Sweet Romance14 min read
Strawberry Tie, Two Faces, and a Pair of Lenses
ButterPicks14 views
I still remember the strawberry hair tie I lost that week. It was small, soft, a stupid pink loop with a strawberry charm, and I loved it like a tiny secret. I never thought that hair tie and a pair of strange contact lenses would change everything.
"Kay," Wade said one night, "you look weird in glasses. Get contacts."
"I like my glasses," I said.
"You'd look better—hotter—without them." He laughed like it was a joke. His laugh always made me feel like I was the joke.
I ordered lenses online that night. The shop had vanished by the time the package arrived, but the lenses fit perfectly. They slipped over my eyes like a second skin and didn't itch. Then the first odd thing happened.
I put them in sitting on my bed. The room blurred, then sharpened. Wade sat on the edge of the bed, smiling that safe smile.
"You look nice tonight," he said.
But the words floating near him in my view read, Give me my money back; she's so easy. My stomach turned.
I blinked, took the lenses out. Wade leaned over me, real close, real soft.
"Baby, you okay? You look pale," he said, and his smile was a different thing — warm, soft. I touched my bare eyes and felt dizzy.
I put the lenses back in.
"Who says that?" I whispered.
Wade's smile thinned. He scoffed, then his eyes flashed. The thought hovering over him said, If it weren't for cash, who would stay with you?
"Kay, what's wrong?" he asked aloud.
"You said—" I couldn't finish.
He shook his head and wrapped his hand around my neck like always, as if to prove his tenderness. His real hands were warm; his thought-loops were knives. I understood then: the lenses showed the other face.
"Stop it." I pulled away. "Stop touching me."
He only laughed and kissed my forehead like nothing had happened. I felt ridiculous and terrified at the same time.
A week later he wanted shoes. "Buy me those shoes," Wade pleaded with that practiced puppy look. "Please, just this once."
I said no.
He stormed to school in anger and found me in the hall, already wearing the lenses. He put on his full, sweet act in front of our classmates.
"Baby," he said, arms open. "I didn't mean it. Buy the shoes for me, please?"
But the words floating over him were sharp and ugly, Give me this face; beg for me. I flinched. He was not the man I thought I had. I watched him—watched the savage little voice in his head and felt sick.
He noticed me step back and grabbed my arm. "Why'd you do that?" His eyes were soft. His thought-bubble screamed, How dare she humiliate me in front of them?
"I—" I wrenched free. The lens made my world split into two. I wanted to shout. I wanted to tell everyone. Instead, I did something childish.
I walked over to the barren desk in front of us and crawled under it.
A kid in the seat under that desk scowled when I bumped him. He said, "What's wrong with your eyes? See a doctor."
I lifted my head and saw him for the first time clearly, through the lens. Clean face, sharp cheekbones, eyes a little stormy. He smelled faintly like strawberries.
He looked down and then down to my shoes. "You stepped on my shoe," he said.
"I'm sorry," I whispered.
He didn't smile. He said, "Shoes are size forty-three." Then he added, quietly, "Your boyfriend has a big mouth."
I blinked. He said more—words like small questions, small judgments. He said, "Your boyfriend needs to learn to beg properly."
I found myself laughing later that day. Not because it was funny, but because admitting he was ugly inside made me feel brave. I bought a pair of shoes online and told Wade I'd bring them by later. I didn't mean it.
At lunch, I crawled under that same desk again and reached out. His name was Egan Ryan. He said, "You can't keep hiding under desks."
"I needed to get closer to your shoe," I said. "I want to apologize."
He raised his eyebrows.
"I can buy replacements," I blurted. He stared at me.
"Forty-three," he said, like a punchline. "And your boyfriend wears L."
"Egan—"
"XXL," he muttered and snorted. "You gave your stuff to him, didn't you?"
I flushed hot.
"Okay," I said. "I'll buy the shoes. Don't be mad."
He didn't look like someone who needed pity. He looked like someone who disdained weakness, and I liked him for it.
