On February 14, 1999, I married my high school sweetheart, Jack. I always heard stories about relationships starting in high school that continued out after graduation, but I never believed any of them. Whenever I saw relationships, they always seemed fake and seemed like people were only dating someone to have the label “in a relationship.” I had many boyfriends throughout high school, but all of them ended over stupid things which is why I always thought that you should never date someone in high school. I always stuck to this thought until I met Jack my junior year. Jack seemed different than anyone else I had ever met. At first, it was awkward, like every high school relationship. We would see eachother in the halls once in awhile, and try to not make eye contact with eachother, even though we both knew we wanted to. We had Chemistry together so I knew who he was, but we didn’t talk much. One day, he messaged me on MySpace because that was what was considered “cool” when I was in high school. As we started talking, I knew he was someone who I was interested in. We started dating, went to the same college, and today, we are married. It seemed like a movie and is now my reality.
As such a young couple, Jack and I loved doing things that most couples wouldn’t like to do. We love skydiving, paddle boarding, and ziplining. We are always outside and were always on the go, especially with our jobs. Jack’s job is at a small business that he does a lot of traveling for. I work as a teacher at an elementary school. Teaching kids is my passion and I am so glad that I decided to become a teacher.
I loved having Jack as my husband. He treated me like a princess- bringing me breakfast in bed every Sunday, buying me new clothes when I had nothing to wear, and he even bought me a new car for my 27th birthday. I knew I didn’t deserve all of these wonderful things but how could I say no?
As a couple, we loved giving each other gifts. It was kind of like a tradition for us. Almost every weekend, I would buy him a new clothing item, or his favorite candy- Sour Patch Kids. He would usually get me red roses and chocolate- my favorite. Sometimes, he would surprise me with little notes in different areas of the house so that it would be totally unexpected. It seemed like a scavenger hunt at times and I loved it. At times, it seemed like I was playing with my childhood best friend again. I was always on the lookout for clues on where to find things he hid.
Since Jack travels a lot, he is almost gone every weekend flying across the country going to certain events and conventions. Usually, he leaves Friday’s and comes back late Sunday nights so I am home alone on the weekend usually grading papers and getting all of my lesson plans ready for the upcoming week.
On a Sunday when Jack was in Dallas Texas, my doorbell rang and I didn’t know who it was. The mail didn’t come on Sunday’s so I knew it wasn’t the mailman. I got up off the couch from watching my favorite tv show, The Bachelor, and went to go answer the door. I opened the door and nobody was there. I looked around, yelled, “Hello?”, and went back inside. A few minutes later, the doorbell rang again. This time, I was pretty scared. At first, I thought this was a joke, but now, I had no idea.  I walked slowly to the door and opened it one last time. Again, nobody was there. However, this time, I looked down and saw a boxes with flowers that turned out to be chocolates and roses, my favorite things that Jack usually gets me. I smiled, knew they were from him, picked them up, and walked back into my house. I placed them on the counter and noticed there was a card attached. Normally, Jack doesn’t write notes because he is the only person that sends me anything. I thought that this was just a little extra special something because he was away on a trip. I picked up the card, looked down at it, and immediately was confused. The card read, “From your secret admirer.” Had I just read that right? I had a secret admirer? I was married and definitely wasn’t seeing anyone, I didn’t believe in that. I wasn’t sure if Jack was messing with me or not. We were the type of couple who loved to just joke around with each other, so I hoped that this was just one of his jokes that he always played on me. I didn’t want to call him after I got those gifts because he would be home in a few hours. I had nothing else better to do, so I set the gifts on the counter, and went to take a nap- which was a big mistake.
I woke up to the voice of Jack yelling “What is this?” He found the gifts on the counter and by the tone of his voice, I knew they weren’t from him. I guess I really did have a secret admirer.
I quickly rose from the couch, my hair snarled from my nap with my big and comfy sweats on. I stood facing Jack in the kitchen. His eyebrows turned in, hands on hips, and stared at me with disbelief. At that point, I really didn’t know what to do and I didn’t know what to say, so I just stood there.
Eventually after staring at me for what seemed like an hour, Jack picked up the flowers and chocolates. I didn’t know what was going through his mind. If I caught him getting gifts from another woman, I would be devastated, even though I knew that this was all a mistake. He touched the flowers, looked at them closely, and looked at the types of chocolates that were in the packaging. Ironically, they were my favorite chocolates- milk chocolate clusters with caramel in the middle. Now, I thought, I had to know who was doing this. I couldn’t believe it just so happened that this secret admirer got me not only my favorite flowers, but also my favorite types of chocolates.
