Sweet Romance12 min read
Pink Bottles, Probiotics, and a QR Code Proposal
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I was in line to get a swab when I realized the volunteer man doing samples was my ex.
He pushed the swab deep and steady. I bit the inside of my cheek and kept my eyes forward.
"Too deep! Lighter, please," I whispered, because dignity still mattered even in a mask.
The volunteer smiled in a way that used to be familiar. "Deep?" he drawled. He snapped the swab clean in the tube with a little flourish.
He glanced at the handsome guy waiting behind me and cocked an eyebrow. "New boyfriend? Pretty young."
I froze, pulled my mask up, and left as quickly as I could.
Behind me I heard Sawyer howl like a dog being teased. He came out of the sampling booth, voice hoarse. "That guy was so pervy. He almost stabbed my throat off."
"Lower your voice, or next time he'll go for your eyes," someone joked.
"What? He's going to swab our butt next?" Sawyer squealed.
A cluster of elderly men nearby all straightened up at once, clearly hearing our exchange. I grabbed Sawyer by the arm and dragged him away while he kept whining about "deep throat soreness."
We made it home and I served him two huge bowls of braised pork. He chewed and grimaced. "Keep eating like this and my hemorrhoids will mutiny. Sister, get some greens."
"Fine. I'll cook the celery I recently grew."
"Not yet. Let it sprout a bit more."
We ate two bowls each with tiny celery sprouts from a water bottle because the neighborhood supply was still scarce. For five days we couldn't buy vegetables. Lucky for us, frozen meat from before lockdown saved our meals.
Too much meat made my stomach revolt and complicated my already stubborn constipation. The last Yakult in the fridge was gone. I blamed the group-buy logistics for my mood.
In the afternoon someone announced there would be a material distribution at the community center. "Bananas! Small greens!" people shouted. Sawyer and I nearly sobbed.
I stayed by the door from two to six. When the door finally rang, my smile died halfway out of my mouth.
Eric stood on the stoop with bags of fruits and veg like a hero. For a second I wanted to throw my arms around him.
"You—you're still volunteering?" I said with a smile and reached for a bag. "This is for us, right? Give it here."
Eric looked down at a pair of shoes by the door and frowned. He tucked the bags behind himself like he was guarding them.
"Are you living with someone now?" he asked, eyes flicking to Sawyer's sneakers. I lunged like a child to take a bag, failed, and missed.
"Sawyer!" I called. He popped his head out of the bathroom, hair full of foam and a towel on his waist. He saw Eric, grabbed a chair, and marched forward.
"Who the hell are you? You think your height scares me? I, Sawyer Austin, am not to be messed with!" he bellowed.
Eric didn't bat an eye. "Back off," he said calmly.
"Sister, tell him who he is!" Sawyer planted himself behind me like a bad second-rate knight.
"He's my ex," I blurted.
"Ex what?" Sawyer turned beet red. "You could have said earlier. I thought he was stealing our vegetables."
Eric gave a short, almost bitter laugh. "Davina, you still do ridiculous things."
He was always so reserved. In college people called him the aloof prince—handsome, quiet, distant.
"Why did you go back to volunteering?" I asked later when Sawyer had been settled with a bowl.
He shrugged. "Because people need help."
"Since when did you care about my home-cooking?"
He didn't answer. He rarely answered my teasing. But when he did, the words were precise and small, and they burned.
The morning after, I was cutting cucumbers like an angry chef. Sawyer asked the question that always landed: "How did you get a guy like him? You and the prince—seems off."
I laughed and flicked a cucumber slice at him. "I'm an off-road rose. Men can't resist."
"More like a roadside chive." Sawyer snorted. "But if you're telling the truth, you two should just get back together. I might get more cooked greens."
"Get out!"
He grinned and stuck his head through the doorway again. The joke didn't land. The truth was I had never been the star of Eric's life in the way I wanted.
There was another woman—Karina Vogel—who worked in male reproductive surgery and looked like she was designed in a perfume ad. She hovered where Eric worked. The nurses warned me about her. "Careful, Davina. Karina brings cupcakes and stays for compliments," they said.
I thought, "Karina won't hold him." I had spent five years moving the goalposts and finally cornered him. I thought I had him.
Once I found Karina feeding the little fish in Eric's office—my fish, the fish I had given him—my stomach dropped.
