Lonely Hearts Day, page 1
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual person, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental
Published by Paper Kiss Press
Text copyright © 2024 by Kasie West
Copyediting by Amy M. Carlin
Jacket art and design copyright © Melissa Williams Design
Interior design by Melissa Williams Design
Interior art copyright © str33tcat via Adobe Stock
kasiewest.com
Contents
Year 1 (Freshmen)
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Year 2 (Sophomores)
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Year 3 (Juniors)
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Year 4 (Seniors)
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
It was a short-sighted decision we’d made that day, assuming we’d always be single. Or that we’d always want to celebrate that fact. Or, at the very least, to assume we’d both be in a relationship at the same time. And yet, we’d made it. All naïve and hopeful. Like we could take back a holiday that was carved around couples, filled with affection, rooted in love. But we were determined to reinvent it, to make Valentine’s Day ours. I never could’ve guessed all the things the day would actually bring us.
Year 1
(Freshmen)
Chapter 1
“Jack,” I hissed as the fourth rose was passed out in our English class. And it was only first period. The group of five leadership students had come in, recited a poem that I could’ve sworn rhymed the words finnicky and you picked me, then proceeded to hand out the roses while our teacher stood at the front of the room, arms crossed, waiting impatiently.
My best friend turned in his seat. “What?”
“Remember when I got sent home to change last week because a strip of my stomach was exposed?”
“Yeah.”
“This is more distracting than that ever was.”
“True. But your exposed stomach didn’t raise any money for the school so the hypocrisy will live on.”
“You’re right. Maybe that’s the key to changing dress code rules—somehow monetizing tank tops and three-inch inseams.”
“You should raise your hand and suggest that.”
“I should.” I looked toward the front of the room and started to raise my hand.
“Don’t, Scarlett.” He pulled my arm down by the sleeve. “I’m less bitter about the dress code and more bitter that I have to listen to that poem six times today,” he said quietly as the leadership group left, minus six roses.
“Of course you’re not bitter about the dress code. You’re a guy.”
The girl next to me, rose smashed up against her nose as she took a large inhale, said, “You’re both actually bitter because you’ll never get one.”
I rolled my eyes. She didn’t know us at all. The last thing we wanted was a school-bought rose. Even if someone did have a crush on me, I wouldn’t want them to give their hard-earned money to the school so that a stranger could hand me a rose in class.
Valentine’s Day was a stupid holiday as far as I was concerned. If someone had to be reminded to show their love for you, did they really love you in the first place?
“Are we going tonight?” Tessa asked at the locker next to mine. She wasn’t talking to me. She was talking to her boyfriend, Brady, who was helping her shove the oversized teddy bear he’d brought her today inside. It wasn’t fitting and every time they tried, her shoulder would bump into me. I was in the process of trading my math book for my history book because even though half the school thought learning ceased on this day, teachers still continued teaching. Or attempting to.
“Do you want to go?” Brady asked.
“It was fun last year.”
She was talking about the party that Micah and Cassidy—king and queen of the sophomore class—had thrown every year since they’d gotten together three Valentine’s Days ago. They weren’t the literal king and queen of their class—as in, they’d never been crowned at prom or anything—but everyone considered them couple goals. And they must’ve taken the title seriously because they threw a we are so in love and you should be too party that was attended by a lot of the student body.
I had never gone.
I shut my locker, having made a successful book transfer, and walked toward fourth period. Jack and I met in the hall halfway there. We had three classes together, history being one of them.
“You know what really needs its own special day?” I said. Jack was used to my antics; used to me pulling him into my thought process mid process. We’d been friends since the third grade when we’d both ended up in the same church parking lot on our bikes for a Pokémon raid. We didn’t play Pokémon anymore (well, rarely) but our friendship stuck. We liked the same things—anime and board games and discovering terrible bands that we could love-hate.
“What needs its own special day?” he asked now. “By the way, that poem is even more terrible than I realized. They rhymed fries with your eyes.”
“That’s the only line I like. It makes me hungry though.”
He smiled his lopsided smile. Jack was stringy, his limbs too long for his thin frame, his hair too short for his oversized glasses. “I don’t know how the leadership students read it with a straight face. I couldn’t even read a good poem in front of the class. Not even to someone I liked,” he said.
“I would die to see you reading a poem in front of the class to some girl.”
He shuddered at the thought of it.
“Wasn’t it Elizabeth Bennett who said that one poor sonnet could kill love stone dead?”
“She’s smart,” he said.
“Well, Jane Austen was,” I said.
“Same thing,” he replied.
I agreed.