I decided to wait a couple minutes before I tried to explain to Jack what had happened, even though I really didn’t even know what happened. I made sure that he could try and get his head wrapped around the idea that his high school sweetheart may have a secret admirer. Eventually, I couldn’t hold my thoughts in any longer, and I just started rambling. I tried to explain to him that this must have been a mistake and it may have been sent to the wrong address. He took a while to comprehend what was happening. Even after my explanation, he just stared. Honestly, I didn’t blame him. I mean, what easier way is there to understand this situation? Finally, after what seemed like forever, he started talking to me and knew this had to be some kind of mistake. We were such a happy couple that neither of us could imagine seeing anyone different. We carried on with the night by eating dinner and watching TV in our pajamas.
The next week was nothing but great for Jack and I. Everything was great. There was nothing that came between us and we were as happy as could be. That week, I made sure that Jack knew that there was no other man in my life and he was the one and only. Our relationship was at a peak, until the next week when something happened that I didn’t expect at all.
A week later, I was making dinner for Jack and me. He was leaving the next morning for another business trip. This trip was to Austin, Texas. I made sure to make a nice dinner and one of his favorites. I decided to make steak and asparagus. Once dinner was ready, I set the table with candles and China silverware. It seemed like we were dining in a five star restaurant. We began eating and Jack loved it. He said it was one of the best meals I had ever made. During the meal, the room was silent because we were too busy eating our food. All of the sudden, the doorbell rang. I wasn’t sure why so I thought it was one of Jack’s business packages. I told Jack to go answer the door because I assumed it was for him. He got up, opened the door, and yelled my name. “Great,” I thought. I didn’t know what I did, but got up to go to the door. As I got to the door, right before my eyes, it was more chocolates and roses. This time, there was no card. My jaw dropped. I poured out my feelings to him the week before and this has to happen? Again, I didn’t know what to say. This time, I really was speechless.
He picked the basket up. It was the same as before, red roses with milk chocolates filled with caramel.  Jack just looked at me- he looked at me for a good thirty seconds. “You have got to be kidding me” he said. I didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t my fault that I was getting these gifts- I didn’t even know who was sending them!
I really had no idea what to do at that point. I had already explained myself to him and he believed me. He obviously wasn’t going to believe me this time around. I didn’t want to look at the gifts anymore, so I headed back into the kitchen to finish my meal in silence. At that point, I didn’t know what Jack was going to do, but I left him alone for the time being. If this happened to me, I wouldn’t want anyone talking to me, so I made sure to respect Jack’s space. While he was collecting all of his thoughts, I finished my dinner and started washing the dishes. After a few minutes, he came back into the kitchen. His face was red, eyebrows turned in, and he looked stressed. He took his plate of food upstairs to finish it because he couldn’t even look at me without thinking about the gifts I was receiving. This was not good timing knowing that he had to leave on his business trip the next day.
The next morning came when Jack had to leave for his business trip.  He was still mad when he left. He didn’t even have the nerve to say goodbye to me That really did bother me, but I wasn’t going to start another fight with him when this was the biggest fight we had ever gotten in. As he walked out to go into the car, he slammed the door, and my heart sank. How was I supposed to explain this to him if I didn’t even know what was happening?
I sat at the table by myself eating a nice breakfast that was over easy eggs, buttered toast, one sausage link, and a glass of chocolate milk. I sat in silence, but I was used to it, especially having Jack gone on the weekends. However, this silence in the house felt different. Guilt was on my shoulders and thoughts kept running through my head. “Should I call him?” I asked myself. I decided not to because I didn’t want to bother him. It just hurt that I wasn’t going to be able to talk to him for two days when I wasn’t even able to talk to him while he was at home.
I got up to wash my dishes from breakfast. Right as I got up, the first thing I saw was the basket sitting on the kitchen counter. All I did was stare at it. I touched the chocolates and smelt the roses. Normally, I could eat the chocolates in a few minutes and would put the flowers in a fancy vase on the kitchen table, but not this time. As I smelt the roses, my stomach started to turn, and my mouth didn’t even start to water once I touched the chocolates. Even after a few days, I couldn’t get over the fact that some person sending me these unexpected gifts may have ruined not only a relationship, but a friendship with my high school sweetheart. Everytime I would walk into the kitchen to get a snack, I would just see those gifts and be reminded of all of the guilt I had gone through the past couple of days, even though none of it was my fault. Towards the end of the day, I had walked past those gifts too many times, and I couldn’t look at them anymore. I didn’t want to just throw them in the garbage, so I decided to throw the basket out the window. The petals of the roses fell off the flowers and the chocolates fell out of the package onto the grass.  Even though those were my favorite things, I couldn’t bear to think that these little gifts could affect my relationship with my high school sweetheart.
Jack got home a few days later and for some reason, he seemed completely fine. It was like this whole situation didn’t even happen. He was back to his old happy self and didn’t seem tense. I was going to address him about the situation, but I kept my mouth shut, which I think was a good move on my part.
A couple weeks went by and no baskets came, not even once, but I definitely wasn’t going to complain. I didn’t know who sent them, the reason they sent them, or why they just stopped sending them. My relationship with Jack got even better once I stopped getting the gifts. I couldn’t be happier, but couldn’t get over the thought that I once had a secret admirer. Who was it?