On Valentine's Day, My Boyfriend Gave Me a Moldy Orange

Valentine's Day.

I'd bought my boyfriend a camera, and he'd posted about it for three days straight.

He was thrilled. He even gave me a gift back, in a fancy little jewelry box.

I opened it, expecting something, and found a moldy orange inside.

A moldy orange? Babe, did you grab the wrong thing?

Nope! I put this together just for you. Surprised?

Clark Sanchez was laughing his head off, and then he explained the meaning behind it.

"You're graduating soon, right? A moldy orange is perfect for your thesis research! Isn't it exactly what you wanted?"

I pressed my lips together. I couldn't force a smile if I tried.

The next second I caught the words on his phone screen: "Family Card charged, 0-0,314." That was when I knew I'd thrown my heart to the dogs.

...

"Forget it. Let's break up."

I shoved the moldy orange back at Clark and reached for the camera.

Clark bristled and grabbed the camera, refusing to let go.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

He frowned at me. He was the one who hadn't bothered, yet he put on the face of someone who'd been wronged.

"Wow, Angela Jenner, how did I never notice how vain you are? What, no cash or jewelry on Valentine's Day, so now you're upset?"

"When did you turn into one of those gold-digger women? And to think I kept telling my friends and family how sensible and thoughtful you were. You really disappoint me."

"You won't even pretend anymore? You flip out on the spot and want to take back the camera you gave me? How do you know I wasn't going to send you a Valentine's transfer later?"

I saw right through him, and I knew he was trying to make me lose my temper on purpose.

So I just pulled up my payment code and held it out for him to scan.

"Then transfer it now."

Clark let out a laugh of pure disbelief.

"Angela, I can give it to you, but you can't be the one asking, you get that? The moment you ask for it, you're in the wrong."

"I'm not asking. You brought it up yourself, didn't you? Getting cold feet again? Or was it all just talk?"

I fired all three questions at him, fast, and Clark went red with fury.

But he still wouldn't let go of the camera, wouldn't give it back.

I was done holding it in. I pulled up the purchase receipt for the camera and showed it to him.

"You posted for three days straight about how much you loved this camera. Wasn't that meant for me to see? I bought it for you. I wasn't expecting a gift of equal value in return, but the least you could do is put some thought into it."

"A camera worth over ten grand, and you give me a moldy orange? You've got some nerve."

My questions turned his face red, so he blew up on purpose to talk over me.

"Enough! Angela, you've become so petty, so obsessed with money."

"Years of us together, and you measure it in cash? Someone else offered three grand for this moldy orange and I wouldn't sell it. I saved it just for you. What more do you want?"

He roared it out, and then, as if afraid of being seen, he quickly pulled on a face mask.

But the whole time he kept clutching the camera, terrified I'd take it back.

"Fine. Everyone else is out enjoying the holiday, and here you are, wrecking everything in one shot. Looks like we're not celebrating today either. Let's both cool off."

"I've got things to do, I'm heading out. I have to cancel the French restaurant for tonight. You've ruined my appetite."

He walked off without hesitation. I got the feeling there was still a smile at the corner of his mouth, and it was a good thing the mask covered it, or he'd have laughed out loud.

Once Clark was gone, I quickly opened his personal video account and dug for any trace.

Eventually, under a video he'd posted not long ago, I found a comment from a girl named Nora Larsen.

Nothing much to it, just a single praise-emoji sticker. Nothing special.

But the moment I clicked into her profile and took one look, I called the police right then and there.

"Hi, is this 911? I need to report a theft. I just lost a camera with a built-in anti-theft tracker, worth over ten thousand dollars. I already have its exact location."

My information was clear, so the police responded fast and came along to help me recover it.

But the tracker kept moving.

One second it jumped from a college women's dorm to some trendy influencer restaurant, then to a French bistro, and finally settled at a couples' hotel.

I couldn't say what I felt sitting in the back of the patrol car, on edge the whole way, my head already filling with pictures I didn't want to see.

Even the officers could tell something was off with me. Nobody spoke the whole ride. They just waited for the traffic to clear so they could get to that hotel.

After nearly twenty minutes stuck in traffic, we finally reached the hotel.

I gave Clark's name at the front desk, but nothing came up.

So I tried Nora Larsen's name instead, and the desk got a hit right away.

"Yeah, she checked in not long ago. She's already gone up to her room. Looked like she was carrying something, a big box."

I went upstairs with the officers. We knocked several times before Nora finally opened the door, taking her sweet time and complaining the whole while.

"Knock, knock, knock, what is it already? Do you have to be so annoying?"