“So what needs its own day?” he asked, steering us back on track.
“Oh! Singleness.”
“Singleness?”
“Yes, couples get celebrated all the time. They buy each other cute gifts for every arbitrary milestone. ‘We just hit six months, let’s have a dinner date. We know what color each other’s eyes are, here’s a basket of treats. We both said the words ‘bless you’ at the same exact time, we’re so connected; let’s make an Instagram post about it.’”
“I don’t think anyone has actually done that last one.”
“They’ve done the less hyperbolized version of it, and you know it.”
He laughed. “So you want to take back love? Turn it into hate?”
“No, not love. Just the day that’s been chosen to collectively celebrate it. Like I said, love gets celebrated enough. We need a day to celebrate singleness. Because let’s be real, there’s just as much to celebrate on this side. I don’t have to spend money on flowers. I don’t have to keep track of pesky milestones. I didn’t have to text anyone when I woke up!”
“You texted me when you woke up today,” he said.
“But I didn’t have to.”
“True. You’d make a good ambassador for independence.”
“You’re right, I’m the most independent.” When you’re born seven years after your older two siblings, after your parents thought they were done, you’re afforded a lot of freedom. “So are you with me?”
“I’m so with you.”
“Good, invite all your single friends. My house. Tonight. Seven. We’re having a party.”
His eyebrows popped up. “You’re throwing a party on the same day as the love-fest party?”
“It’s not in direct competition.”
“Same night, same time. Isn’t that the definition of direct competition?”
“No, not at all.”
“You just want to make Micah mad.”
“I don’t!” But I did.
Micah had been our friend up until he hit the sixth grade, when we suddenly became too nerdy for him. We liked all the same things he liked. At least, we did until he decided those things weren’t cool enough. I could still picture his snide little face as he’d marched up to us on the playground that day.
“Want to work on the Death Star today?” Jack had asked. They’d been building Lego Star Wars together forever.
Some other kid had laughed, and Micah had narrowed his eyes at Jack and said, “Aren’t you too old to like Legos, nerd?”
Anger had rushed through my body, and I’d jumped up from the bench where I’d been reading and shoved Micah to the ground. He fell hard, landing on the cement path that surrounded the playground. That’s when I’d heard a sharp whistle from the yard duty teacher. She’d sent me to the office immediately, where I was suspended for two days. Worth it. While I was on suspension, Jack told me that Micah said he was too good to be our friend. That he wasn’t going to hang out with us anymore. I didn’t care about Micah, but knowing Jack did made me want to push him all over again.
The memory still filled me with a white-
Jack was more forgiving than me, though, and said things like, let it go. He’s just insecure. But today wasn’t about that.
“He doesn’t pay attention to what we do anymore. This party won’t even be on his radar,” I said. “This is a different kind of party. For the people who understand the beauty of alone time. The freedom of self-love. There will be food. There will be decorations. There will be a game of pin the crown on the single princess. And you will be helping me with all this preparation, too, by the way.”
“Of course I will. And I raise your pin the crown on the princess with a game of seven minutes in the closet alone.”
“Ooh, I like it.”
We reached history class, slipping inside just before the late bell rang. His comments about the other party and how popular it was were slowly sinking in. “Do you think anyone will come?”
“Even if it’s just us, that will be enough,” he said and I playfully punched his arm.
Chapter 2
There was a knock at my front door that afternoon. I was elbow deep in frosting. Not literally, but it felt like it.
“Come in!” I yelled from the kitchen.
I didn’t know why Jack still knocked, anyway. He was at my house all the time. I was pretty sure my parents considered him one of their kids.
My parents had three kids. My two older sisters had already moved out: one had just started her nursing career and one was a senior in college. And then there was me, the mistake baby. Born seven years after they thought they were done. They never called me a mistake baby, but when someone always uses the word surprise! when telling your birth story, that’s what they really mean. My childhood was much different than my sisters’ had been. They got a stay-at-home mom and parks. I got daycare and screen time. That was fine with me. It made me self-reliant. And I knew my parents loved me. They were just busier.
The front door opened and shut. Then Jack poked his head around the corner. I nodded from where I was adding powdered sugar into the mixing bowl at the island.
“What is happening?” he asked, stepping into the kitchen carrying a grocery bag. “It looks like a cocaine bomb exploded in here.”
“Cocaine? Really?”
“First thing I thought of.”
“Because you’re a hardened criminal?”
He stepped up beside me. I could tell he was about to dip his finger into the bowl, so I smacked his hand before he did. “No. Bad.”
He laughed. “I’m not a dog.” He wasn’t, of course, but sometimes he did things without thinking too much.
