Valentine’s Day is a big deal at my high school. Maybe it is at every high school, but at mine in particular it’s a day when teachers don’t even bother to try to do anything, even the strictest ones, because they know none of us are paying attention.
Throughout the day, students are called to the office over the loudspeaker whenever flowers arrive. Almost everyone gets something because all of our parents know this, so if you get your name called more than once, it means someone really likes you. You go up, read the card, and then put your bouquet, or balloons, or whatever on the table marked for your grade level and come back after school to get your stuff.
So, my name was called during second period, and I went up to see that my parents had sent me pink roses, which was nice. And then my name was called again during third period, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that Cadence had also remembered the tradition and sent me some red roses. Her note said, “Pretend I’m a dude, if you’d like” with a winky eye, and she’d signed it “C.” I knew it was from her even before I saw the card.
I was walking away when Lucy showed up. I’d heard her name, too, and this was her second trip up to the office, as well. “Hey,” I said. “Were your first flowers from your folks?”
“Yeah,” she said, shrugging. Usually parent flowers arrived first for some reason. “These are probably from my grandma or something.”
Since neither one of us had a boyfriend, we didn’t really expect to get roses from a guy, but then, I was secretly hoping I’d get some from Liam. I know it seemed silly to hope, but he’d been a little standoffish this morning during history class, and I kind of hoped it was because he was nervous about sending me something.
I decided to walk with Lucy, and she approached the front desk. “Lucy Burk,” the secretary, Ms. Penny, said smiling at both of us. “Here you go, sweetie.” She pushed over a large bouquet of red roses.
“Wowza,” Lucy said, plucking the card off of the vase. “My grandma went to a lot of trouble this year.”
I stood back a little way, thinking it didn’t look like a bouquet from a grandmother, but I didn’t say anything. She read the card, her eyes bulging, and then shoved it back into the envelope and into her back pocket.
“Well?” I asked, smiling at her but feeling a little uneasy. “Who are they from?”
“Huh?” She was looking at me like she didn’t know what I was talking about. “Oh, no one. I mean… it didn’t say. Secret admirer.”
Something about her tone let me know that wasn’t true. “Really?” I asked. “Someone went to that kinda expense and didn’t write his name?”
“Or her name,” Lucy corrected me, hoisting up the vase. “Yep, didn’t say.”
I started to walk away, following Lucy, when Ms. Penny said, “Oh, hold on Cassidy!” She winked at me and picked up the phone the office staff uses to make announcements. She apologized for interrupting for, like, the hundredth time that day, and then rattled off a bunch more student names, including mine. It was nice of her to go ahead and call my name for a third time when I was standing right there so that the other kids would know I’d been called for a third time, if anyone was keeping track. And I knew they were.
After she hung up the phone, she said, “These are yours,” and handed me a basket of pink roses with a large teddy bear and several mylar balloons.
“Holy Toledo,” I muttered. “Thanks.” While I was hopeful that this might be from Liam, something told me he couldn’t afford something like this on his part-time lawn mowing gig, especially not in the winter. I took off the card and wasn’t at all surprised to see this was from Elliott. He wished me a Happy Valentine’s Day and said I was the sweetest “lil girl” he’d ever met, and that’s “no lie.” I got what he was saying, because almost everything that came out of his mouth seemed to be a lie, and thought it was cute. Moving the mammoth gift to the table took me a few minutes, and it was hard to find a spot big enough for it without moving some things around. By the time I was done, Lucy was long gone.
By lunch, I hadn’t been called to the office again, but three times was much better than my usual once from my parents. Lucy was very quiet while she picked the pepperonis off of her pizza, and Emma was usually not inclined to talk unless we were, so our table was pretty silent. I spent my time staring at the back of Liam’s head. He wasn’t sitting in his chair that faced our table today, and I wondered if it had anything to do with it being Valentine’s Day. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure him out.
“Who was that fourth bouquet from” Emma finally asked, looking at Lucy.
“You got called a fourth time?” I asked. I must’ve missed that.
“Yeah,” she replied quietly. “It was from… a guy who likes me. But… I’m not sure what to do about it. Because I have a friend who likes him.”
My blood ran cold. Could it have been from Liam? She must’ve seen my eyes bulge. “Which friend?” Emma asked, completely missing my reaction.
“Jessica,” Lucy said, exhaling loudly. “It was just a single rose. From Jason. Asking me to homecoming.”
“Aw, that’s nice,” Emma said, and we both gave her points for trying, even though we could tell she couldn’t care less.
“And you don’t know what you’re going to say because of Jess?” I asked.
“Yeah, I don’t want to hurt her feelings.”
“I thought you liked Jason,” Emma said, noisily biting into a rather long Cheeto.
“I do like him, but I don’t want her to be angry at me. I mean, it’s not my fault he likes me. I didn’t try to make him ask me out.”
“Jessica’s feelings might get hurt,” I said, shrugging, “but if you like him, you should go out with him. I’m sure she’ll understand.”
“Do you think so?” she asked.
Jessica wasn’t quite playing with a full deck, so I honestly didn’t know for sure if she would understand or not, but I didn’t think it should matter at this point. It’s not like Lucy and Jess were best friends. “I think so.”