Sweet Romance13 min read
The White Snake, The Firefighter, and the Umbrella That Turned into Water
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I live on the twelfth floor. I never thought a pet snake would decide my apartment is a better place to nap.
"It hissed at me," I told the 119 dispatcher, voice shaking. "A small white snake, like a finger. Please come."
"Stay calm, ma'am," said the voice on the line. "We'll send someone."
I didn't stay calm. I bolted to the living room and kept glancing under the couch.
Someone knocked, then the door opened, and men in helmets filled my doorway like a practiced scene. They moved fast and quiet. One of them walked into my apartment like he owned the place — tall, shoulders broad, hands steady. He had a firefighter's calm.
"Are you the one who called?" he asked.
"Yes." I pointed to my bedroom. "It might be hiding."
He nodded and stepped in. "I'll look. You stay here."
He looked at me for less than a second and added, "You okay being alone?"
Inside, my stomach flipped. I leaned toward him without thinking. "Could you stay? Please."
He looked surprised. "We have a crew, but—"
"Pick anyone then," I said, and my eyes landed on the most handsome one. "Whichever of you is the youngest. He can stay."
The crew laughed quietly, then a taller man in an officer's uniform stepped in from the hallway and called, "Sergeant Easton, come here. Look who I found."
The room went silent except for my heartbeat. The man who'd just been looking through my drawers turned toward the doorway. He saw me, and his mouth formed a flat line. He said one short sentence like a stone thrown into still water.
"That girl is the one who dumped my ex," he said.
Every man in the room turned their eyes on me. The handsome firefighter I had chosen stepped back as if he'd been burned.
"Is that so?" the officer — Easton Krueger — said. He looked at me like he was measuring me, like he'd been doing that since college.
"Did I—" I tried to keep my smile in place. "Why would you say I'm a—"
"Just flirted, never settled," he said. "Pretty bad."
The words stabbed. I had done that. Three years ago, in that childish, loud way we call love, I'd pursued him hard. He had refused. I had made mistakes. I said, "Easton, how did I hurt you?"
He shrugged, searching the sofa corners. "You just flirted without meaning to."
Later, once the crew had searched my apartment seven times and the snake wasn't found, Easton lingered.
"You sure you can be alone?" he asked.
"I can't," I said. "If you leave, I'll be terrified."
He hesitated. "I'll stay for a while."
He pulled the couch closer to the door and sat like a statue. He had a cigarette, and when he leaned on the balcony rail, the city lights painted his jaw height. He looked older, quieter. Once, in college, he had been all careless smiles and white shirts; now, his face kept a practiced shield.
"I used to tell you to stay away," he said suddenly.
"You did," I answered. "You said, 'Kiana, I'm not a good man.'"
"I did," he said. "I meant it then."
"Then why are you here?"
He sucked in his breath and didn't answer.
When midnight came, I found the snake curled on my pillow like a pale ring. It flicked its tongue and stared at me. I very nearly screamed. I grabbed my phone and called 119 again, panicked.
Easton came running.
"Stay back," he said, and he was brusque and calm. He searched everywhere, took my hand when I trembled, and joked with the crew in a way that made them loosen up.
"Maybe it's in the wardrobe," he suggested. "Open every little corner."
He dug through my clothes with a respectful carefulness that still made me flush. He found my underwear pile and gave a crooked half laugh, which embarrassed me into remembering a night three years ago.
"You pervert," I said.
"You're worse," he shot back.
We laughed, and the sound slid between us like water.
Hours passed. The snake remained missing in action. When Easton finally said he had to return to the station, I was stubborn.
"Stay," I begged. "Please."
He looked at me with that raspy look that could be kind or cold. "Does your boyfriend know you invite other men to sleep over?"
My face went hot. "I don't have a boyfriend."
He caught my wrist gently, but firmly. "Then let me stay. Just tonight."
"Fine," I said, and I dragged him like a guilty child into my living room.
He watched me change into something that wasn't really pajamas and sat like a man thinking a difficult thought. I should have been embarrassed. Instead I was thrilled. He was close, and the scent of him was like a promise.
"Can you sleep on the couch?" I asked, silly and hopeful.
He answered a different question. "Do you still like to ride on the back of a motorcycle?"
"What? No." My cheeks burned.
"Back then you used to. You'd cling like you owned me."
"You're impossible."
He smiled once, small and almost ashamed. "I know."
Then, without warning, I screamed. A white shape slithered across the sink in the bathroom. I jumped onto Easton's chest like a scared cat, wrapping my legs around him.
"There's one!" I shrieked.
"Down, Kiana," Easton said, but his voice had an edge. "Don't move." He wrestled into the bathroom, found only a crooked hanger and a flash of white plastic. He returned, wet hair, a ridiculous expression.