“At least wash your hands first.”
“Fine.”
“There wasn’t enough liquid in the bowl,” I said while he stood at the sink pouring dish soap over his hands. “Which produced the cloud of sugar you see here.” I gestured to the countertops and the entire front of me, all dusted white.
“Sounds delicious.” He dried his hands and picked up a sign I had made earlier to sit in front of the heart sugar cookies I was making. He read it aloud. “Its only job is to pump blood?”
“It’s a celebrating-singlehood party. The snacks need to reflect the theme. I’m also making beaker shaped cookies.”
“Beaker? What does that have to do with being single?”
I nudged the other sign I had made across the counter to him with my elbow.
“If there isn’t a risk of explosion, it’s not chemistry,” he read.
“Exactly,” I said.
“Be careful, or people are going to think you don’t believe in love.”
“I believe in love. I mean, look at my parents. But I don’t believe in being forced to celebrate love.”
“So it’s Valentine’s Day you don’t believe in.”
“Exactly. I thought we were on the same page here.”
“We are,” he assured me. I gave him a sideways glance because I knew Jack and I could tell he was mainly doing this to support me. I was okay with that motivation. We did a lot of things that way—me supporting him or vice versa. He’d be fully on board by the end of the night.
“Channel the feelings you had while listening to bad poetry today.” I added red food coloring to the frosting.
“That will help.” He held up his grocery bag. “I brought stuff to make a veggie tray. Should I make a sign?”
“What would it say?”
He thought for a moment then said, “Eat veggies because love does nothing for your heart health?”
“Yeeesss! Write that.”
The garage door opened and my mom came in, her keys in one hand, a chai latte in the other. She paused, taking in the scene. “What is happening and why do you need a hundred cookies?”
“It’s not a hundred.” It was like fifty. “We’re throwing a party.”
“You two are throwing a party? Here?” It wasn’t that I’d never thrown a party before . . . well, actually, it was that. But I’d had plenty of friends over throughout the years.
“Is that okay?” I said. “I probably should’ve asked.”
“How many people are coming to this party?” Her eyes were on the stacks of unfrosted cookies again.
“Just our friends. I invited five. How many did you invite?” I asked Jack.
“About the same.”
“Probably only ten then,” I said. But maybe not even that.
“And it’s taking place in the basement?” Once my sisters were in school, my parents had turned the basement, which used to be a playroom, into something a wider audience could enjoy. Gone was the ball pit and slide I’d only ever heard stories about. My dad had replaced them with a couple of pinball machines and a pool table that turned into a board game table when fitted with its long wooden topper. There was a large television. There was even a kitchenette.
“Wait.” Something suddenly occurred to me. “Are you having a Valentine’s Day party here with your friends?”
“No, we’re not. We’ll be going out to dinner, though. Are the other parents okay with an adult-free party?”
“We’ll limit people to one alcoholic beverage a piece,” I said.
“Funny,” she said.
“Should I give your speech at the beginning of the party?” I asked.
“What’s my speech?” she returned.
“You know, the one about how youth is for having fun and how it’s hard to figure out who you are and what you want when you’re trying to impress someone else.” Maybe it was nerdy to like my parents and value their advice, but I really did.
She nodded. “Oh, that’s a good one. You can also include the ‘push yourself to try things out of your comfort zone’ part.”
“Like throwing a party?” I asked.
She smiled. “Like that. Have fun tonight.” She continued her walk through the kitchen. Before she reached the living room, she turned back. “Oh, there’s a cake pop on the center console of my car that I meant to bring in. If either of you want it, you can have it.”
Jack and I locked eyes then we both raced for the garage. He opened the door first but I shoved him into the frame and squeezed by him. I reached the car first but when I grabbed hold of the handle, he snaked an arm around my waist, twirled me around and deposited me behind him. I squealed but continued to try to wiggle into the open door that he was now blocking with his body.
“There’s cookies inside,” I said.
“Exactly. There are cookies inside.” His entire torso was in the car now and my head was smashed between his hip and the car door in my attempt to get inside. I could tell he was reaching for the treat, and I tried but failed to grab his arm.
“You are the biggest brat,” I said when I heard him take a bite.
“No,” he said through his mouthful, “I’m going to share.”
I stopped struggling and when I stood, he backed out of the car and handed me half the cake pop.
“I’m surprised you didn’t eat it all in one bite,” I said, finishing it.
“You don’t know me at all,” he said.
I laughed.
A chocolate crumb clung to his bottom lip and I reached up and swiped it away. He went still, staring at me.
