I hate Valentine’s Day.
Eva sat cross-legged on spiky green grass, her back resting against a slightly damp tree trunk. She reached down and crunched a fistful of dry leaves in her hand, hoping to rid herself of frustration. It didn’t work.
Slim girls passed by with joyful grins on their petite faces and rich red roses pinched tightly between their fingers. Eva groaned to herself and brought her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms protectively around herself.
Eva got as much attention from boys as a child gave a white crayon. She wasn’t slim with long legs and a flat stomach, instead she was what her Grandmother called ‘well fleshed out’; not fat, but not skinny, either. While the other girls at her school spent hours in the morning making sure every hair on their scalp sat perfectly in place and applying no less than three layers of mascara, Eva simply threw her hair back into a messy ponytail and carefully followed the directions on the back of her twelfth bottle of acne cleanser. Eva wasn’t ugly, but the only person who’d ever called her beautiful was her Grandma. No, she was the white crayon. Not so disgustingly horrid as the olive green, but not a bright pink or vibrant orange. She was white. Plain. Boring. Useless.
Eva screwed up her nose in disgust at a couple making out in front of her. Another boy, whose arm was tightly wrapped around his girlfriend’s waist, jokingly yelled, “Get a room!”
Eva turned away from the couple and focused instead on a tall, muscular boy. He spoke to a skinny blonde wearing a tight dress, which had been cropped about thirty centimetres shorter than what the uniform policy allowed. Eva watched from afar as the boy declared his undying love for the girl and gifted her with a scarlet box of heart-shaped chocolates.
Everywhere Eva looked, there were couples. She’d had enough.
Eva stood up and swiftly strode through the school to her locker, where she kept a stash of books for emergencies like this. Books were Eva’s escape from reality, where she could forget whatever troubles her life held and focus instead on another person’s world; a world where she needn’t worry about the boys who ignored her or her latest Physics assignment. She could forget everything if she held a book in her hands.
Quickly, Eva turned the dial on her lock until the rusted mechanism clicked open. Eva knew that the old, tarnished lock wouldn’t last too much longer, but it had served her well for the last four years and she was hesitant to get rid of it.
Reaching into the locker, Eva pulled out the first book she touched; her tattered copy of The Pride and the Prejudice.
No. Not romance. Not today.
Eva carefully placed the book in the back of her locker. She shuffled through novels until she came to a black-covered thriller with a crimson-tipped knife on the cover and blood dripping down the spine. Perfect.
With a triumphant smile, Eva latched her locker shut and walked back to her tree. She kept her eyes low, avoiding the gaze of the boys who passed her on the way.
It was only when Eva opened the book that she realised it began with a meeting between two lovers. With a quick glance at the blurb, Eva realised that the woman would soon be murdered, but the damage was already done. Eva flung the book onto the ground and cursed her infatuation with romance themed novels.
“It’s not that bad, is it?”
Eva jumped in surprise and looked up to find the source of the voice.
Standing over her was a boy she’d seen many times before in her Physics and Maths classes. She couldn’t remember his name, but she easily recognised his easy-going smile and light-footed stance.
The smile never left his face as he leaned over and picked up the book. He gazed upon the cover and fluffed his hair up with his hand. “Looks terrifying,” he joked as he passed the book back with a sparkle in his eyes.
Eva accepted the book with her mouth hanging open slightly. She never received any attention from boys, and even this boy’s casual conversation had her feeling anxious. She wondered what she should say, or if she should say anything at all.
The boy tilted his head slightly and gazed at her, as though she was a mathematical equation he was solving. “You look more like a classic romance girl to me.”
“Usually,” Eva replied cautiously. “Romance doesn’t sit well with me on Valentine’s Day.”
The boy gave her a knowing smile and sat down beside her. “No Valentine this year?”
“No Valentine any year,” she replied glumly.
“Where did Valentine’s day come from, anyway?”
Eva answered, “In Roman times there was an emperor who outlawed the marriage of young men because he thought that unmarried young men made better soldiers. St. Valentine married them anyway.”
He smiled. “Let me tell you something. See all these boys,” he gestured around him, “most of them are only after one thing, and you know as well as I do what that is. You’re smart and you’re pretty, and most of the guys here probably wouldn’t appreciate that. You may not have a boy now, but when you get one, you can be sure he’ll actually love you.” The boy leant over and picked a flower from a nearby rose bush. “For you,” he offered her the rose, which was only just beginning to bloom.
“Thank you,” Eva said softly, taking the flower from him.
The boy smiled and walked away, leaving Eva leaning against a tree, twirling a flower in her hands and feeling that somehow, her own love story would be a thousand times better than that of the girls around her.
She would have to find out the boy’s name.
