On the morning of Valentine’s Day, Kate stepped outside expecting nothing unusual. Maybe a quiet day, a simple dinner, the same predictable routine she and Brandon had settled into after 28 years of marriage. But what she found was something else entirely.
Her car was covered—completely plastered—with hundreds of pink paper hearts. They fluttered slightly in the breeze, clinging stubbornly to the windows, mirrors, and doors. It looked like something out of a teenage romance movie, like a love-drunk admirer had gone overboard with their confession.
For a brief, silly moment, her heart leaped.
Had Brandon done this? After all these years?
Excited, she hurried toward her car, her fingers itching to pull one of the hearts free. Maybe inside each heart was a little love note? A sweet message? A rekindled spark of romance?
She picked the first one and flipped it open.
Her breath caught in her throat.
The message inside was short. Sharp. Brutal.
Your husband is a liar.
Her hands trembled as she ripped another heart from the window.
Brandon only loves me.
A sick feeling crawled up her spine as she yanked at another.
He’ll never tell you the truth.
The world tilted slightly, her stomach twisting into painful knots. This wasn’t a prank. This wasn’t a joke. Someone had gone through the trouble of writing these messages—each one a dagger aimed straight at her heart.
She frantically pulled at the hearts, her fingers sticky with the thick glue they had used to plaster them to her car. The adhesive refused to let go easily, leaving behind ugly smears across the paint. The more she tore off, the worse her car looked.
Her heart pounded wildly. This can’t be real. This can’t be happening.
Then she noticed the curtains shifting in the windows of the nearby houses. The neighbors had already seen. They had woken up, looked outside, and taken in the sight of her humiliation long before she even had the chance to understand it herself.
She swallowed hard and forced herself to look up at her own house.
Brandon was standing at the window, watching her.
She turned back to the car and pulled one final heart, her fingers trembling.
He’ll never choose you.
Tears blurred the letters. The words danced cruelly in front of her eyes, each one stabbing deeper than the last.
Happy Valentine’s Day to me.
She spun around, stormed back into the house, and slammed the door behind her. Her pulse pounded in her ears as she marched straight into the kitchen, where Brandon sat at the counter, casually scrolling through his phone, sipping his coffee as if nothing had happened.
She threw one of the paper hearts onto the counter.
“What the hell is this, Brandon?” she demanded, her voice shaking with barely contained fury.
He barely glanced at the paper before sighing. “What are you talking about?” he said, setting his coffee down. “I don’t know who did this.”
Kate let out a sharp, bitter laugh. “Are you serious? You saw me from the window, didn’t you? You watched me pull these off my car! These notes—they’re about you, Brandon. About you and some other woman. So tell me—do you really not know who did this?”
Brandon picked up one of the hearts, read the message, and set it down with a shrug. “It’s probably a prank. Some stupid kids messing around.”
Liar.
Kate knew that tone. That calm, measured voice he used when he wanted her to doubt herself. When he wanted to make her second-guess her own instincts.
Not this time.
She turned sharply and stormed into the living room. Her fingers flew over the security monitor controls as she rewound the footage from the night before.
And there she was.
Linda.
Their neighbor.
At 3 a.m., under the dim glow of the streetlights, she had been the one sticking the hearts onto the car, pressing them firmly into place.
Kate’s breath hitched. Linda? And Brandon?
Her mind reeled, grasping for any moment, any sign she might have missed. The way Linda was always outside when Brandon left for work. The way she always seemed to know too much about their lives. How had she never put it together?
Her vision tunneled, rage surging through her veins. If Brandon wouldn’t give her answers, she knew exactly who would.
She stormed next door, her fist banging against Linda’s door so hard it rattled.
A few seconds later, the door swung open, and Linda stood there. Her face was pale, her eyes red and swollen. She had been crying. She already knew why Kate was there.
Kate clenched her jaw. “How long?” she asked, forcing her voice to stay even.
Linda swallowed hard, her lip trembling. “Twenty years.”
The ground beneath Kate felt unsteady. No. That can’t be true.
She shook her head. “You’re lying.”
Linda let out a shaky, bitter laugh. “I wish I was.”
She looked Kate in the eye and spoke again. “He told me he’d leave you. Over and over again, for two whole decades. He just needed the right moment. He said you weren’t well… that you couldn’t handle a divorce. That he had to stay because he felt sorry for you. I can prove it.”
Kate’s breath came in short, ragged gasps. Twenty years.
Without another word, she turned and rushed home. Brandon was still in the living room, still scrolling through his phone like nothing had happened.
“Linda just told me everything,” she said, her voice cold.
Brandon barely looked up. “She’s lying.”
“Prove it.”
His eyes flickered. “What?”
“Prove it.” Kate stepped closer. “Because Linda has twenty years’ worth of stories. She told me how you needed the right moment to leave me. And I’m sure she has a lot more to say.”
Brandon’s face didn’t change. No panic. No anger. Just that same maddening calm. “I swear to you, Kate. I have never been with her.”
Kate studied his face, searching for a flicker of guilt. But there was nothing.
Without another word, she turned and marched back to Linda’s house.
Linda was already waiting. Without hesitation, she handed Kate her phone.
And there it was.
Photos. Videos. Messages.
But in the end, when the lawyers examined them, the truth came out.
It had all been fake.
Linda had spent twenty years obsessed with a man who had never been hers. She had fabricated everything.
Kate sued her for the damage to her car. They got a restraining order.
But at night, when the house was quiet and Brandon lay asleep beside her, Kate stared at the ceiling and wondered—
What if the lawyers were wrong?
What if, buried beneath all of Linda’s lies… was one single truth?
