Sweet Romance15 min read
Razor Boxes, Room 401, and a Citywide "Marry Me"
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I still can't decide whether the supermarket was unlucky or honest fate. Either way, our hands met over a single box of razors.
"Buying that? New man already on the horizon?" he said.
"Mind your own business," I snapped.
He smiled cold and slow. "This is my lifelong business," Dmitri said, the way he always used dramatic words like furniture.
People nearby glanced. I felt my cheeks heat. I tightened my grip on the box. There was one box left.
He tugged like we were playing tug-of-war. His hand was calm, as if drawn by a magnet. "Let go," I thought. "No way."
He let go suddenly and I slipped, falling with a loud "ah," landing solid on my butt. The box hit the floor and the plastic shattered.
Dmitri looked down and, without changing his expression, walked off. "Sick," I hissed as he turned.
I picked up the torn razors knowing the broken plastic meant I got to buy them — but also buy the bill.
At home my mother was prepping celery and said without looking up, "Emmalynn, Dmitri's back. Did you see him?"
"No," I lied.
My parents and his family were neighbors. Nobody knew we'd been more than childhood friends — nobody knew our short, messy secret relationship that had left scars.
I tucked the small secret box into my wardrobe and called Camille.
"It's been four years," Camille said when I blurted the supermarket story. "So? What's his game?"
"I don't know. He showed up at the store like fate had a calendar," I said.
"Fate is dramatic," Camille laughed. "Don't be dramatic."
Later that day I tried to avoid him. I failed.
At the welcome-back banquet for Dmitri — a ceremony that glowed like it was for a dignitary — his family rolled out the red carpet. I showed up reluctantly because my parents said so. He sat beside me, and he made every light in the room find me.
"You're pretty today," Dmitri said, letting his words puddle in the air between us.
"I'm not dressing for you," I mouthed silently.
His eyes narrowed, then flashed: "You have a date?"
My face dropped. He folded and unfolded his napkin like he was a storm in slow motion. The table brimmed with people.
Someone moved at the door, and we all turned. A woman walked in holding a gift. She was perfect polite, all soft features and careful manners. She moved straight to Dmitri.
"That's Valentina Crowley," my brother whispered, the name like a small blade.
Valentina sat to Dmitri's left. I sat to his right. A hand slid beneath the table and gripped mine. He pressed like an anchor.
"Stop," I hissed under my breath. "Pull away."
Dmitri smiled charmingly at the elders while his fingers crushed my palm. Then he let go as if nothing had happened.
Later he kept topping off my glass. I drank to blur out the heat twisting in my chest. When my father told Dmitri to stop filling me, Dmitri looked up politely and said, "I know." He kept doing it anyway.
After the banquet Dmitri escorted me out to the underground garage where he roughly put me into his car and buckled the belt like a jailer.
"I didn't pass out," I slurred.
"You did," he said. "Drink this water."
He sat beside me on my couch later and asked quietly, "Who is the razor for?"
Not dumb enough to believe him, I lied. "For... the wrong person," I said.
Dmitri tilted his head and smiled. Then, without permission, he kissed me hard — the kind of kiss that is both punishment and a claim.
He pulled away and asked, "Is it him? Rafael Armenta?"
I shut up. Rafael — a kind, safe friend who'd once helped me fake a kiss to soothe Dmitri's jealousy — had nothing to do with that razor. I had staged things then to save my family. Dmitri didn't know the whole truth. He only had pieces that looked like a map pointing to betrayal.
"Not him," I said. "Don't look for him."
His eyes flickered with something like hurt, then hardened. He asked about the razor again. I pretended ignorance.
Phone buzzed. Song of anger on the line. "Emmalynn! Are you with Dmitri? Why are you with him?" A woman's hateful voice made me smile with relief. Valentina's voice cut like a cold wind.
"Valentina," I said, using the phone to mock a familiarity I didn't have.
Dmitri watched the call like a quiet judge. He called out, "Can you let me talk?"
"No." I redialed, then slammed the phone. "Enough."
He sat back and said, "Nice acting."
"Whatever," I muttered.