"No snake?" I asked, disappointed and relieved.
Before dawn, the owners of the snake — Boris Kraus, who lives on the seventeenth floor — announced in the owners' chat that the snake had been found, hiding in an elderly neighbor's bathroom on the eighth floor. The neighbor had screamed; everyone called everyone else. It became the building's drama for two days.
"See?" Easton said as I made coffee. "You can lock your doors now."
"You could have left earlier," I said.
"I wanted to make sure you didn't go scream again."
I was furious and warm at once. I owed him three thousand in gratitude because he lent me money to stay at a hotel when I couldn't sleep, and he refused to take it back.
"You're too proud to ask first," I said.
"Someone has to be," he said, and that made my chest ache.
For days, I watched Easton from afar. He trained on the block below like a god of sweat and motion. I took pictures — silly, private ones — and hid them on my phone like trophies.
He caught me with my phone once.
"Give it," he said.
"No."
He came closer and grabbed it like a thief. When he saw my photo album filled with pictures of him, his face went — for a second — soft and puzzled.
"You deleted them," I snapped, and I couldn't stop the hot sting of tears.
"Why did you keep them in secret?" he asked.
"Because I was ashamed," I said.
"Of what?"
"Of liking you."
He searched my face like a cartographer. Then he surprised me by deleting nothing. Instead he put the phone back.
"Stop acting ashamed," he said. "Act like you mean it."
I tried to be tougher. I stopped going near the station and started drinking with Gianna and her brother Jackson. We played games, we partied. I uploaded a photo of Jackson's younger face to make Easton jealous.
"You're playing dangerous,” Gianna said.
"Good," I answered. "Maybe he should play more."
At a bar, I saw Jaxon Mustafa. He had been my classmate who once courted me. He found every chance to speak up in my life at the wrong time. He sat at a nearby table and made snide remarks loud enough for everyone to hear.
"Isn't that the one who chased Easton like a stray dog?" he said.
Gianna muttered to me, "He used to like you in college. Now he talks bad about both of you."
"Move on," I said.
"Maybe," Jaxon said, and he smiled like my patience was his joke. "You know, Kiana, you've always been dramatic. The whole building thinks you are funny."
I was about to tell him off when the lights flicked and the night seemed to tilt. Easton found me by the bar.
"Who is he?" he asked simply.
"An idiot," I answered.
Easton sat and poured his hand over mine.
"Don't humiliate him," he said in a strange voice. "Humiliation is ugly."
"Easton, are you jealous?" I teased.
He didn't answer. Then he kissed me. It was rough and swift, like a hand gripping a ledge.
"You jerk!" I said, but my toes curled.
He pulled me into his arms like he wouldn't let go.
After that, we shuffled through an awkward calendar of closeness and distance. He would be sweet sometimes, then cold the next. He gave me small gifts — random snacks, a jacket that smelled like smoke and way more than flame. He would come to my apartment unannounced, and then go mute for a day.
Once, I wanted him to be mine. I put on a dress and tried to be brave. The night cracked open when I saw him at a restaurant with a woman and a child. I froze like a fish on a shore. The child's tiny voice, "Daddy," slid like ice down a stair. I ran away, mortified, heart bleeding.
I turned off my phone. For a whole night, I sat on the street and cried until an older man gave me milk tea with a friendly fuss.
When I returned home, Easton was waiting, leaning against the wall, cigarette smoke curling around his shoulders like a cape.
"Where did you go?" he demanded.
"Does it matter?" I shouted back.
"Yes," he said. "Because you shut me out."
I slammed the door and told him off, words I had never used before. I wanted to be cruel, but he only looked at me and said, "I'll show you."
That night, his friends arrived at my building with proof. The woman with the child was Kristina Pettersson. She walked in smiling brightly and carried family papers like a prop. "This is my husband, York Wood," she said, showing a marriage certificate, and "this is our son."
Everything unspooled inside me. She had the wrong man. She and her husband thought Easton was their neighbor's cousin. They'd come to clear a misunderstanding because Easton had helped them during a hospital visit. Their explanation was old-fashioned and loud and embarrassingly thorough.
"It was a confusion," Kristina said. "Easton came with us to the hospital. He took my son to see a movie. He didn't tell me any of his friends. We didn't know there was a past."
I sat down with my face in my hands. Easton came to the kitchen and brought me a bowl of noodles. He looked at me like a man who had wanted to be less complicated for a long time.
"I'm sorry," he said. "For everything."
"Why did you run?" I asked.
He looked at me like a man who had been wounded and had learned to keep a bandage. "I was scared," he said. "Of losing you, of losing myself."
