn't celebrate in champagne. We went to the quiet restaurant near the clinic and shared a bowl of badly made snail noodles that somehow tasted of victory.
Weeks later, paper trails followed. Magdalena found herself called in by people who had once thought she had a pulse for power. A hospital board asked questions. Her social circle shrank. The local paper printed a short story about the evening with quotes—some kind, some condemning. She tried to phone my parents; they hung up before she could finish.
She came to our apartment once more, pleading at the door like a beggar.
"Please, Diana," she said. "Forgive me."
Sullivan opened the door and said, "Mom, you have to leave now."
She sank to the floor. "I am sorry," she croaked. "I did it out of fear."
"You did it to hurt me," I said. "You destroyed my family's life. There is no clean way back."
Her face crumpled and she started to weep in a way that bought nothing.
The punishment was not a legal sentence. It was a social unmasking. People turned away. Her old friends declined visits. Her threats lost bite. She found herself small in rooms where she used to be large. That, for me, was the justice of the public moment: the truth had weight.
After that, things changed. Sullivan's parents called less often. Not because they were angry at him, but because the world had learned a story about him that required a reshaping.
Cash continued to be his charming scatterbrain self. He invited a nurse, Jazlynn Clement, over who had actually been kind to him in the clinic. They held hands at my kitchen table like it was a new, small miracle.
Sullivan and I built a life that was quieter and slower than my painting dreams had once pictured. He found small ways to show he cared: a thermos of soup when I worked late, a hand to hold when my chest tightened.
Three heart-stopping moments found their way into our ordinary days.
"Why did you make me soup that day when you knew I hated spinach?" I teased.
He smiled. "Because you mentioned being cold two weeks ago," he said. "You couldn't wrap your scarf right."
Once, he noticed I hadn't eaten and peeled an orange like a child.
"You're honey," he said, putting half on my palm. "Eat."
Another night he surprised me in an exam room when I joked that my wisdom tooth had come in. He examined me with such careful hands and said, "You're stubborn, you know that? Stubborn like a colt."
"Are you finally admitting your feelings?" I asked.
"Only that you're persistent," he said, and kissed my forehead like a secret.
Months slowly knitted into a life. We had arguments, petty and real. He left the toilet seat up, and I left paint on the bathroom floor. We compromised on music and night lamps. We learned to write notes and leave them inside pots.
Then, on an ordinary morning, he asked me at breakfast, "Will you marry me again? This time, properly — with both of us sober and no mothers crashing in."
I laughed until my teacup rattled. "Yes. But you must promise me: no knives in restaurants and no rumors to bring down families."
He laughed, then solemnly made the promise.
"Thank you," I said, feeling the rhythm of his breath like a compass.
Our life never became flawless. Magdalena tried to call my father once, and he simply said, "We have moved on." That sentence felt like a seal.
We had our ups and downs, but I knew which hands had helped me up. Sullivan's hands steadied me. Cash's jokes kept us from taking ourselves too seriously. Grayson checked our teeth when needed and smiled like a conspirator.
Our final test came when a reporter dug into Magdalena's history and wrote a story that tried to paint her as a misunderstood mother. People messaged me to ask if I had forgiven her.
"Have you?" Sullivan asked that night, holding my paint-stained fingers.
I looked at his tired, honest face. "Forgiveness isn't about forgetting," I said. "It's about whether I let it define my days. I won't let her knife define me."
He nodded. "Good. Then let me make dinner."
We ate badly, perfectly, and then went to bed. At midnight he woke me.
"Are you afraid of thunder?" I asked.
"No," he said. "I was afraid of being left."
I blinked. "Then don't leave."
"I won't," he said. "Not again."
The clock chimed from the kitchen where his old stethoscope hung like a medal. We listened to it together and that small tick felt like a new world to keep time in.
The End
— Thank you for reading —