He Took Me to a Waterfall for Our Anniversary—But It Wasn’t Me He Brought It For
On our first anniversary, Eli surprised me with breakfast in bed and a spontaneous road trip. It felt romantic, like the start of a new chapter. But as the miles passed, he grew quieter, lost in thought, his smile fading into something distant. We ended up at a secluded waterfall, hidden deep in the woods. The air was still, heavy. As we walked among the trees, I spotted it—a heart carved into the bark. His name. And a woman’s name that wasn’t mine. Everything in me stilled. I turned to him, heart pounding, waiting for an explanation I wasn’t sure I wanted. The silence between us stretched, then cracked as he finally began to speak…
On the morning of our first anniversary, Eli woke me with a tray balanced in his hands — cinnamon toast, crispy bacon, and fresh-squeezed orange juice. He grinned, boyish and proud. “Get dressed. We’re going on a drive.”
I thought it meant something. I thought maybe he was ready — ready to move forward, to choose us without reservation. The kind of gesture that says, I see you. I want this. But as the miles rolled by and the conversations stayed shallow, I began to feel it: this journey wasn’t really about celebrating us. It was something else entirely.
We passed cornfields and weather-worn barns, skies stretched wide over endless quiet. Eli’s smile seemed distant, like it belonged to someone else, someone who wasn’t sitting beside me at all. When I pointed out patches of wildflowers along the highway, he barely looked. Instead, he kept scanning the landscape — eyes drawn to hills, turns, and wooded spots that meant nothing to me but clearly carried weight for him.
I didn’t know where we were going until we got there.