"Why are you feeding these?" I demanded.
She smiled, the way people smile when they own the room. "This hospital is mine. I can walk where I like."
I took the fish food out of her hand like a thief. "You shouldn't be in his office."
She tilted her head and leaned in. "You know what, Davina? Sometimes a man who is quiet at work is not quiet in private. I think he likes my form better."
My blood was electricity. "You have nothing to do with him."
"I do when he lets me." She came so close I could smell the bakery-scent of her lip gloss. "He says my body is better."
I left after a few minutes of verbal claws. I threw his office fishbowl into the garbage on the way out and called him.
"I want a breakup," I said.
"You're bored of me?" he asked flatly.
"I might be," I lied, because my dignity felt like a brittle coin.
He hung up and blocked me that night.
The next morning, the nurse at the desk called. "Karina attempted suicide last night. ICU now."
The rumor mill did its work. She was diagnosed with a disorder, they said, and she had been ranting in public about marriage and pregnancy. The headlines painted Eric as the victim and me as the woman who cried wolf—again.
Then life moved on. I took modeling jobs, paraded my face on adverts, and tried to be busy.
Months later, the pandemic hit. The building was lockdown. People queued for swabs. Supplies were scarce. My group-buy came in: a box of probiotics labeled in bright pink.
I had ordered Yakult-style drinks. Somehow the box that arrived looked like novelty—tiny pink bottles, some labeled with numbers like 0.01 to 0.07. Mortified, I stuffed them into my coat sleeve. They were embarrassing adult things, and I hadn't expected anyone to see.
Fillmore Vega, the neighbor upstairs and a photographer known for loud shirts, came downstairs carrying his loot. "Darling," he grinned, "our little pleasure delivery is here."
Eric's face when he picked up one of my pink bottles was something I didn't recognize. He looked hurt and furious at the same time.
"Is this what you hoard during lockdown?" he asked, voice low.
"It's for digestion," I lied.
Fillmore tried to joke us out of it. "Wrong doorstep, I guess."
Eric left, thin and exasperated, and I watched him go like a small animal watching a storm.
The next day we were all in the swab line again. Eric was behind the table in sanitized armor, a noble figure in a hazmat suit.
"Don't open your mouths—it's nasal swab today," the tester said.
I took off my mask, wet-eyed with a plan to plead, to tease, to pull him back.
He administered my swab with care. I tried the old tactic—puppy eyes. "Eric," I breathed, "please."
He looked at me like he was looking at something that used to be precious. "Don't occupy space," he said. "Next."
I wanted to break open. People behind us passed notes, flirted, whispered. Someone stuck a post-it on his protective suit: "Looking for a husband." I looked at Sawyer and mouthed, "Did you—?"
He nodded, eyes mischievous. He had stamped a QR code and taped it to Eric's back earlier as my jokey conspiracy.
"You're the worst," I scolded Sawyer.
He shrugged. "Your ex is a soft target."
I grabbed the bullhorn Sawyer had—because I am shameless—and announced, "Thank you to everyone supporting my boyfriend Eric Brady! After lockdown, come to 51-303 for wedding candy!"
The crowd went wild—some clapped, some whistled. A few women laughed with distaste.
"Is she serious?" one of the girls behind us said loudly. "You know about the woman who went crazy over a doctor, right? This is a red flag."
Something in my chest froze. Karina's voice echoed—what if I was the same? Had I been performing love the whole time or were my feelings genuine?
Eric's voice cut over the laughter, crisp and public. "Queue for testing, two meters apart. Masks on."
He glanced at me. "We can talk later."
"Later?" I snapped. "No—"
I ran off, tripping once and losing a shoe. My humiliation was a blanket heavy and stinging.
That night I ate the probiotics I'd ordered, furious and desperate. It didn't go well. I was in and out of the bathroom, dizzy, and the toilet backed up. When I finally collapsed, the world went gray.
I woke to find myself in a quarantine facility. Eric was there, calmer than I'd thought a man could be, gently packing my small bag. He had the few clothes he carried neatly folded, and a quiet determination about him I remembered and missed.
"You brought me here?" I croaked.
"You didn't have enough liquids," he said. "You were dehydrated."
"I—" my face burned. "You could have sent someone to check."
He sat beside me on the narrow bed and tapped an apple into my hand. "You deleted my number."