Then he peered into the wardrobe and saw the small hidden item: the tiny box I'd put there earlier. He smirked like he'd won.
"Tell me, Emmalynn," he said, "is this for me?"
My chest tightened. I made a move and he grabbed both my wrists and pinned them to my head. He said low and sharp, "Tell me who it's for."
My head pounded. The room felt small enough to hold our shouting. When I refused, he kissed me again, harder and slower, like a question.
"I want to know," Dmitri breathed. "Is it for someone else?"
The word "no" stuck in my throat. I tried to push him away. He kissed me until I couldn't think. Then, quiet and close, he asked, "Was that staged? The kiss with Rafael?"
I swallowed. The truth hurt and slid out. "It was a setup," I said. "A favor. For my family."
He smoothed my hair and said, "Tell me everything."
I told him — about the old bargain, about the elderly man who'd bargained with my father's factory and my brother's school record, about how scared I had been, how I had pretended to be someone I wasn't to protect my family.
When I finished, he was quiet and then gentle. "Come back to sleep," he murmured.
Our days blurred into something tender and dangerous. Dmitri was capable of being patient, and then, in a second, of being cruel. He alternated between both. When he was tender, he seemed like the only person who understood me. When he was cruel, he punished me for past scars I still bore.
A week later, the truth began to tangle itself into something that could not be ignored. I found out I was pregnant.
"You're joking," I told the doctor.
The doctor didn't joke. "Four weeks," she said gently.
The world shifted. My knees went soft. Dmitri's face went blank, then something like calculation pressed into it.
"Don't tell anyone," I pleaded in the car.
Dmitri laughed softly. "You think this can be hidden?"
A cruel brake screeched on the road. For a moment his eyes were dark enough to scare me.
"Emmalynn," he said with a cold tilt, "don't speak foolishly."
My plan — to keep it secret until I made a decision — crumbled. Family called, neighbors whispered. Ten days later his parents and mine were at our kitchen table, and we were suddenly discussing rings.
He called it sensible. His mother called it respectable. My mother called it a relief.
The engagement was set. It was practical, and I will admit: I let practicality soften my heart. Maybe I had always liked him. Maybe I still did.
At Camille's party — back where the world had more laughter than sense — Dmitri arrived with Rafael. "We met in the elevator," Dmitri said casually.
When the town was forced into quarantine because of a close contact in the hotel, people started getting room assignments. "Emmalynn," Camille announced, "you and Dmitri, 401."
"No way," I cried. "I will not—"
He smiled and held the card: "401, baby. We're neighbors for two weeks."
Later, in the closed room at night, he asked, "Will you take a shower?"
"I will when you do," I said.
We were together, we fought, and we made up. Quarantine became a slow, private reignition. I realized that, if you let someone near you for long enough, old things can glow warm again. But pieces of the past still sat, knife-sharp, on the table between us.
When the quarantine ended, I left Dmitri's house. I deleted his contact and promised myself we'd keep it that way.
Time passed with cold distance. Then one evening — a day I will not forget — I walked past a backyard and found my family and his set up with a barbecue. They were grilling and laughing and there, at the center, were our parents and two tables of food. My brother found it hard to hold a chicken wing.
"You're going to be an uncle," he squealed, dropping the wing.
Silence. The world waited for something to collapse. My cheeks burned. I had to face my mother and his.
They closed us in a room. His mother, surprisingly kind, said she wanted the whole thing handled with dignity. She called a doctor. She said, "If you are with child, we'll help."
When the test said yes, my voice left me. Dmitri smiled and called me "Mammy" with a smirk that made bile rise.
He drove me to a private clinic under the pretext of privacy. He said, "If it's nothing, no harm."
The doctor told me, "Four weeks."
My hands trembled. He was silent, then said softly, "Emmalynn."
"Please," I pleaded. "Don't tell anyone."
He took the wheel and the car leapt forward. "Don't make jokes," he said, voice low.
A week later, we had an engagement appointment. Shopping for a dress with Camille, I learned the engagement would be large. My mother fretted about table settings. My father muttered about speeches.
Dmitri was charming, attentive, and sometimes impossibly humane. He bought me a ring in the public square and then, at nine o'clock that night on the city overpass, the walls of skyscrapers lit up.
