MY BOYFRIEND’S CAR SMELLED LIKE SOMEONE ELSE’S CHEAP PERFUME AND THEN I FOUND IT
I reached under the passenger seat for my sunglasses case and my hand brushed against something hidden deep inside. The smell hit me first – sickeningly sweet, not his cologne, definitely not mine. My fingers closed around something small, wrapped tight in tissue paper. It felt too light to be anything important, but the overwhelming smell radiating from it was suffocating in the confined space of the car.
I pulled the crumpled package out into the faint street light filtering through the window. Unwrapping the tissue, a tiny silver locket appeared, cold and heavy in my palm. It was engraved, a single initial – ‘L’. I knew instinctively that wasn’t his initial, or anyone I knew he knew.
He came in twenty minutes later, acting breezy, asking about my day. I just held the locket out. “Whose is this?” I asked, my voice shaking more than I wanted. His face went completely blank, the air suddenly thick between us.
He stammered something about finding it, about meaning to give it to lost and found. “It’s nothing,” he insisted, stepping closer. But his eyes wouldn’t meet mine, and the cheap perfume smell seemed to cling to him now, too, making my stomach clench. He reached for the locket, his fingers brushing mine.
Then I flipped open the locket and saw the picture inside.
👇 *Full story continued in the comments…*Inside the locket, nestled against the cold silver, was a picture. A grainy, low-quality print of a woman, her face partially obscured by a cascade of dark, curly hair. But I knew that cascade. I recognized the curve of her jaw, the way her lips formed a slight, almost mischievous smile. It was Lisa. Lisa, his ex from college, the one he swore he hadn’t spoken to in years.
The blood drained from my face. I slammed the locket shut, the click echoing in the sudden silence. “Lisa,” I breathed, the name a venomous taste on my tongue.
He finally looked at me, his eyes wide with a desperate kind of fear. “Okay, okay, it’s…complicated,” he began, his voice laced with a pathetic plea for understanding. “I ran into her a few weeks ago. She was having a rough time, and…we talked.”
“You ‘talked’ and she gave you a locket with her picture in it to keep in your car? Under the passenger seat?” My voice rose with each word, the disbelief and hurt coalescing into a burning anger.
He flinched. “She…she was going through a tough breakup. She gave it to me as a thank you for listening. I was going to get rid of it! I just…I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”
“So, hiding it and lying to me was a better option?” I demanded, throwing the locket back at him. It bounced off his chest and landed on the floor. “You could have told me. You could have been honest. But you chose to lie, to sneak around, and to fill my car with the smell of her cheap perfume.”
He bent to pick up the locket, his hand trembling. “Please, just let me explain.”
I shook my head, backing away from him. The trust, the comfort, the love I had felt for him just moments before had evaporated, leaving a cold, empty space in its wake. “There’s nothing to explain. You made your choice.”
I grabbed my purse and walked out, the sickly-sweet scent of that perfume clinging to me like a shroud. As I drove away, I knew that the locket wasn’t just a piece of jewelry. It was a symbol of his betrayal, a tangible representation of the lies that had poisoned our relationship. And as much as it hurt, I knew I couldn’t stay with someone who valued dishonesty more than my feelings. It was over.