Then as an adult it became one of those holidays like New Year’s Eve and July Fourth that felt like it was supposed to be so fantastic that the expectation always ruined whatever it was you did that night. And you stood there in a too-crowded bar or lay on a blanket staring up at a cloudy night sky thinking: I’m supposed to be having more fun than this.
The first Valentine’s Day after college, a month before you and I reconnected, I went out with Alexis and Julia and Sabrina and we got stupidly drunk on cosmos and apple martinis. Julia didn’t get out of bed until two in the afternoon, and Alexis BlackBerry-messaged all of us each time she vomited, which I think was six times that day. I just had a headache for about eleven hours straight. Sabrina, of course, was fine.
Then there was you—and your epic celebrations. The Valentine’s Day we spent together was incredible, the kind of thing only you would do. By the time I got home from work you’d cut photographs of both of us into tiny stars and tacked them to the ceiling.
“‘And he will make the face of heaven so fine That all the world will be in love with night And pay no worship to the garish sun,’” I said, when I saw what you’d done.
You answered by wrapping your arms around me. “God, I love you,” you said.
“I love you right back,” I answered. You kissed the top of my head as I looked around.
You’d moved the furniture so there was space for an enormous picnic blanket in the middle of the studio. A plate of truffle-grilled-cheese sandwiches rested on one corner of the blanket, and a bottle of champagne sat in a small garbage pail full of ice on another. When I took my coat off, you pressed play on an album of Shakespeare’s sonnets set to music.
“Wow, Gabe,” I said, once I’d hung my coat in the closet. Everything you had done floored me but also somehow made me feel a bit unworthy. I hadn’t done close to this amount of planning for Valentine’s Day.
“I figured it was too cold out for a picnic under the stars, so I brought the stars to us. Shakespeare’s stars.”
I kissed you, hard, then slipped off my heels and sat down with you on the blanket.
“This was the best way I could think of to celebrate you and me,” you said, as you picked up a triangle of grilled cheese. “Hungry?” you asked.
I nodded and you held the sandwich while I took a bite. Then you took a bite yourself.
After I’d chewed and swallowed, I looked up at you. “My present for you isn’t quite as . . . extravagant,” I said. I walked across the studio and pulled a wrapped bundle from underneath my side of the bed. It was a cashmere scarf that I’d knitted during a month of lunchtimes at work—the same exact blue as your eyes.
“Happy Valentine’s Day,” I said, as I handed the gift to you.
You opened it, and your smile lit up your face. “Did you make this?” you asked.
I nodded, feeling less insecure about my gift.
“It’s so soft.” You wrapped the scarf around your neck and left it there the whole rest of the night. “I love it,” you said, “almost as much as I love you.”
I saw you pack the scarf when you left for Iraq. Did you wear it there? Did it make you think of me? If I head back to your apartment now, will it be tucked in the bottom of one of your boxes?
? ? ?
ALMOST TWO WEEKS after Jason and Vanessa’s wedding, it was Valentine’s Day 2005. Darren isn’t the kind of guy who would create an elaborate romantic Valentine’s Day picnic like you, but he’s sweet and generous and I knew he would do something to celebrate. I wasn’t sure I wanted him to. I wasn’t sure if I should break up with him, since I didn’t know if I felt as strongly for him as he did for me.
I called Kate and told her what I was thinking. “I just don’t feel like I did with Gabe,” I said.
I heard her take a deep breath. “You do need to be fair to him,” she said. “Because I think he was serious when he responded to your uncle at Jason’s wedding.”
“I know,” I told her. “That’s what got me thinking about all of this. And because it’s almost Valentine’s Day.”
“Do you like spending time with him?” Kate asked.
“I do,” I said.
“Does being with him make you happy?” she asked.
“It does,” I said.
“Okay. That’s good. Could you see yourself falling in love with him?”
I thought about it. I thought about him, about his sweetness and generosity and sense of humor. I thought about running with him and going to parties with him and cooking at home with him. I thought about his body, naked next to mine.
“I think I could love him,” I said.
“Do you think you could marry him?” she asked. “Because, you know, he is almost thirty. He’s going to be thinking about that for real pretty soon, if he’s not already.”
I tried to picture it—me, Darren, a wedding, a baby, coming home to him every night.
“Maybe,” I said. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
Kate was silent for a moment. “Then I don’t think you should break up with him,” she said. “If you’d said no you couldn’t love him or no you couldn’t see yourself marrying him, then I’d say you have to. I’d say it isn’t fair otherwise. But since you can, I think you owe it to both of you to see if that’s where this goes. Just take things one step at a time.”
“Okay,” I said. “That makes sense. I’ll see where it goes.”
“Also,” Kate said. “Tom and I are planning a Valentine’s Day dinner party. Would you and Darren like to come?”
I wondered for a split second if the reason she didn’t want me to break up with Darren was so we could come to her Valentine’s Day dinner party as a couple. “I’ll ask Darren and let you know,” I said.
I asked him, and he said yes. Then added, “But can we spend the day before together? Sunday?”
“Sure,” I told him. “Should we come up with something fun to do?”
“I have some ideas,” he said.
Valentine’s Day with Darren meant a trip to a bike shop in Chelsea.
“So,” he said, “I was trying to think of the perfect gift to get you for Valentine’s Day; I wanted it to be something that felt . . . couple-y. And I was walking by this shop and I saw that sign.” He pointed to one that said: Sweetheart Special! Bike with Your Baby! “I went in to see what the deal is, and basically we can get a set of matching bicycles for Valentine’s Day for the price of one!”