We slept that night under awkward sheets and unresolved questions. He was careful in a way I'd never expected. He cooked for me. He called me "Kiana" like it mattered. He gave me a nickname once and then immediately said he hated how shy it made him. He started to show up more and more.
We even went to a temple once. He let me hold his hand as we climbed steps I swore I hated. H e promised me small silly things.
Then the fire season came. One night the team left for a mountain blaze. The whole town watched the news because the fire was close and cruel. I sat in front of the television and waited like my breath was a phone. Hours felt like days. Then a call came.
"Fire under control," Easton said. "No one hurt."
When he returned, I slung my arms around him and felt the hard, hot places on his back — a band of burn scars. He laughed it off but let me tend him. "I'm not a hero," he said, a little proudly. "But I try."
Not long after, we photographed wedding pictures at the firehouse. We wore boots and a dress and a uniform, and in the middle of it, one of his men played a joke and water fell like a mild rain from a clear umbrella. It drenched us. We laughed until we were hoarse.
The day we married, his team came in full uniform, not because they had to — no one was on call — but because they wanted to stand with him as he stood with me. We said "I do" without fireworks and with many quiet promises.
But there was more to be done. Jaxon Mustafa kept following me. He sent messages, showed up with flowers, refused to leave me alone. He knocked on doors, sat in lobbies. He tried to push friendship into something ugly.
He thought he could scare me into attention. Instead, I told Easton, and he did what he always did: he acted. But this time, he acted in front of everyone.
The Public Reckoning of Jaxon Mustafa
It happened at Gianna's housewarming, a small party we threw to celebrate summer. I was nervous because Jaxon had been bringing us trouble for weeks. Gianna had insisted we host to make a point — that this community wouldn't be intimidated.
"Just tell him to leave," Gianna said when she saw my face. "We have friends. We have Easton. You're not alone."
"He's annoying," I said, but I felt small.
The living room was full of people. Jackson Sanchez had brought six young men from the team — Mateo Kato, Wei Robin, York Wood, Jaxson Gibson among them — to make sure we were safe. The backyard lights strung like stars, and the smell of grilled meat drifted. Someone put on a playlist. People talked and laughed. I thought it would be fine.
Then Jaxon walked in like he owned the air. He smiled at everyone as if this house were his medal. He tried to sidle up to me and say some joking thing.
"Hey, Kiana," he said loudly. "Looks like you're living the dream."
I turned away. "Please leave," I said quietly.
He laughed. "You always were dramatic," he said.
Easton stepped between us like iron. "You need to leave," he told Jaxon.
"Why?" Jaxon said. He turned with a showman's grin. "Because I asked a simple question?"
"Because you won't stop," Easton said. "Because you've been following Kiana, calling her, coming to her work, ignoring every 'no'."
Jaxon smiled like he was delivering a line from a script. "What's wrong with being persistent? You people are overreacting."
"You're harassing her," I said. My voice shook. I couldn't believe I was the one talking public words. "You texted my friends, you yelled at our door, you grabbed my phone."
"That's not true," Jaxon said. "She deletes texts. She plays coy."
At that, Gianna walked up. "Any proof he did what she says?" she asked plainly.
Easton motioned toward Jackson. "Jackson, show them."
My heart thumped as Jackson took out his phone and pressed something. "Watch," he said.
He projected the messages to the living room's big screen. Jaxon's words scrolled: "Where are you?" "I know you're at this bar." "Don't make me come." "Why are you ignoring me?" There were times he wrote in the middle of the night. There were screenshots of him outside Kiana's building. There were voice messages that grew angrier and more urgent.
The room's laughter died. People exchanged looks. Jaxon grew pale as his own words filled the air.
"Those are fake," he said weakly. "I didn't—"
"Too late," Easton said. "They exist."
"Maybe she seduced me," Jaxon blurted, grasping at shame in a public theater of truth. "We used to be... I thought—"
People who had been laughing minutes ago now leaned in like a jury at trial. "That's abuse of attention," someone murmured. "You should be ashamed."
Jaxon started to pace, buying air. His speech moved from indignation to denial. "I didn't do anything wrong! You're ruining my life!"
"No," one neighbor said loudly. "You chose to stalk someone. You walked into a closed space. You left voicemails. You didn't stop."
A woman stood up and put her hand on her child's shoulder. "My daughter sees her friends with these messages. We don't want that for our kids."
Jaxon began to sweat. "You're lying. She wants attention. She flirted with me."
"She told you 'no'," Easton said. He had the crowd's attention like a conductor. "You kept showing up. That's the truth."
The change in Jaxon's face was slow, like ice melting into flood. First there was forced bravado. Then a flicker of fear. Then denial. Then a frantic scramble to rewrite history.
"I didn't mean to—" he stammered. "I was only trying to be nice. You people always gang up!"
"Neighbors," Easton said loudly, "tell him to leave."
