Sweet Romance10 min read
Nose Swabs, Pink Bottles, and a Proposal Nobody Expected
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I was in line for the swab test when I realized the tester in full PPE was Kenneth Mendez—my ex.
"Open," he said, voice muffled behind his mask.
"Do it gently," I warned. "Please—I'm not a fan of being stabbed."
"You mean like that?" Kenneth smiled through his eyes and shoved the swab in deeper. The stick bent and snapped as he pushed it into the vial.
"Too deep!" I gasped.
He didn't look apologetic. He glanced back at the man behind me—my brother—and smirked. "Picking a new boyfriend? He looks young."
My breath froze. I yanked up my mask and fled. Ramon howled behind me, the sound raw and childish. He came out hoarse and complaining: "That doctor is brutal. My throat's ruined."
"Shh," I hissed. "Or he'll start poking our other holes next."
"Other holes?" Ramon shrieked in genuine horror.
Around us several elderly men straightened and pretended not to have heard. I grabbed Ramon and literally dragged him away while he tried to decide whether we were being threatened with nasal drills or something worse.
At home I cooked two bowls of stewed pork and presented them to him like a peace offering. "If you eat more greens, your complaints will be fewer," I said.
"Greens?" Ramon wrinkled his nose. "Sister, you're always weird. But okay, give me celery."
"I'll get the celery I planted." I smiled, but my stomach was a mess; five days without fresh vegetables had left me living off frozen meat and the last two bottles of yogurt drink. My insides rebelled. My body, in short, was miserable—and stubborn.
Later that afternoon someone knocked on our door with a salvation-sized bag of produce. I practically reverenced the figure at the threshold: Kenneth, arms full of bags like a saint.
"You're volunteering?" I said, cheeks heating.
He set the bags down, watching my shoes at the door. "You two living together now?" His tone made the shoes a target.
"Not exactly," I said and pounced for the bags. He held them over his head like a child teasing. I reached, missed, and pouted.
Ramon came out of the bathroom in a towel, hair dripping. He bellowed, brandishing a chair like a hero. "Who the hell are you? Don't think because you're taller that I'll be scared."
Kenneth didn't take him seriously. He stepped in, quiet and firm: "Move."
Ramon froze. "He's my ex," I blurted.
"Ex what?" Ramon blinked, embarrassed.
Kenneth said, flat, "Leave."
Ramon flailed. I grabbed his robe, embarrassed and giddy. Kenneth said, with a faint smile that didn't reach his eyes, "Don't come to the house every day."
I remembered the first time I fell for Kenneth—he was called a "glacier prince" back in college: handsome, taciturn, rough around the edges with those long white doctor hands. At graduation he said something jaw-dropping: "Clara, you should run marathons with that persistence." I had teased, "Can I run in your heart instead?" He'd laughed and said, "Don't even think about it."
But I didn't stop. I like what I like. So yes, I was a drama queen chasing a silent doctor.
At his birthday I tried to be romantic—too romantic. I'd rented a cheesy video of people in tropical attire holding up his photo and shouting "Happy birthday" in awkward Mandarin. He'd smiled like a man trapped in a snow globe and told me to stop. After that, we drifted. Later I learned he worked in a big city hospital's psychiatry wing.
One evening, while playing with a knife and trying to sculpt carrots into the character of his surname—silly, artistic nonsense—I sliced my finger badly and bled in front of Ramon. He came in a panic, wrapped my hand in a dish towel and dragged me outside like I was playing a tragic scene. I pretended to faint so Kenneth would notice. He did—like a moth to a light.
"Who taught you to bandage like this?" Kenneth's voice was close, exasperated and tender at once. He unwrapped the towel gently. "You're a medical graduate. You know better."
"Sorry," I muttered. "I was thinking about you."
He looked at me longer than he used to, then steadied his voice and offered, "If you need anything, call me."
"I deleted your number," I said, ashamed.
He moved away, face shut like a cliff. "Then don't let it be for long."
The next days were a mess of neighborhood life: grocery lines, bad jokes, and odd deliveries. Gavan Sokolov—our neighbor and a chic photographer with red hair—kept showing up with infuriating presents. Once he brought a huge box of those embarrassing pink bottles people whispered about. Kenneth's brow tightened when he saw them.
"Are those—" Kenneth held one up like it might explode.
"It's a mistake," I insisted. "Gavan and I ordered probiotics. Wrong package." I sniffed, mortified.
Kenneth set the bottle down with a gravity that made my stomach flip. "Clara, we broke up because you said you were bored of me. Why should I trust you didn't go looking for attention?"
"Because I was," I admitted. "I wanted to make you jealous. I was childish."
He laughed then, without joy. "You always were."
