Then came the part about the flowers. She spoke of them casually, almost fondly, recalling annual bouquets Oscar continued sending “out of habit,” as she put it. My heartbeat stuttered, not out of jealousy, but confusion.

Oscar, the man who sometimes forgot to reply to texts but never forgot to water our houseplants, was also the man who remembered to send floral arrangements to an ex? The reveal unsettled me more than anything else she’d shared. Yet something about the way she said it—soft, reflective—made me wonder if the flowers weren’t a declaration of affection, but rather a leftover ritual from a chapter neither of them had fully closed.