When he finally accepted my boxes later on the basketball field, he barely said thank you. He put them on anyway. Watching him run felt like watching poetry move.
A rumor started that day. "He can afford Dunks?" one girl whispered.
"Somebody's taken care of him," someone else said.
Wade stood up like lava. "Where'd you get those?" he demanded at the center of the court.
I looked at Egan—at the wrong man. Sympathy flooded me. "I bought them and gave them away," I said.
Wade's eyes turned from hurt to hate to something sharp and dangerous. He said in a low voice, "You think you can play me?"
I slapped him.
The sound of my palm on his face echoed. I felt awful and electric. "I can buy what I want. You're not my father."
He went white, then red. "You're going to ruin me."
I walked away. The lenses showed his true thoughts: Give her a taste of fear. The eyes said, Make her owe me.
When he followed me back to class, he was all apologies again. Tears, shaking lip. "Kay, forgive me. I promise. I'm so sorry."
His thoughts? A long, satisfied apology: She still feeds me.
I was dizzy. I put the lenses away and put on my clunky glasses. When Egan walked by, he didn't whisper a nice thing. He said, "You really saw that?"
"Yes," I said.
"He's worthless," Egan said simply. "You deserve better."
I didn't say that I was already planning something wicked.
At home, I checked my order and found the lens shop had closed. The chat with customer service remained. I clicked it and saw a bot reply.
"Please confirm receipt," the chatbot said. "Then I'll tell you the secret."
"Secret?" I typed.
"Confirm receipt first," it said.
I confirmed.
"One month," it told me. "You can see people's other face. Use it wisely."
Use it wisely, it said. I swallowed. One month? That was not enough.
The next morning Wade came back with a warm soy milk. "For you," he said, smiling. Inside his head, his plan fitted neatly: Give it to her, and charm later.
I didn't reach. I watched his thoughts to see if he really loved me or loved my card.
"Drink it," he urged.
"You can drink it," I said calmly. "If you want it, you can drink it."
I spilled the cup on his precious shoes.
His face collapsed into animal panic. He fell to his knees scrubbing foam into the leather while everyone around chattered. I said slow, cold words.
"All the shoes, bags, clothes—that's thirty-three thousand, and that's only a part. Food, rent, your phone bills—count them. I will make you return every cent, Wade. You used me."
He scrambled to clean the shoe. I tossed the cup like a final declaration.
"You're insane," he yelled.
"You used me," I said again. "You called me ugly to my face and sweet behind it."
He looked up. For a second, he looked like a man trying to find a script.
"Kay—"
"Shut up." I turned and walked away.
At class, the packages I'd bought lay on my desk. Wade barreled up to it like a dog.
"You're ruining me," he cried. "We're breaking up? No, we'll fix this."
Then he cried like he always did.
Someone else stepped in between us—Egan. He didn't smile much, but when he said, "Don't be a clown," everyone shut up.
"Buy back what you gave away," I told Wade, and I meant it.
He stammered, "I don't—"
"You can sell your phone," I said. "Sell something."
A girl next to me, Olivia Lombardo, piped up. "How much did you spend on him? Kay? He used you."
"How dare you talk about me like that," Wade snapped and then his voice faltered because the room was looking at him.
That day, I started a ledger in my phone. Prices, dates, receipts. Every gift, every meal, every extra. I would make him pay. Not to punish him for money alone, but to show everyone he was exposed.
"You're being dramatic," Wade said later in the corridor.
"Maybe," I said. "But I'm also done."
Egan watched everything. He didn't wear flashy shirts. He wore steady kindness like armor. He started to bring me tiny things without fanfare—strawberry candies, a plain hair tie that matched the one I lost. Once he just sat beside me in silence and wiped the ink off my hands when I had been writing in the midnight lamp light.
One night, Wade followed me into the corridor. He grabbed my arm.
"You'll regret this," he whispered.
Egan was across the hall. He didn't hesitate.
Wade went pale when Egan stepped forward. "You okay?" Egan said quietly.
"Mind your own business," Wade snarled.
Egan's eyes narrowed. He moved like a calm animal. He said, "Let go of her."