"Marry me," the billboard flashed in step-by-step red across the skyline.
He kissed me, and people cheered, and for a second I believed in the bright city that wanted us to be a fairytale.
But some bright things hide ugly roots.
On the day of the engagement banquet, everything fell apart.
"Come with me backstage," Dmitri's grandfather — Eldridge Olsen — said, like he had always carried a weathered storm.
He didn't like me. He'd never liked me. He'd been cold, precise, like an old general. When I walked into the small room and saw his face, his eyes cut like a clinical blade.
"You know the deal," Eldridge said. "You were told. You took it."
"I didn't agree to ruin an entire family for my piece," I said.
He smiled and said, "You signed the terms."
The room was small; the stakes big. I felt like a child in a courtroom. "Terms?"
"You accepted—" he said, and then his voice sharpened. "You knew what would happen if our plans did not happen."
My heart hammered. I thought of my father losing his factory, my brother's schooling — things I'd protected in silence.
It dawned on me that Eldridge had been the hand that arranged weekday ruin for my family in exchange for my silence.
I left. I walked out to the banquet hall and the noise swallowed me. The band played. Guests laughed. Valentina sat like a satin statue watching us.
I took a microphone. The music cut. People looked. My voice shook as I spoke.
"Everyone," I said. "Thank you for coming."
People quieted. Dmitri's look was a mix of surprise and concern. Eldridge's face closed like a door.
"I have something I need to say," I continued.
"Is this about some family stuff?" one aunt asked, fanning herself.
"No," I said. "It's about promises made. About deals done in secret that hurt people."
Valentina smiled at me as if she were reading a script. I felt my blood boil.
"I will tell you the truth," I said. "Eldridge Olsen asked me to quietly step away, to let my family suffer instead of his. He told me to stage things, to make my life smaller so he could keep his family's pride."
The room shifted. A ripple of shocked murmurs rolled through the tables. Dmitri stood up so quickly his chair scraped.
"Eldridge said he would force my father's factory to close and make my brother's record worse if I didn't play along," I said, voice steadying. "I agreed, out of fear. I am not proud of that. But I never wanted it to mean I lose my dignity."
Valentina's face turned pale. "That's a lie," Eldridge snapped. His voice was suddenly fragile.
"No," I said. "I have messages. I have dates."
I laid the files on the small table. "He told me to stage a kiss in front of him. He told me to make Dmitri angry so he would leave town. He controlled us like marionettes."
Dmitri's face crumpled in front of everyone. Eldridge's mask began to crack.
"You think I would stoop so low?" he asked, voice losing its old armor.
People leaned forward. A cousin pulled out his phone. "Show us," someone whispered.
Camille pushed through to my side. "Show them. Tell them the truth."
I did. I read messages aloud, the ones that felt like cold hands on my spine: offers, threats, dates and orders. I named the factories, the school names, the people who'd been warned. Each line was a new wound and also a new clean.
Eldridge's eyes darkened and then he blinked away tears. He tried to laugh it off, "Blackmail? Ridiculous."
A camera phone recorded everything. Someone uploaded the first clips within minutes. "Eldridge Olsen – the man who ordered ruin to control two families," scrolled the caption.
Guests went from shocked to angry. Voices rose. "How could he?" "All these years?" "He used them like pawns."
Dmitri's mother pushed forward. "Father, is this true?" she said, voice tight.
Eldridge's shoulders shook. He had no allies to hide behind. "I... I did things for the family..." His voice became small.
"Did you ruin their business?" someone demanded.
He tried to compose himself. "I did what I thought necessary for the family's legacy."
"Legacy?" The word hit him back like a stone. "At whose expense?"
Eldridge's chest heaved. "My death will end rumors," he whispered, despair like a shadow.
People started stepping back. Eldridge looked like a man who had been stripped bare of his carefully constructed dignity. The crowd's stance had turned from admiration to disgust. Phones were out. Some people recorded him. Others muttered and turned away. A few cried.
“He used your family as collateral,” Dmitri said, though his voice was just for me. "Emmalynn, I am sorry."