She smelled sweet and had done up her makeup carefully. She'd been in the middle of a full-on temper, but she reined it in a lot once she saw the officers.

"What is it? I didn't break any law. What do you want with me? We're just filming a Lolita fashion review. Is that something you have to investigate now?"

I glanced past her into the room. No sign of Clark.

But the room had been set up on purpose, roses and a cake on the floor, a few girls in Lolita dresses posing.

And on the floor there was a camera, taken apart. The one I'd given Clark.

"That's my stolen camera."

I pointed inside at it and told the officers, plainly.

"There's an order number on it. It'll match my purchase record."

The officers didn't waste time. They told Nora straight out that something was wrong with the camera, that it was stolen property.

"Stolen property? What the hell? An admirer gave that to me. I only just got it. I don't know anything about this!"

A wave of gasps came from behind her. Nora's friends were all snickering at her, half-convinced she'd stolen the camera to show off.

Nora heard it and hit the roof. She called Clark right then and there!

"Clark, the camera you gave me is stolen property? You've humiliated me. What are you even doing? The police tracked me down, they've wrecked my whole plan."

Clark was stunned too. Not a minute later, my phone was ringing off the hook, like he'd lost his mind.

I didn't pick up once. I went back to the station with the police to give my statement.

It dragged on until eight that night before the whole thing finally settled.

Nora's makeup was ruined, her Lolita dress damp with sweat, a few stains on the hem now, and she was stamping her foot in fury.

Clark came tearing into the station and grabbed Nora the moment he saw her, not once noticing me sitting off to the side.

"Ugh, this is a limited-edition Lolita set, the whole thing costs a fortune, and I have to mail it back after the shoot. Now this stupid camera has thrown everything off!"

Nora clung to Clark, whining and playing it up, and it was enough to break my heart, let alone his.

"Clark, what am I supposed to do! The hotel room I booked is wasted, I got hauled off to a police station, and my friends are going to laugh at me when I go back. It's so humiliating."

"It's fine, it's fine, I'll take care of it."

Clark ate it up, his voice so gentle you could practically wring water out of it.

He was patting Nora softly on the back to soothe her when he caught sight of me out of the corner of his eye, and the color drained from his face.

"You... Angela, what are you doing here?"

His whole body went rigid, and he slowly let go of Nora, staring at me in shock.

"So I get it now. You're the one who called the police? Said the camera was stolen?"

"That's right."

I nodded, turning over the camera I'd bought for him in my hands.

"It really was stolen. And I seem to recall this camera was a gift from me to you, wasn't it?"

"Once you gave it to me, it's mine. Why did you have to go and pull a stunt like this? Do I not even have the right to do what I want with my own gift? Give it back."

Clark reached out to grab it, but I dodged him easily.

"Never mind. I don't want to give it anymore. I changed my mind."

"Angela, this is really low. Are you making a fool of me? What, you even put a tracker in the camera? Did you actually want to give me a Valentine's Day gift, or did you want to spy on me?"

Spy on him?

He wasn't worth that.

A gift?

He wasn't worth that either.

I raised my voice on purpose and blew open the little scheme Clark was hiding.

"Taking the Valentine's Day gift I gave you to go chase another girl. Only you, Clark, could pull something like that."

"Four years together, and you gave me one moldy orange and called it a surprise? Do you take me for an idiot?"

I decided right then to break up with Clark, but he said I was blowing things out of proportion, nitpicking, and deliberately steered around the real issue to bring up what had happened today.

"Oh, so that's it, Angela. You did this on purpose, didn't you? Just because the Valentine's Day gift I got you wasn't to your liking, you're going to give me this much grief? I didn't get you cash or jewelry, so now you don't even know me anymore?"

"Have you been drinking too much of that toxic online garbage? Chasing after some ritual, some novelty, without a thought for whether a relationship can actually last?"

"Fine, yes, I gave you a moldy orange, but didn't I make up for it afterward? Look for yourself. Didn't I send you a Valentine's cash transfer to make up for it?"

Clark lectured me at length and told me to check my phone, saying he'd sent me a Valentine's cash transfer.

I checked the time. It had only just gone through a little while ago. I opened it, and it was 199.99 dollars.

"That number means our love lasts and lasts, that we stay together forever! I thought I'd put real thought into it. I never imagined you'd look down on a little money like that."

"You're right. I do look down on it."

I couldn't be bothered to accept this loveless affection of his, so I just rounded it up and sent 250 dollars back to him.