"That was five months ago."
He reached across and wrapped the apple half around in a way that made my stomach do things. For a second the past fell away and his fingers were the only truth. He fed me a slice.
"Why did you kiss me in college?" I asked suddenly, because sleep opened weird doors.
He smiled, small and private. "Because you kissed me first." His voice was soft like a secret.
Our recovery was slow but tender. He took turns getting us supplies, carrying my toothbrush, organizing my meds. Heart moments appeared like small birds landing: the time he wrapped his jacket around my shoulders because I shivered; the time he tucked a napkin in my lap to catch my crumb; the time he squeezed my hand when I sneezed. Each moment punched my chest.
One evening, while the quarantine wing hummed with people coughing softly, Eric left to fetch orange slices. He returned and said, casually, "I brought you something."
He sat on the bed edge and handed me a small phone screen—my group-buy chat. Scrolling through were messages: neighbors had signed up for my fake "wedding candy" as a joke and then as a real gift. At the bottom, a new message from him: "Davina, we're one person short of the group. Will you marry me?"
People around the docket were watching screens. I laughed, then I cried, then I laughed again.
"Eric," I said, heart pounding, "are you asking me to marry you because I humiliated myself in public?"
He looked up, straight at me. The lights made his eyes glossy like a controlled storm. "No," he said. "I'm asking because I didn't want to risk losing you to a joke."
My mind rewound: the black-and-white of our breakup, the block, the pink bottles, the public ridicule. "So this is serious?"
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a printed QR code. "Scan that. It links to all the neighbors who said they'd bring candy if you'd marry me," he said, smiling like a man making a ridiculous, tender offer.
"Are you serious?" I asked.
"Completely," he said.
I scanned. The group chat blew up with confetti emojis and "Finally!" messages.
We were allowed short walks inside the quarantine compound. On the way out, someone at the gate raised a hand.
"Excuse me," a woman from the hospital staff called. "Doctor Brady, Karina Vogel wants to see you."
I watched Eric's face harden.
At the hospital gathering a few days later—an impromptu staff meeting called to discuss boundary issues—Eric stood before a room full of colleagues. The fluorescent lights made everything sharper; the air smelled of disinfectant and a hospital's collective fatigue.
"Karina," Eric began, voice steady, "we need to be honest here."
Karina sat at the front desk, looking composed in a white coat. Around her colleagues exchanged curious glances.
"Karina had an episode," one nurse muttered.
"An episode doesn't grant you rights to manipulate others," Eric said. "You told a patient and several staff that you and I were together. You claimed privileges you did not have. You posted messages in public spaces implying we had a relationship to garner support and sympathy."
Karina's lips twitched. "I—these are lies. I care for him. I wanted—"
"You staged scenes," Eric continued, pulling out a file. "You pretended to be pregnant when confronted. You shouted in the ward, seeking attention. You pressured staff into silence. And worst, you told a patient that I favored you intimately—then used that to get closer to me."
The room was silent. Colleagues shifted, the low thrum of whispers building into a communal hum.
"Why are you showing this?" Karina said, voice thin, eyes flicking around, finding no allies.
"Because the hospital is a place of trust," Eric said. "You used that trust to manipulate vulnerable people and to trap a colleague into an uncomfortable situation."
He clicked a small video on his tablet. It was short—Karina leaning over a patient's bed, whispering something, a nurse in the background frowning. Another clip showed her entering Eric's office when he wasn't there, arranging items as if staging intimacy. Faces in the room leaned forward.
"You told the patient we were a couple," Eric said. "You accused me of affairs and manufactured scenes to play the victim."
Karina's expression changed. First, an arrogant tilt of the chin. Then a quick dart of denial. "This is taken out of context," she said. "You don't know—"
Nurses around her murmured. Someone pulled up a thread of screenshots from the ward's notice board where Karina had scribbled "He's mine" and "He promised me children." Voices around the room rose: indignation, betrayal, disgust. Phones came out. People filmed the exchange in low tones, whispering. A junior doctor said, "This isn't about privacy—this is about coercion."
Karina's face flushed. She stood, voice shaking. "You're trying to ruin me! I—" Her bravado cracked, sliding into panic. "You told them—you're pretending!"
"No," Eric said calmly, his hand resting lightly on the table. "We have a duty to our patients. When that duty is used as a tool for personal gain, we must intervene. The board will review this."