"Apology is not enough," I said into the microphone. "But I'm not here for vengeance. I'm here for the truth."
Valentina stood suddenly, tears on her cheeks that were not real.
"You liar!" she shouted to me. "You ruined everything. You made me look like a fool."
"You were part of this," I said. "You were the one who called my phone and lied. You played the angel."
She stammered. "No—I—"
I held up the messages she had sent, full of lies and venom. The table nearest her gasped. Her face shifted from control to panic. "You can't show those!" she cried.
"Why not?" I asked. "We aren't afraid anymore."
Valentina's composure crumbled in a way that was different from Eldridge's fall. She went from haughty to frantic. She tried to flee, but guests stood in her way. Cameras flashed.
"Look at her," someone shouted. "The nice girl with poison."
People whispered about her charity galas and how she had acted like a savior to Dmitri's family — only to privately plot. A journalist opened his laptop and began typing. "Scandal at engagement banquet," he muttered.
Valentina's face twisted. She grasped at Dmitri's sleeve. "Please," she begged in front of everyone. "Don't let them say that."
Dmitri looked at her for a long second that felt like a lifetime. "Valentina," he said quietly, "you lied to me."
Her eyes went wide. Then she began a series of denials that sounded increasingly like pleading. "I didn't— I would never—"
"Stop," Dmitri said. His voice didn't tremble. "This is over."
The crowd's mood changed into a slow, steady wave of humiliation and seizing truth. Eldridge, who had thought power would rescue him, sank into a chair like a man who had been pushed off a cliff. He began to plead: "Forgive me. Forgive me."
"Get up," someone shouted. "Tell the truth."
He tried, "I was afraid of losing everything. I am sorry."
But the punishment was not just words. The elders who had once bowed to him kept their distance. Relatives he had counted on turned away. Family friends whispered about legal counsel. Reporters raised their cameras. A woman pointed her phone, leveling a camera on the old man.
Eldridge's expression moved through stages: the comfortable arrogance of a man used to being obeyed, the surprised shock of being outed, the fierce denial as his deeds were named, then the collapse — his knees folding, a long groan of shame as he pressed his face into his hands.
"This isn't a private matter," I said. "You used people. You weaponized their lives."
A crowd member, a business partner who had once benefited from Eldridge's network, stood up and said loudly, "If these are true, I will cut ties." Others echoed. Contracts were mentioned. Honors he'd built for decades were at risk.
Eldridge bowed his head. He tried to speak, but the words dried up. He'd been proud his whole life; now he had nothing to put before the public. His social standing crumbled like plaster.
Valentina's pleas turned hot, and in a sudden pivot she turned to the room and accused others — but her fury only made people recoil further. "You see what's under the veil," someone said. Cameras angled.
The final blow came when Dmitri's father stepped forward with a quiet but decisive tone.
"This is our family and we will not be a nest for cruelty," he said. "We will seek the truth and do the right thing."
Eldridge tried to speak again, but the crowd pressed in with morbid fascination. Videos spread online in minutes. Hundreds took photos. The banquet hall's energy moved from celebration to a courtroom of public opinion.
I had wanted the truth to free me, not to humiliate anyone to rubble. But there it was: Eldridge sitting alone in a circle of cameras, the man who had once held a room with his presence now a broken image in public light. He tried to bargain, his voice cracking from the tremors. "I didn't know," he said. "I thought..." His bravado had gone. The corporation he controlled suddenly faced a storm of questions. Invitations were rescinded. Old allies whispered of separation.
Valentina's punishment unspooled differently. She was not an old general; she was a social darling. Her downfall was a fast-moving storm of social rejection: hosts who had praised her offline now posted vague, cutting subtweets. Her sponsors sent polite but firm messages asking for distance. Friends who had liked her shared the banquet videos with captions like, "Not what she seems."
Both punishments had a public anatomy: first shock, then denial, then audience hunger, then collapse, then aftermath — a tangle of phone calls, knocked-off schedules, and the slow, precise withdrawal of support.
When Eldridge looked up, he saw the crowd of people he once ordered around looking away. His chest tightened and tears escaped. I'd seen him as a villain in a play, but now I saw the human cost. I felt no joy, only a tired relief.
