Valentine’s Day was supposed to be simple: dinner, maybe dessert, and nothing else. But I left that restaurant thinking my life had just shattered—and I had no idea the night was about to get even stranger.
My name is Briar. I’m 28. I’m deep into an EMT course, the kind that doesn’t just test your skills—it tests your heart, your focus, and your stamina. This is the first thing I’ve wanted this badly since I was a kid.
I had quit my job because my boyfriend, Jace, insisted. “Briar, you’re burning out,” he said. “Let me handle rent while you focus. Two months, and you’re certified.”
I had protested, of course. “What if something happens?”
“Nothing’s going to happen,” he had said.
Something happened.
He took me to a candlelit restaurant that looked like it was straight out of a romance movie. Roses everywhere, soft music floating through the air, couples staring at each other like they were the only two people alive. The waiter even called us “lovebirds,” and I almost melted into my chair.
I poked at my pasta. My stomach felt like it was tumbling down a flight of stairs. Jace kept smiling too hard, sipping his wine faster than I thought humanly possible.
Then, halfway through, he set his fork down.
“Briar… I don’t think I’m in this the way you are,” he said calmly.
I blinked at him. “Are you serious?”
“I’m not fighting. I’m asking what you mean,” he replied.
Four years. Reduced to “not excited.”
“Not excited,” I repeated, my voice sharp.
He rubbed his forehead. “I’m not saying I regret supporting you. I’m saying I can’t do it anymore.”
My hands shook. “So… you waited until Valentine’s Day, in public, to tell me you’re done?”
“It’s not like that,” he said.
“What is it, then?”
“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “I just don’t feel it.”
Something in me just… gave up. If he wanted to leave, I couldn’t force him to stay.
“Can we talk like adults?” he said.
“Okay,” I answered.
“Okay?” he asked, relieved.
“Okay. Then we’re done.”
“Briar—”
I grabbed my coat. “Enjoy your wine.”
I couldn’t go home. Home was our apartment. Home was everything I’d been counting on for the last months: my EMT book on the table, the calendar counting down to my final assessment. Standing still felt like drowning.
Outside, the world mocked me. Cold air hit like a shock to the system. Hearts in windows. Couples holding flowers like trophies. Two months left. No job. No safety net big enough for this kind of heartbreak.
I kept walking. Then I heard it: a wet, awful wheeze from an alley between a bar and a boutique. At first, I thought it was a drunk guy. Then I saw him: a man crumpled near a dumpster, convulsing.
People just stood there, staring.
“Oh my God, he smells,” a woman whispered, covering her nose.
“Don’t touch him,” a man muttered. “He probably has something.”
I dropped to my knees. “CALL 911!”
A teenager fumbled with his phone. “Okay, okay!”
I checked him. Scene safe. Breathing shallow, pulse weak, lips blue. My training kicked in. I laced my hands and started compressions, counting out loud, ignoring the stares.
Paramedics finally arrived, rushing in with that clipped, confident energy that makes you believe in the system. One of them dropped beside me.
“You started compressions?” he asked.
“Yes,” I panted. “No effective breathing. Weak pulse. Cyanotic.”
“Good work,” he said, eyes sharp but approving. They took over—oxygen, bagging, monitor—everything moving in precise rhythm.
They lifted him onto a stretcher. His eyes fluttered open, locked on me.
“Marker,” he rasped.
I leaned in. “What?”
The next morning, there was a knock at my door. Someone shoved a marker into my hand. “Your name. Write it. So I don’t forget.”
I wrote it on the inside of his wrist: BRIAR. He stared at it like it was a lifeline. Then the ambulance doors shut.
I walked home like I was underwater. I cried in the shower until my throat hurt—not just for Jace, not just for heartbreak—but for the fragile, messy human moments I’d witnessed.
Then, the next morning, there was another knock.
I opened the door. A black limo sat at the curb. And there he was: clean, put together, alive.
“You’re the woman who saved my life yesterday, right?”
I blinked. “Either I hit my head, or you’re about to sell me something.”
“Murray from the dumpster,” he said, huffing a laugh.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
“I need help,” he said. “I have money, but I don’t have trust. I’m surrounded by staff, lawyers, advisors. I need someone who isn’t impressed. Someone who’ll tell me when something feels off.”
“And you picked me because I did CPR?”
“No,” he said. “I picked you because you acted like a human being mattered.”
He offered me a temporary job: part-time at his family estate, sit in meetings, take notes, ask questions, speak up if my gut screamed.
I blinked. “I’m in an EMT course. Two months left. I’m not quitting.”
“Agreed,” he said. “If anything feels weird, you’re out. Written contract, reviewed by someone who isn’t my lawyer.”
I nodded. “Fair. I’ll ride with you. I’ll see the place. If anything feels weird, I’m out.”
“This is Briar. She saved my life,” Murray told the groundskeeper when we arrived.
“Yep,” I said.
Weeks passed. I became Murray’s boundary, his sounding board. I asked questions. Called out agendas. Challenged urgency. And all the while, Jace texted, like he was doing me a favor.
When it came time to move my things out, I was precise. Boxes labeled. Inventory printed. Jace looked like he’d swallowed a lemon.
“Nope,” I said. “Start with the TV.”
“You’re intense,” his friend said.
“I’m accurate,” I replied. Loud enough for the hallway: “You’re not taking the laptop. I bought that before you moved in.”
I worked nights at a clinic, studied relentlessly, finished my course without his money. Sometimes Murray’s driver gave me rides when timing was tight. He never made it weird. He just made space.
Two months later, I passed my final assessment. I walked out shaking, not from fear, but relief. I had done it. On my own.
That night, I went back to the apartment for the last of my things. I called my friend first. Then Murray.
“I passed,” I said, voice cracking.
“Of course you did,” he replied, quiet but sure.
In the lobby, I ran into Jace.
“So… you’re doing okay?” he asked, like he expected me to crumble.
“Yeah. I am.”
He frowned. “Hmm. I guess you never really needed me. Maybe you were just using me.”
“I needed support,” I said. “You offered it. Then you pulled it. But I never asked for any of it. You offered.”
He opened his mouth. I raised a hand. “Don’t.”
I stepped into the cold. It didn’t feel like punishment anymore. I had taken hold of my life. I was proud.
The weather was still cold, but it was getting warmer. And for the first time in a long time, I wasn’t waiting for someone else to decide my future.
I was steering my own life. And it felt incredible.