I remember the exact wet spot on the floor where Wade slid after Egan shoved him. The shove wasn't meant to hurt; it was meant to show boundaries. Wade's face hit the floor and students crowded around, whispering.
"What's happening?" someone asked.
"Is he hurt?"
Wade scrambled up, blood on his lip. He looked small. He pounded his fist on his chest like he wanted to keep his story straight: I'm the victim. The crowd wasn't sure who to believe.
That afternoon, I decided the bigger punishment was better done in public. Not an ugly private screaming match, but a full, clean, glorious exposure. I planned it down to the last detail.
The week of finals, our school had a small celebration for seniors. I turned up with a notebook and a calm face.
"Wade will apologize," he said earlier in the week. "He said he'll make it right."
He had a new plan in his head: win me back and hide everything. He thought tears were currency.
Instead, we held a small, impromptu "clearing" in the courtyard — two friends, one stage, ten minutes, and about fifty students gathered. I announced nothing. I only asked for the courtyard speaker and everyone to be quiet.
"Wade Callahan," I said into the microphone, voice steady. "You have been very kind to me in public."
"Kay—" he said, bewildered.
"And you have been very kind to me in private." The lenses let me see the truth again, but I kept them out of my eyes this time; I was stronger with the facts in my hand.
"You are under no contract to tell the truth," Wade blurted, trying to take control.
"Then here's the truth," I said. I had printed receipts into a neat stack. I held one up and let people read. "Here are the receipts for the shoes, the jacket, the dinners. Thirty-three thousand." I turned another page. "Here are the messages where you asked me to be your sponsor. These are the photos of the gifts. This is the bank transfer you asked me to make."
A murmur rose. People read. Some covered mouths. Olivia whispered, "She counted it all."
"You—" Wade stammered.
"Do you remember the words you used?" I asked. "Do you remember the moments you told me I was ugly? The times you smiled and called me 'baby' in public while thinking of me as an ATM?"
Wade's face changed in three beats: denial, rage, then panic. "That's not—"
"Isn't what?" I asked. My voice kept steady. Around us, the courtyard filled with an audience. Phones surfaced like flowers. People recorded.
Wade's denial turned to desperate bargaining. "Kay, please. Those were—those were jokes. You know I love you."
Egan stood a few steps away; his jaw tightened. He had come because I texted him a strange, single line: Meet me. He knew enough.
"You expect me to eat your jokes now?" I said. "You called me ugly to make yourself feel big. You took my money and bought things to buy my silence. You thought nobody would notice."
His lips trembled. He tried to smile, then stopped. Sweat beaded along his forehead. His hands clawed at empty air.
"Look at the faces," I said. "Look at the people who are listening. Do you really think a fake apology now will fix this?"
Someone shouted, "Prove it!" Another yelled, "We want to hear him apologize on record!"
Wade's hand went to his phone; he fumbled. He had no prepared words for this. He had only practiced manipulations in close rooms.
Then he lunged. "You're a liar, Kay! You used me!"
A chorus of boos rose. I stayed calm. I had thought of this a hundred times. He had to be exposed more than verbally—he had to lose the thing he coveted most: reputation.
"Egan," I said suddenly into the microphone, and the name cut through the noise.
Egan looked stunned for a moment, then approached. I took his hand and raised it slightly. "Egan, will you tell them what you know? Will you tell them what he said when he thought no one could hear?"
Egan said nothing for a second. Then he looked straight at Wade. "He told Kay to buy him shoes so people would think he had support. He told me once that he doesn't love her if she isn't useful."
Another shout. Phones clicked faster.
Wade's face went blank. He tried to retort, "You can't—"
"You said it," Egan pressed, locating the exact words. "You said, 'If it weren't for money, who would stay with you?' I heard you. I watched you charm people when you needed cash and sneer when you didn't."
For a moment, Wade was silent. Then fury snapped in his eyes. He lunged toward Egan.
"Don't," I said. "Stop."
