The Worst/The Best

I haven't had much luck with Valentine's Day. I've had a few alright ones--decent, fine, not anything to write home about--and I've had a few Valentine's Days where I've wanted to throw things, yell, and punch people.

Ex-Keith is responsible for my worst-ever Valentine's Day. This was my junior year at Fredonia. He and I were back together, but tentatively. He was giving me the run-around, telling me he didn't want anything to do with a "relationship." The last girl had driven him crazy and soured him on commitment. He wanted things loose. He didn't want to be with anyone else, but he didn't want to feel obligated to take me out, show me a good time, make dates, or anything like that. I told Ex-Keith he was a moron.

On Valentine's Day he called to tell me he was going to be late. "Just a few hours," he said. "Well, actually, I don't know how late I'm going to be. I'll be there when I'm there."

We'd had plans for weeks. He was coming down to spend the night in Fredonia. There was going to be dinner and romance--as much romance as you could milk from a boy who insisted he was wary of long-term love. When he told me he wasn't sure if he was going to be able to make it until much later because he'd found some work he wanted to get done I just about lost it. I told him it was unfair that he was treating me the way he was--after all, it wasn't my fault he'd cheated on me and gone on to date a girl who bordered on clinically insane, a girl who turned him against love and commitment. While he'd been off doing that, I'd been sitting around and crying and being good and praying he'd come back to me. I was sick of him not making plans, of breaking plans, of treating me like I was some toy he could pick up or toss away whenever he felt like it.

We fought over the phone for an hour. He told me I'd blown it, that I'd ruined everything, that he wasn't going to come down anymore. Fine, I said. Fine, fine, fine. And then I got under my covers and cried myself into a big snotty mess.

He came down, though. He stood outside my door and said he was sorry. He admitted to being a jerk, an asshole, a cruel, cruel boy. He filled my apartment with flowers. He made awkward jokes. He bought me a chocolate cake. And even though I came out of my room and stood in front of him with my mascara-streaked eyes so I could tell him I forgave him and that he should never do anything like that again, I knew there was something ugly brewing on the horizon. We couldn't go on like this forever. If he was soured on love and commitment, I was now soured on Valentine's Day. I was dreading what was going to happen next.

Still, Ex-Keith is also responsible for the best Valentine's Day ever. It was our first year together. I was seventeen years old. His mother had gone away for the night, so I lied and told my parents we were going on a double date with his best friend and his girlfriend. There would be dinner and coffee afterward. In reality, Keith and I were going back to his place after our dinner. I had to lie because my father was still very nervous about me being in such close proximity to a boy. He wanted us to remain in public at all times. He somehow thought that would keep us from spontaneously combusting into a lusty pink tumble of limbs.

Nothing that would have distressed my father happened on our first Valentine's Day, though. Keith brought me back to his house, where there were roses arranged in the living room for me. He lit a fire. He lit candles. We stretched out on the couch and listened to the wind outside. He told me he'd never liked a girl the way he liked me--in fact, he'd never met a girl like me. He said for a long time he didn't believe that girls like me even existed. He told me he wanted to go on like this forever. And then we were quiet for a long time. The snow whipped against the window but inside everything was just the way it needed to be: warm and dark and nice. The night was quiet and relaxed. It was just what I'd wanted and all that I've wanted since. It hasn't been like that in the last eight years, though. I don't know if that's because it was the first time and nothing ever feels like the first time, or if it's something more than that. Maybe I haven't had that kind of quiet connection to someone since then. Maybe I'm waiting for something to feel that easy again. Because even though I loved good men after Keith, none of those relationships have been easy. Not even close.

So I'm still waiting. And in the meantime at least I have the Pink Torpedoes, who came over and drank a lot of champagne and ate a lot of chocolate tarts on Monday night. And at least I have this man, who, really, is probably the love of my life: