Can't believe that I feel good enough
I feel good enough

I can't walk down a street with shops on it anymore without being bombarded with red and pink, floral scents, and two God-awful words: Valentine's Day.

Seeing as I've never been in love before, I've never really liked Valentine's Day. In high school when I was girl-crazy Quil, it seemed just like an opportunity for those lucky enough to have girlfriends to flaunt them. It was also one of the most widely-accepted days for PDA, which made me totally sick. V-Day is still not my favorite, where it's like everyone has to be in love. I also only have to remember that it will only be a few years before I have someone to celebrate on Valentine's Day.

Claire's in sixth grade, and this is her last year of elementary school. Consequently, it's her last year of classroom Valentine parties. You know the type: where eleven-year-old kids decorate shoeboxes with red lace and wrapping paper and hand out drugstore-purchased meaningless Valentine cards printed with little puppies or the Simpsons to their classmates. I helped Claire address her Hello Kitty cards, and cover an old Skechers box with aluminum foil and paper hearts.

Valentine's Day comes and goes for me without too much fuss. I go to the movies while Claire is at school, hoping to catch Saw IX, and see hokey, bad-romantic-comedy couples filing into the movies like Forever and Always. Ugh. Gag me.

After I've had my fill of festive Valentine's Day gore, I go to pick up Claire from school. She slides in the back, dropping her bag and Valentine box onto the seat next to her. "Hey, Claire-bear."

"Hi, Quil." Claire sounds excited, for some reason I can't fathom.

"How was your Valentine's party?" I ask, truly curious. I haven't had one of those since I was eleven. I'm sixteen now, as I have been for nearly nine years, so that was almost fourteen years ago.

"Good. I got a secret admirer Valentine," Claire adds. I raise my eyebrows.

"What? Let me see," I demand, suddenly edgy for no particular reason. Claire opens her box and digs through the assorted generic Valentines before surfacing with a heart cut out of red construction paper. She hands it over. I examine the front. "To Claire," it reads, "from ??" I open the card. There are pink heart stickers littering the inside. The inside says, "I see you every day in class, and I hope someday you will see me too. Love, your secret admirer."

"That's kind of cute," I grudgingly admit.

Claire giggles. "I know. I wonder who it could be," she says in a high-pitched voice.

"Me too," I mutter under my breath. I scramble for a new subject, desperate to change the one we're on. "So, what else did you do?"

Claire recounts the party to me, but I only half pay attention as I drive Claire home, my fingers clenched on the wheel. I remind myself of Claire's age—eleven, Quil, eleven—and force myself to focus on Claire's story.

hey tanks for the reviews! oops, i forgot the h. now it looks like i'm going to give my reviewers tanks. no such luck, ppl, sorry. review my Valentine's day masterpiece por favor! check out my stories/fanfic contest/profile/community/poll! oh, and a special shout out to gethsemane342 for speaking Welsh. review! lovelovelove, m