"Here's 250 back. Keep it, spend it slowly. From now on we have nothing to do with each other. Let's just break up right here at the police station!"

Clark wouldn't accept it, still convinced I was throwing out harsh words in a fit of temper.

"Break up, then! Four years together, and you think I'm the one who loses out? I've really spoiled you into these ugly little habits."

He gave a cold snort, thinking he looked so imposing, so in control, like our relationship meant nothing to him at all.

My heart had gone cold too, and one question kept surfacing in my mind.

How on earth did I lose my mind and fall in love with him back then?

After I signed the statement, I got my camera back, along with a wear-and-tear fee that Nora had to pay, and I was free to go.

Clark kept calling after me, and Nora kept crying, but from start to finish she never once questioned Clark about anything.

Clearly she'd known Clark had a girlfriend. Even the officer couldn't resist asking her about it.

"You knew perfectly well he had a girlfriend, and you still accepted his attention? If you're not the one paying, who is?"

"So what?"

Nora said it without a shred of shame.

"So he has a girlfriend, what of it? They're not married! And even if they were married, people get divorced! Love's just like that, isn't it? You, me, everyone competes for it. Totally normal."

"Right."

The officer was fed up with her twisted logic too.

"If you think it's so normal, go right ahead! Next time you'll have a lot more than this little bit to pay out."

After the breakup, I felt low for a little while.

But mostly I was furious.

That moldy orange ended up somewhere I couldn't even say, and everything else that belonged to Clark, all of it, went straight into the trash.

I vented about the whole thing to my best friend, and it got her worked up too.

The next morning she shook me awake in a panic, firing off screenshot after screenshot for me to look at.

"This is bad, Angie, look at this. Isn't this post about you? A bunch of people are already digging up your info. I bet your social account is about to blow up."

The screenshots were a call-out post. The gist was that I was a gold digger, a social climber, vengeful, controlling.

The anonymous poster claimed his girlfriend had made a big show of generosity on Valentine's Day, given him a gift expensive enough to press charges over, then called the police to have him arrested, lying that the gift had been stolen.

And that the camera came with an anti-theft tracking system, first so she could keep tabs on her boyfriend, second to feed her own habit of picking fights over nothing.

It even said something about how he'd sent his girlfriend a Valentine's cash gift, and she'd sent back $250 to mock him and insult him.

Below it, a whole crowd of thin-skinned male users had jumped in to defend him, and off his one-sided story alone they'd cast me as some kind of "conspiracy theory" expert.

"This woman is truly vicious. She's playing mind games, isn't she? Control, revenge, humiliation, chipping away at her boyfriend bit by bit so he'll turn into her most obedient little pet!"

"Right, no man would ever want a woman like that, so she gets clingy and insecure and pulls this kind of stunt. Has she got no shame?"

"If you ask me, this woman just hasn't been hit enough. If she had been, she'd be crying and begging, 'I won't do it again'!"

"Somebody find this woman so we can teach her a proper lesson, and she'll know she was wrong."

Further down, the filth got even worse. I couldn't stand to keep reading myself.

From all the details, one glance was enough to tell this was a post Clark had written, all about the fight between him and me.

Within the hour, my social account was flooded with strangers, most of them men, all of them piling on, throwing hostile words at me.

I showed it to my best friend, and she was livid too.

"Clark's gone way too far, Angie. What are you going to do? Should you just call him and make him delete the post?"

"No. Once he's put it up, he won't delete it that easily."

"Then what do we do?"

I thought it over and settled on a plan fast.

"Report it. I'm going down to the station again."

"Huh? Report it again?"

"Yeah. Send me all those screenshots, and the link to the post too. Once I've got the evidence in hand, I can file a report the second I walk in."

An hour later I was at the police station.

The officer who took me was the same one from last time, and he recognized me right away too.

When I said I wanted to file a report, he had it down to a routine by now. He got the report started quickly and called Clark in.

This time I was the one waiting at the station for him, so he was in no hurry at all, dragging his feet for nearly two hours before he finally strolled in.

The moment he heard I'd reported him again, he stared at me with contempt written all over his face, thinking I'd done it as an excuse to see him.

"What is it, you want to get back together? I blocked you, so now that you can't reach me you call the cops to track me down?"

"You're overthinking it."

I tossed the printed screenshots down in front of him and got straight to the point.

"Talk. Do you want to be arrested and go to jail, or do you want to pay me emotional-damages compensation?"

"What are you even talking about?"

Clark was baffled. He picked up the screenshots, skimmed a few lines, and right there his face went ashen.

"What's this supposed to mean? I never posted any"