Valentine’s Day was supposed to be dinner. Instead, my boyfriend dumped me.
I’m Briar, 28, two months from finishing my EMT certification. I’d quit my job because Jace promised to cover rent while I focused. Over candlelight and heart-shaped butter, he shrugged and said, “I just don’t feel it anymore.”
Four years — gone.
I walked out into the cold, doing breakup math in my head, when I heard a horrible wheeze from an alley. A man was down, blue, barely breathing. People watched. No one moved.
I did.
“Call 911!” I yelled, dropping to my knees. Training took over. Compressions. Counting. Burning arms. Sirens.
As they loaded him up, he grabbed my wrist. “Your name,” he rasped.
I wrote BRIAR.
The next morning he knocked on my door — alive, cleaned up, very rich, apparently. Robbed the night before, left for dead.
“I need someone I can trust,” he said. “You.”
I made rules. I wouldn’t quit school. Written contract. I could walk anytime.
Two months later, I passed.
When my ex saw me and tried to rewrite history, I stopped him.
“You offered support,” I said. “Then you pulled it.”
I walked into the cold.
But this time, it felt like spring.