Dmitri rushed to stand by me. "Are you okay?" he asked.
"No," I said, honest. "But the truth is free."
After that night, life changed. The city scrolled the story like a headline. Valentina's social accounts closed temporarily. Eldridge withdrew behind a counselor and a lawyer. Families rebalanced. Dmitri's parents were quiet and careful, and Dmitri himself alternated between help and distance.
We had to finish wedding planning because the world expected a tidy resolution. I was angry, scared, and uncomfortable, but I had cut a thread that had been strangling us both.
In private, Dmitri and I spoke. "Why didn't you stop him?" I asked once.
"I wanted to believe," he said. "I wanted to believe someone could protect what mattered without being a monster."
"You could have asked me," I said.
"I tried," he said. "And I was stupid about it."
We argued. We cried. We made jokes about the absurd LED spectacle and about razors, and how the world could be both tacky and grand.
When the city lights spelled "Marry me" across the skyline, they were not just for us anymore. They were a reminder that even massive public romance can be messy.
The engagement moved forward, but on my terms. I asked questions. I made sure my family had counsel. I met with workers from my father's factory and set up meetings. Dmitri stood with me. Sometimes he was gentle. Sometimes he was clumsy, proving love can be patient and awkward.
One night, months later, we walked again across the same overpass where he had lit the skyline.
He stopped, took my hands, and said softly, "I am not perfect."
"Neither am I," I answered.
He laughed and opened a small box with a silver sugar-like diamond. He put it on my finger as if handing me a compact promise.
Later our names scrolled again — not as a scandal this time, but as a promise to each other. "Dmitri and Emmalynn," the city said.
I had been a girl who once staged a kiss to hold a family together. I had been a woman who walked into a room and told the truth while hundreds watched.
We learned that punishments can be public and painful, that truths have consequences, and that people we blame can sometimes be broken by their own designs. I also learned that punishment doesn't always mean joy; it can mean a raw, difficult reshaping of lives.
Dmitri and I are not fixed sculptures. We are patchwork: tenderness sewn onto worry, humor threaded into hard choices. Sometimes I catch him looking at me the way he did in that small underground garage — complicated, precise.
"I will try," he told me one night as fireworks blinked in the distance.
"I will try," I answered.
There is a razor box tucked in a drawer, a souvenir of a clumsy supermarket battle. There is also a room card stamped 401 that I kept. And somewhere in the city's light, "Marry me" still flickers now and then on someone else's billboard, daring hearts.
I married Dmitri because we both admitted mistakes and because we both wanted to build something less cruel than what had used us. I did not marry him to save a factory or to buy silence. I married him because after all the storms, we still chose each other.
At the engagement banquet when I walked away with the microphone, I had not expected the fall of a man like Eldridge. I had only wanted to stop being a lie.
Now our life is quieter. My family is steadier. My brother is back at school. The factory hums with new orders. Sometimes, in a soft late hour, I smell grilled chicken and remember the backyard night when everyone gathered. I remember my brother dropping his wing.
I remember Eldridge sitting alone in public, stripped of power. His reaction moved through detonations — arrogance, shock, denial, collapse, plea. People recorded it all. It was ugly and absolute.
Valentina's fall was cleaner but just as harsh: from handshakes to silence, from charity galas to blocked numbers. She vanished from certain social pages and appeared in crabbed comment sections.
If anyone asked me whether public punishment was satisfying, I would be honest: it's complicated. The truth needed to come out. The crowd needed to see who had used people. But public ruin leaves holes that might not be clean.
Still, the worst thing that could happen to me did: being controlled by an old man willing to make my family suffer. The best thing that happened to me: choosing to tell the truth in front of everyone.
When I reached for Dmitri's hand at the overpass, it was not to seal a secret. It was to start building something public, accountable, and messy — like real life.
And sometimes, when the city flickers its names across steel and glass, I lean on him and whisper, "Remember the razor?"
He squeezes my hand. "Forever," he says, and means it in the way only complicated people mean things: with scars and stitches and a strange, stubborn tenderness.
The End
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