He named specifics—dates, times, staff who had corroborated accounts. One by one, people recollected the odd favors, the cupcakes meant to win favors, the private conversations aired in public.
Karina's reaction moved quickly: superiority, then shock, then frantic denial, then pleading. "Please, please—I'm unwell. You can't humiliate me like this." Her voice rose and broke.
A chorus of responses met her. Some staff looked stunned, some whispered fierce judgment. One nurse crossed her arms, eyes cold. "We asked you to stop weeks ago."
"Everyone's recorded this," someone said. Another nurse tapped a folder and said, "We have the reports."
"Do you deny that you told a patient I was someone I wasn't?" Eric asked softly.
Karina's eyes flicked to the doorway; the camera phones were out. She realized the room wasn't hers anymore. The denial crumbled into a whisper. "I thought if he was mine he'd choose me."
"You can't decide who belongs to you," said a senior surgeon. "We will ensure the harmed patients are contacted and offered support. We will also request psychiatric help for Karina and pursue policy consequences."
Karina sagged, the air leaking out of her. She stared at the floor as colleagues filed their statements. "I didn't mean—" she sobbed.
Outside the ward door a cluster of interns had gathered, some filming, some shaking their heads. A nurse who had once admired Karina whispered, "I feel so betrayed."
The scene lasted a long time—the hospital's version of a fall from a pedestal. Karina's expression moved from arrogant to hollow to pleading. She tried to excuse herself, to insist she'd been misunderstood, to say the diagnosis explained everything. People watched. Some made notes, some typed on phones, some wiped eyes.
In the crowd there were other reactions: pity from one, quiet satisfaction from another. A young nurse who had suffered similar manipulation stepped forward. "I should have said something sooner," she said. "I'm sorry."
When Karina was quietly escorted out by HR to a private room for evaluation, the corridor filled with whispers, the sound of a community processing betrayal. Cameras had snippets; whispers had their verdicts. It was public and messy and necessary.
It wasn't a spectacle of cruelty. It was accountability—people who had been hurt were finally heard. Karina's face had gone from haughty to broken. There was no triumphant laughter, only a low, collective intake of breath. People recorded the moment for evidence, not for gloating.
Afterward Eric sat with me in the courtyard where the quarantine plants had been lined up. "I didn't want it to go that way," he said.
"You did what needed to be done," I answered. "You protected people."
He took my hand and squeezed. Around us, the world was scarred but cleaner for it.
A few weeks later, with quarantine lifted in stages, the neighbors' gift boxes arrived. I handed out candy and small chocolates to everyone who had texted "marry him" as a joke and to those who'd sent messages of support. Fillmore ate too much cake and tried to declare everyone single a neighborhood heir.
At my birthday, Eric stood in the living room with a small, ridiculous wrapped thing. "I have nothing grand," he said, then got down on one knee on the floor carpet where we'd once eaten cold noodles.
"Will you marry me?" he asked, voice steady.
I looked at the QR code he had taped to his sleeve. Around the room, our neighbors raised their phones. Confetti popped on some delivery apps. I laughed until I cried.
"Yes," I said.
Later, when the last neighbor left and Eric and I sat on the small balcony with a box of probiotics between us, we opened one of those pink bottles—an absurd relic of lockdown. We clinked them like champagne.
"To bad shopping decisions," he said.
"To second chances," I replied.
He looked at me, the way only he could: with the quiet that contained so much. "To staying," he said.
That night he fed me orange slices and we fell asleep on the couch. The QR code hung from the fridge like a tiny sworn community witness. The box of pink bottles sat in the pantry, ridiculous and strangely tender.
If anyone ever asked what made me say yes, I'd say it was that he stayed when it would have been easier to walk away.
We married months later with a small party, lots of neighbors, and a ridiculous table of wedding candy. My brother Sawyer danced on a chair, Fillmore cried when he gave a toast, and Eric—calm, careful, and full of that steady fierceness—smiled like someone who had got what he'd been guarding for years.
On the day I finally put the small ring on my finger, I pulled out one last tiny pink bottle and held it up. "For our weirdness," I said.
He kissed my forehead. "Always for our weirdness."
And somewhere between the pink bottles, the group-buy chat, and the ridiculous QR code, we built a small home that was ours.
The End
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