Forty six

It was Valentine’s Day. Usually on that day, couples would have a case of overly showing their affection. He used to find that very annoying, even repulsive, kissing in public, baking cakes, buying flowers chocolate, red roses, teddy bears and you’re my one true love cards got on his nerves.

Since he started dating her a lot of things changed about him, one of them was his views of public display of affection. He always wished to snatch her in a public and catch her in a very fiery, passionate kiss, with pink heart balloons surrounding them, paying no attention whatsoever to people around them.

Unfortunately for him, that wish never came true. Valentine’s Day wasn’t exactly elating for them.

The first valentine’s day they spent together, she planned a surprise for him, a rather massive one. She wanted to spend her very first night with him. She dropped him hints for weeks but he didn’t seem to notice. She made cupcakes for him, bought a new dress, red lingerie, wore red lipstick for the first time in her life, and went to surprise him at work. He didn’t tell her he’ll be proctoring a four hours long exam.

She ended up waiting for him on a very uncomfortable bench in the campus; a rather starving and nervous student ate half of the already melting cupcakes, by the time he finally walked out, he yelled at her for wearing a skirt that was too short, failing to see it was meant for him. Needless to say that day, and night, were ruined.

They had moved in together by the second one. It was going to be perfect this time; they both spent the entire weekend to make sure nothing wrong would happen. What they didn’t expect was for him to get a very high fever. She spent the day taking care of her very sick boyfriend, who nearly threw up on her, and insisted on getting her out of the room whenever he felt strong enough to open his eyes.

In an overall, they didn’t celebrate Valentine’s Day with roses and champagne. They either got too busy or all plans failed somehow. However, he guessed that day was going to be an exception; at least there was no harm in trying. What could possibly go wrong?

He booked lunch in a French restaurant, since he figured dinner would be too crowded, ordered for a very fuzzy bunny doll, since she didn’t seem to like teddies, and bouquet of roses to be delivered at night. Unknowingly to him, during the time he spent to do those things, telling her he just wanted to find somewhere that sells chargers because his mobile’s battery died, she was trying to bake a cake for him.

She stopped getting enthusiastic about that day, that’s why she didn’t get upset when he seemed to not remember it, but she figured he would still love to try her food. They could celebrate the day like that. That’s why she was sitting on the kitchen floor, still in her pyjamas even though it was already midday, reading an instruction manual to figure out how to start the stove she’s been using for two years. She was a professional with it by now but it seemed broken, it just won’t ignite.

After discovering that that process would take too long, she decided to focus on the cake instead. She prepared the eggs, took around ten minutes to pray those were just spots on the shell, managed to find a bottle of milk lying in the fridge, along with chocolate and baking powder. This was her first time to try baking a cake but it seemed to come naturally to her. She would make an amazi