He tried to take Egan by the collar; hands flew. People pulled out phones. Some students pushed Wade back. He stumbled, red-faced, desperate. Someone recorded his face raw, unpracticed, unraveling. The audio picked up his words: "I—it's not like that—"
People laughed, then fell silent. There was a strange rhythm to the crowd: pity, outrage, then a flat, new understanding. Wade tried the old move—kneel, beg.
"Please forgive me—" he whimpered. "I—I'll give it all back. Kay, I'm sorry."
The change in his voice was visible. He looked like someone watching a mask burn on his face. The crowd's reaction was volcanic.
"Get off me!" a girl hissed. "We heard him."
Wade reached for me. I stepped back. My hand was steady. I was angry, but I was not cruel. I wanted justice, not revenge for humiliation.
Then they began to name details. A friend of his from class, who had seen him pocket money from a birthday collection, spoke up. "He asked me to hang onto gifts so no one would know he took them." Another boy showed messages where Wade had sent a screenshot of a bank balance and asked for a 'favor'.
Wade's smile collapsed completely. His face morphed: self-pity, then accusation, then an almost animal panic as his social standing began to fall apart. He looked at the phones filming him, at the people who had once cheered him on in the cafeteria. They looked back like strangers.
"I—" he tried to speak. Denial came, then a brief attempt at projection. "You're making this up."
Someone in the crowd shouted, "Show us your transfer history."
He could not.
Then a girl pointed at his shoes. "She bought those for you and you gave them to someone else. Why would she?" The truth landed like a bell.
Faces turned to Wade with a cold clarity. No one clapped. Some students scrawled comments in group chats. "How could he?" one boy murmured.
Wade's world contracted. He dropped to his knees, then to a full collapse, hands over his head. He began to sob like a child. People stepped back, uncertain. Some recorded. Some turned away. A few older students muttered, "He had it coming."
A teacher, Elias Evans, who had been watching from the side, crossed to the circle. He removed the mic gently. "This is a personal matter," he said, voice steady. "But if anyone's been harmed, the school has procedures."
Wade's reaction changed again. He suddenly looked furious at the teacher, then begged, then recoiled. "You're ruining my future," he spat. "You're bullies!"
"You're the one who spent other people's kindness," I said softly. "And you thought nobody would ever notice."
He tried to shout and then crumpled. The punishment was not physical. It was exposure, slow and unforgiving. He had to watch his facade unravel where friends, classmates, and teachers could see.
For ten minutes, the crowd discussed, recorded, and judged. Wade's tone shifted from pride to pleading to broken denial. Each change carved him smaller in the public eye.
I watched his face finally crack into raw regret. He fell silent, wiped his face, and left like a man losing his last cloak. Students whispered as he passed. Some hissed. Some ignored him. One girl spat, "Serves you right." A few brave ones clapped—quiet, ironic, not kind.
When he had gone, the courtyard did not applaud my victory. It hummed with a strange empathy for the way someone could teach themselves to be cruel and then be faced with their truth.
Egan stayed close. He held my hand in a way that said, I saw you. I didn't step on you.
"Wade will have to answer to people who care about fairness," Egan said later. "There are ways to make him pay and grow up."
"Not just pay," I said. "I don't want him broken. I want him to stop being so small."
Egan nodded. "Then let's make sure he can't hurt you again. And let's make sure he can't hurt others."
After that day, Wade retreated into a smaller world. People gossiped; he became the boy who had been exposed. He went to therapy or at least to somewhere he could not charm the truth away. He tried to call me until I blocked him. He came by once, sobbing, and asked for the money back. I gave him only what he had truly spent on me: his dignity.
Egan never made a public speech. He made small, steady things: coffee when I studied, strawberry candies in my jacket, a hand on my back when I needed it. He worked delivery, left at dawn, and came back with stories about old ladies and lost packages, about how he could fix a fender on a bike and hustle midnight orders. He was honest about his failures and stubborn about trying.
"Why did you help me then?" I asked him once when we sat on the rooftop and watched the city light up.
He shrugged. "Because you sat under desks. Because you cried when you thought no one was watching. Because you gave people things without asking, and they didn't notice—until they did."
