We watch the rest of the fireworks explode in the air without talking. Some of them are actually worth the effort Kane puts in. By the time he’s done, it’s getting chilly, so I say I’ll see them around and go back inside.

The Day Before

That week, I cried rivers.

In school, everyone was excited about either one of two things: Valentine’s Day or the approaching snowstorm. I couldn’t get excited about any of it. I’d foolishly handed in my stupid Valentine’s note to the Key Club a month earlier, and I was told by the board that there was no way I could get it back. I was embarrassed enough by that, but even more embarrassed by the fact that I’d made a holiday I’d previously deemed stupid mean so much. Just because of a damn guy. How dumb could I be?

I never talked to Declan anymore. Instead, I stalked his social media. Where he used to clog his feed with pictures of us, now the pictures were gone. He filled his feed with mundane and infrequent posts about his life. There was one from two weeks ago that said, Hello, February. And the most recent had been posted that day. Wawa packed with people getting bread and milk. Couldn’t get gas.

I’d stared at that tweet for an hour, almost as if it was a code, and cracking it would reveal that he missed me. Of course, it didn’t.

I trudged home, hoping for a big storm, a really big one that would keep us snowbound until this crappy winter ended. The meteorologists said we were right on the cusp, so it could be a big storm, but there were no promises. I crept into my room, thinking that with my luck, I’d be forced to endure another Valentine’s Day alone. I’d never cared much before, but now it seemed so much worse because I’d had all these expectations for me and Declan.

I was too sad to do my homework. After dinner, I got into my pajamas and crawled into bed. But I tossed and turned. Then I nearly fell out of it when I turned toward my window and saw a dark form sitting on the overhang of our porch, a ghostly pale face illuminated by the moonlight.

When it knocked, I startled again. It was Declan.

I ran to slide open the window. We didn’t have a trellis. “How did you…?” I asked him, looking down.

“Gutter,” he said, climbing inside. I’d seen him in school only briefly, and he’d been wearing the same clothes: jeans and his corduroy jacket. “And I think I killed that bush down there.”