Friday the 14th

Same year, same routine.

Opening his locker, TJ had to hold his hands out to stand a chance at catching the cards that fell out. Granted, it was a lot less than the previous years, but it was still quite a number of cards for one person. By now, his junior year in high school, he learned to bring a plastic shopping bag or two to be able to carry all the valentine cards home. Throwing them out would be rude, and he wouldn't want anyone to do that if he gave them a card. At least not in front of his face. Besides, he had no idea if one or more of the people were in the hall, watching him right now for his reaction.

At least it was Friday.

"Hey, Teej," Spinelli said coming up to him. She spotted the bag of cards in his hands. "Still getting those, huh?"

"Yep. Same as every year," he said, closing his locker. "I don't get it. Why do I get so many? You'd think it would've died down by now."

"'Cause you're a cool person and way too easy to get along with," said Spinelli. Everyone left the school, happy that it was finally the weekend. "What are you doing tonight?"

"Looking through these. Some of them have candy," TJ said.

"You coming to Vince's game later?"

"Yeah, yeah, of course. But we've got a few hours to kill. What about you?" He asked.

"Gutting out my room. It looks like a tornado went through it," Spinelli said. "Meet over at your place?"

"Yep, same as always."

. . .

Sitting at his desk, TJ quickly read over one of the last cards as he munched on the candy offered to him inside off another. Again, this one offered no clue as to who it was from, except for the handwriting itself, but that didn't help him much. If these people had the bravery to slip the card into his locker, they couldn't at least signed it, or at least gave him their initials so he had a lead, but no. The only think he could tell is which cards was from girls and which were from guys. There was about an equal number of them this year.

It wasn't like he one to rudely turn people down and leave them embarrassed. He'd let them down gently if he wasn't interested. Not that he had experience in doing that, but it he told himself he would do. Funny. People were brave enough to leave card but not ask directly. Oh well, what are you gonna do?

"Let's see what's next?" He said, reaching into the bag. He pulled out another card and opened it. Nice neat cursive handwriting. He placed them in a pile with the other four odd ones. The handwriting in those were all a little too neat. As if they wrote them so that he couldn't recognize their handwriting. If only they knew he couldn't tell the difference between one person's handwriting and another.

Was he really this popular, though? Popular enough for-he counted them again-twenty seven valentine's? Maybe one or two, but almost thirty? Three years of this and he still wasn't used to it.

Welp. Until one of the people who these come from came up to him, he couldn't do anything about it. And even then, he couldn't say whether or not he was interested in dating at all, so he might end up turning them down anyways.

Checking his watch, he grabbed a few more pieces of candy and headed out.