There were many small humiliations. Once at a testing line, some girls tried to hand Kenneth a love note; I grabbed the loudspeaker from Ramon and announced that anyone who left a note for him should come to suite 303 for candy when we were back. It was half a joke, half a dare—my pride versus everything. People jeered, someone called me mad, and the crowd closed in like a net. Kenneth told people—quietly and directly—that the lines had to be ordered and the loudspeaker was ridiculous. His restraint stung.
Then the past reappeared in the form of Veronique Guerrero.
I had once found Veronique leaning at Kenneth's desk, feeding the little fish in the glass bowl—the exact bowl I'd given him. "This is my hospital," she said, cool as ice. "I come and go as I please. Kenneth doesn't mind."
"You're taking his seat," I snapped. "I gave that bowl to him."
Veronique leaned in and smiled with all the cruelty of someone used to getting what she wanted. "You and I both went after him. I just don't fall apart when he chooses differently."
"I'm not a habit," I said, but my voice cracked.
"We all have ways of getting what we want," she said. "He said my body was better."
My blood ran cold. Kenneth's silence told me everything. I left, smashed the fishbowl into the trash, and called the relationship over. He didn't beg.
A day later the nursing station called: Veronique had tried to hurt herself and was in the ICU. The hospital search engine of gossip blew up. People whispered that she had some disorder. It was messy and painful—not because she had problems, but because those problems reduced the complexity of our messy human choices to a headline. Kenneth was not the villain; maybe Veronique had traits I couldn't begin to shoulder.
Months later, the city organized a small neighborhood meeting at the community gym—an online feed for our block while supplies were distributed. Veronique appeared there too, looking immaculate and perfectly composed. She used this platform to smear me. That is where she became the "bad person" who had to be confronted publicly—and confronted she would be.
"Clara," she said into the camera, voice sweet as poison, "you see, people like me and you—we do things to get attention. I was just being friendly with Kenneth. But Clara—she sabotaged things, hoarded goods, and—worse—encouraged dangerous behavior."
She finished with a faint laugh. People in the chat demanded proof. I felt the room tilt.
"You're lying," I said aloud, not expecting anyone to hear. My voice trembled. Ramon sat beside me, squeezing my hand.
Veronique smirked at the camera. "They think I'm damaged because I sought help. That's pathetic. Who in their right mind believes that woman?"
The chat filled with gloating emojis. Kenneth watched her, stiller than granite. Then he stood.
"Stop." His voice cut through the noise like a scalpel. "You will not use that platform to lie."
"Kenneth, don't—" Veronique tried to laugh it away, but he walked up to the microphone.
"I have messages," he said, calm and cold. "Recorded voice notes from the night you and I discuss boundaries. You aren't the only one who can post."
He tapped a few keys. A small screen behind us—connected to the meeting—flared to life. Kenneth had compiled a timeline: texts where Veronique flirted relentlessly, a private message where she admitted seeking favors and bragged about seducing colleagues, a recorded clip where she boasted she could make any man leave his partner. There was one voice note—Veronique's—clearly telling a colleague that she had "cleared things" with Kenneth, that their encounters were consensual but also transactional.
Veronique's face drained. "You can't—" she choked.
"People are watching," Kenneth said. "Neighbors, volunteers, coarse and quiet alike. You made claims that would paint Clara as unstable and yourself as victim. You used your distress as a shield for manipulation."
"That was private!" Veronique hissed, voice breaking as neighbors in the gym craned forward.
"No," Kenneth said. "You recorded and messaged. You kept logs. People in our ward can attest you visited Kenneth often. You, Veronique, tried to make yourself the injured party after being confronted for crossing lines. That's not an illness; that's a strategy. And hospitals aren't safe spaces for manipulation."
The chat exploded. People typed: "Proof!" "Look at the screenshots!" "Sick of this."
Someone in the back, a volunteer, stood and leaned into the camera. "I saw Veronique hand Kenneth a note, and then leave his office an hour later with a smug look. We saw patterns."
"Neighbors," Ramon called, rising. "She came to my house and asked about Clara's schedule. She even asked me to invite Clara to a charity event so she could 'bump into them'." He spat the words like poison. "She lied to get close."
Veronique's composure shattered. "You all believe her?" she screamed. Her voice echoed. "I—I'm being targeted. I—" She tried to explain her past diagnosis as both shield and spectacle; she begged for sympathy. Some in the crowd softened; others hissed.
"Stop using your problems as armor," Kenneth cut in. "There are ways to get help. There are listeners. But weaponizing your hurt to ruin others is not help; it's harm. You led a campaign to make Clara look unstable. You tried to throw her out of her neighborhood by rumor. You will stop."
