Kimmie had wanted to wear sweats to the doctor, but her mom wouldn’t allow it. According to Kimmie’s mom, drawstring pants were the top of a very slippery slope for any teen girl. Her mom had been hypervigilant about her diet ever since she came home, constantly reminding Kimmie that she could no longer eat like someone who trains seven hours a day. Without a word, Kimmie went to her room and changed into black leggings and her oversized black Skull Cashmere sweater, which fit her current mind-set. Her mother’s response to her new outfit was not agreeable. “This isn’t LA, this is New York. We don’t consider SoulCycle tights proper attire. Go change. Maybe into something a little less gloomy?”

Kimmie stomped back to her room, hating her life just a little bit more than she did five minutes before. She replaced her tights with black jeans, but kept her skull-adorned sweater on.

“Seriously?” Kimmie muttered to herself as she saw her fourth Valentine’s Day reminder in the two minutes she had been standing outside. There had been one flower delivery van, one bicycle messenger carrying a signature box of long-stemmed roses under his arm, a doorman signing for a basket of pink tulips, and the car that just drove by with a giant red teddy bear in the passenger seat. Staring at the stupid bear, Kimmie didn’t know if she wanted to spit on the car window or sit down on the curb and cry. So far today, she had only cried twice, which wasn’t bad.

What a difference two weeks could make. As much as Kimmie presently despised this ludicrous holiday, she had spent most of the previous month harboring major Valentine’s Day fantasies. Her favorite involved Vronsky showing up at school for her at the end of the day, which of course would have been so delicious because her fellow classmates would have witnessed it. She imagined a scene akin to the last scene in Sixteen Candles, her mom’s favorite movie from her own teenage years. Kimmie had never heard of it, of course, since it was from the century before she had even been born. (She loved to say this because it made her mother crazy.) But she’d learned about it several years ago when she was back in New York on break from training camp during the year after their dad had married their current Stepmonster. (Kimmie’s mom had a rough six months following that unholy pairing.)