Two of Kiana's neighbors stood. They had seen him in the hallways. They joined the chorus: "Not welcome."
Jaxon broke. He segued from fury to tears. "Please," he begged. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—"
Phones came out. Some held them up for pictures. "Documenting," someone said. Others talked between themselves. "He should get help." "You can't act like this."
"Do you have nothing to say?" a woman asked, as a few people clapped softly in support.
He knelt down, a ridiculous and pleading image. "I'll change. I'll stop. I'm sorry. Forgive me."
"No," I said. "Leave and get help. Don't come near me."
The crowd reacted. There were enough people who once felt powerless to speak, now with a voice. A man cleared his throat, "We don't accept stalking. If you do it again, we call the police."
"Remember this," Easton said. "You made a choice to ignore 'no'. Now, you see what happens when a community stands up."
Jaxon left like a man whose theater collapsed. On the way out, someone recorded him on their phone. He tried to smile but it came out thin and pale. He tried to protest, "You'll regret this," but the words were drowned out by the neighbors who asked him to go away.
After he left, the group exhaled. People hugged me, patted my shoulder, said things I needed to hear. "You're safe," Gianna said. "We won't let him do that again."
Easton sat down across from me and took my hand. "Are you hurt?" he asked.
"No," I said. "Not now."
He pressed his thumb to my knuckle. "You don't have to fight alone."
That night, Jaxon Mustafa learned the most basic public lesson: his pattern of harassment was visible, and his reputation began to crumble in front of a crowd he'd expected to entertain.
The crowd's reaction moved like this: first surprise, then anger, then scorn, then recording phones. Some neighbors took photos. Some whispered to each other. A woman snapped a picture and posted it privately to a local group with the caption "Watch out for him." The post spread. Co-workers who had only known his public persona started to ask questions. Invitations Jaxon had been meaning to accept were canceled. People who had once been polite now crossed the street. Jaxon tried to rebuild; he sent messages begging to be forgiven; he emailed explanations that read like excuses.
His face changed over days. The earliest day, pride turned to shock. He went from "I am misunderstood" to "I am exposed." He tried to deny. He protested in public chats. Then, when his social circle shrank and his old friends avoided him, he became the person who stood by the window and watched those he'd wanted to impress moving away. He attempted to offer explanations and apologies, but the neighborhood kept its distance. Some people shook their heads. Some simply ignored him.
But the real punishment was not humiliation alone. It was the way neighbors treated him like a known hazard. He was asked to move furniture in community events? No longer invited. Businesses declined his membership in casual clubs. People filmed him when he loitered. The shame was quiet, accumulating like dust.
And when he showed up to the firehouse to apologize to Easton and ask for help, he was met with a calm refusal: "You need to learn boundaries. Go get help." Easton did not slap him. He did not scream. He held him accountable with a steady voice.
The last scene of the public punishment was a short one: Jaxon at the entrance of Gianna's building months later, holding a sign that read "I will not harass," while neighbors solemnly walked past. He tried to read the faces but found only ordinary people with ordinary lives, who had been given strength by just saying "No."
It was a punishment that was social, sharp, and designed to protect. It showed the changes in him as he moved from smugness to disbelief to pleading to lonely repair — and all of it happened in public. The onlookers' reactions varied: shocked gasps, whispers, raised cameras, supportive hugs for me, muttered warnings for him. That day, he stopped being the funny guy everyone once forgave. He became the example of what not to do.
After that, Easton sat with me on my balcony. The night smelled like grilled meat and sea salt. He tucked his head next to mine and said, "Are you all right?"
I nodded. "I am now."
We married months later, with a clear umbrella and the fire crew as our witnesses. At our wedding reception, someone joked and dumped a bucket of water over a transparent umbrella. The water poured down like rain. People laughed. The band played. Easton wiped a drop from my cheek like it was a vow.
"Remember the snake?" he whispered later.
"Yes," I said. "You stayed."
"And you screamed."
We both laughed. The building drama had become our joke. In front of our friends, I took his hand.
"Promise me one thing," I said.
He looked at me, steady. "What?"
"If a snake ever comes back to my apartment, you will still come," I said.
He smiled like he had never smiled in college. "I'll come. I'll bring the whole crew."
I watched him then, this man who had been difficult and quiet and steady for me. He had been tested by fire and by his own fear. He had chosen me despite it all. The white snake, the rain umbrella, the noodles, the unpredictable late-night phone calls, the public reckoning of a man who would not stop — all of it stitched us together.
On the last page of our year, I keep a photo in my wallet: Easton and me under a clear umbrella, drenched in a harmless shower, both of us laughing. The snake never came back. But sometimes I still hear a hiss in the quiet and I smile, because I know he will always come.
The End
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