"And the lenses?" I asked.
He smiled slightly. "I saw them in your room. I tried them once. They didn't show me much. Maybe I was the kind of person they didn't need to explain."
"Or maybe," I said, "they stopped working for people who love you."
He kissed my forehead gently.
I kept the strawberry hair tie in my drawer. I kept a lens box on my shelf with the name of the shop faded. The lenses lasted a month. They taught me how many people wear masks. They taught me to trust my hands and my ledger more than a pump of sweet words.
Graduation came. Wade's face was a worry that finally faded into the background. He sent a text that said only, "I'm sorry." I didn't answer. Egan stood next to me as the diploma was handed over. He whispered, "You did it."
A year later, Wade showed up at a small hearing the school arranged. He had a new expression—older, humbler. He stood and apologized publicly, voice raw, not for the gifts but for the calculus of his choices.
"It wasn't about money," he said. "It was about what I thought success looked like. I took from those who trusted me. I'm sorry."
People listened. Some forgave. Some didn't. He left the stage smaller but steadier than when he had arrived.
"Do you ever want to talk to him?" Egan asked later.
"No," I said. "But I want him to know the smallest thing: kindness is not currency."
Egan's hand tightened around mine.
We moved into the small apartment near the university. It was pink and cozy and full of strawberry-scented soap that his mother had found. Julia Beck, a cousin of his—who played the aunt role—came by once and knitted a ridiculous pink scarf for me. Lenora Foster, my mother, cried and told everyone we were "the cutest" until I hid her phone.
One evening, months after everything, I found another pair of lenses on Egan's shelf. He had bought them and then left them there, perhaps to remind me that truth can be chosen.
"Do you want them?" he asked.
"No," I said. "I've learned to see."
He smiled. "Good. Then keep the hair tie."
We laughed. He tucked my strawberry hair tie into his pocket like it mattered.
Not everything is tidy. Wade left messages sometimes, apologizing, telling me about small changes—counseling, returning gifts, working to be better. I believed that a person can be reshaped, as long as they didn't settle into cruelty again.
"One day you'll meet someone who changes you in every good way," Egan said one afternoon.
"I already have," I said.
He kissed my knuckles and tucked my hair brush into the drawer. On it lay a strawberry hair tie and the soft imprint of a man who had proved he could snap into kindness. I put the hair tie on my wrist.
At night, long after the lenses had stopped showing me other people's inner voices, I would sometimes take them out and hold them to the light.
"They're tiny, aren't they?" Egan would ask.
"Very tiny," I would answer.
We kept living in small, careful ways—dinners shared, study sessions, quiet apologies to the world for times we had been small. The lenses had closed their month. The hair tie became my proof that small things can be seeds for much better gardens.
And once, when I was sick and frail, Egan took off his jacket and wrapped me in it. He smelled like strawberries, like home. He kissed the tip of my nose and said, "You wore that hair tie on our first real day out."
I smiled and touched the scrunchie on my wrist. "I lost it. You found it."
He looked at me with that quiet, fierce expression and said, "I keep the things that matter."
I didn't need the lenses anymore. I had a ledger, a heart that learned, and a boy who would argue with the world on my behalf. The last thing I heard before sleep some nights was the tiny "pop" when I tied the strawberry hair tie on my wrist—like a punctuation mark at the end of a long, honest sentence.
I went on counting receipts when I needed to, but mostly I counted small moments: the strawberry sticker on his delivery box, the way he hummed when he folded a shirt, the quiet nothings that made the loud things meaningless.
When Wade walked past campus one afternoon months later, he didn't look at me. People remembered.
I did not shout. I simply tightened the strawberry hair tie around my wrist, felt the small loop, and let the memory stack up into something solid, useful, and sweet.
This story is about a lost strawberry hair tie, a pair of lenses that showed the truth for a month, and a choice to stop being used. It is about how exposure can punish and redeem, how kindness is not bought, and how the quiet boy who smelled of strawberries taught me to see.
The End
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