There were gasps. Phones came up; people recorded Veronique stuttering, losing control. She swung from indignation to despair to denial. One neighbor called out, "Do you want us to set up mediation?" Another said, "Do we report this to hospital admin?"
Her face turned pale. "You're all—" she tried to flee, but the community did what communities do: they closed ranks around what felt like truth.
"This is public," a woman in the third row said loudly. "We will not be manipulated for theater. This space is for supplies and care." She looked straight at Veronique. "Explain to hospital admin why you thought misleading the community was okay."
Veronique's breaths came like sobs. She pulled a jacket over her shoulders but couldn't run from the eyes, the phones, the live stream comments that went from supportive to merciless. The feed racked up thousands of views in minutes. A man with a local blog posted the timeline Kenneth had shown; others shared it.
"What do you want?" Veronique whispered finally, voice raw. "I—I'll apologize. I didn't mean to—"
"You used people's trust," Kenneth replied, voice softer now but unyielding. "Apologize publicly. Volunteer for community counseling. Stop pretending you must always be at the center by any means."
"Please!" she cried, collapsing into her chair. People around her watched her unravel—her earlier swagger replaced by a small, furious, aching shame. Some clapped in disapproval. Some filmed. Some tried to comfort. It was messy and human, and it met the requirement I'd set in my head for consequence: she could not weaponize her struggles without others seeing the exchange, without hearing the truth, and without facing the public fallout.
Veronique was not jailed; she was not ruined overnight. But she was exposed: her lies, her brags, her manipulative pattern. The hospital reviewed her behavior the next week. The neighborhood's chat nominated volunteers to ensure that anyone who needed help would be referred properly, not used as a script. Veronique's path to repair began with mandatory counseling, apology posts, and a community oversight group. Her denial cracked into compliance. It was not dramatic vengeance; it was a public unmasking and a demand for accountability that made even her own defenders uneasy.
Neighbors reacted in waves. Some clapped when Kenneth finished speaking. Some scolded Veronique. Some murmured, "Finally, some light." Ramon punched the air like a child. I cried in private and then held on to Kenneth's hand in the narrow quiet after the meeting.
"Why did you do that?" I asked, when we walked home under masks and a thin moon.
"Because it's wrong to lie," he said simply. "Because you didn't deserve to be gaslit."
We began to talk differently after that—small things, steadying things. Then in the worst way possible, I got sick. The tests came back positive. We were both sent to quarantine. Kenneth volunteered—he insisted on staying with me.
"Stay with me," I said, terrified.
"I am staying," he replied, and when nurses shook their heads he signed forms. "We share exposure; we'll share recovery."
In the fever and the diarrhea and the bottles of glucose and kindness, Kenneth was steady. He brought me slices of orange, fed me, joked at my ridiculousness. "You always said you were bored of me," he whispered. "So I broke the rules. I'm here."
On my birthday, when I thought we had only a handful of friends in a group chat, Kenneth did the thing I'd once made fun of: he posted a QR in the building number and 303 unit, asking neighbors to send well-wishes. The group bombed with chocolate boxes and "marry her" messages. He sent one more line that made my phone buzz, "Clara Estes—will you marry me?"
It was ridiculous and tender and utterly him. I laughed and cried at the same time.
"Yes," I texted back, because sometimes the right answer is an instinct and sometimes it's the only sane reply.
We left the quarantine with a strange gentle normal. People in the building brought tiny cakes. Gavan dropped off fresh photos of us—awkward, authentic.
Months later, after wedding planning and awkward family dinners and a small ceremony in our modest lobby, neighbors came by to accept their share of "grouped candy." The pink bottles became a joke we kept between us. Ramon learned to cook better vegetables. Gavan found his loudness useful when our building needed a voice.
And Veronique? She attended mandatory mediation, apologized in public, and slowly—awkwardly—earned boundaries again. The hospital shifted her schedule to make sure she had therapy and oversight. It wasn't a spectacle exactly—it was accountability, slow and human.
At the end, when I held Kenneth's banded hand and felt the light press of wedding rice on my dress, I remembered the swab, the breaking stick, the ridiculous pink bottles, 303, and the little fishbowl I'd smashed. I remembered that desire could be loud and messy, that people could hurt and be hurt, and that sometimes the only cure was the quiet, steady presence of someone who'd come back in line and chosen you again.
"Do you ever regret that stupid sign?" I asked him later, in bed, as he tucked a stray hair behind my ear.
He smiled, private and warm. "I regret a lot," he said. "But not that."
And that—our small, messy answer—wasn't a halting finale. It was a slice of our life: swabs, silly purchases, quarantine orange slices, and a pink bottle that made strange neighbors laugh. It was unmistakably ours.
The End
— Thank you for reading —