Roses are Red

My tongue poked out of the corner of my mouth as I carefully squeezed the bottle of Elmer's glue, placing tiny dots sporadically on the pink paper.

I placed the final silver gemstone in it's place and leaned back in my desk to examine my handy work. A giant sparkly 'A' filled the front cover, hiding the message inside. I hadn't spent nearly as much time on the other cards as I had this one, but I had some foreign urge to impress her.

Glancing around the room, I watched the rest of my classmates constructing their Valentines. There was glitter everywhere as people put the finishing touches on their projects, although some boys were simply ripping up pieces of construction paper and writing names on them.

I didn't blame them entirely, sixth grade did seem a bit old for making Valentines, but I enjoyed crafting and would jump at any excuse to do it.

All of a sudden, the big pink heart that lay in front of me was grasped by a petite hand with multi colored nails.

"Is this for me, Lana?"

I swallowed down the lump that had quickly formed in my throat and raised my head to meet the vibrant green eyes and soft smile of Amari. Her.

In a moment of panic, no sound came out of my mouth, and I watched as she began to open the card. The bell went off at that moment, startling me out of my frozen state and causing Amari to drop the Valentine back onto my desk. My hand reached out and grabbed the card, shoving it into the abyss of my bookbag.

She turned her perfect smile my way,  not at all phased by my awkward stupor.

"Well I guess I will have to wait to read it, Lana."

Lana.

Lana?

"Lana!

My head popped up from my desk as I awoke to the sound of my name being called. I took a minute to get my bearings, and came to the realization I was no longer in middle school, but very much an adult asleep on the job.

It was strange that I was dreaming about such an obscure, non-event in my life. I suppose it had to do with cleaning out my boxes from my mom's house this past weekend. I had found that dreaded Valentine amongst tests and art projects that I had deemed important enough to keep before going away to college six years ago.

And still after all those years, it was one of the few things I decided to hold on to. My mom had given me a quizzical look when she saw me slip it into my purse, but I wasn't ready for that conversation with her. Hell, I wasn't even ready to have that talk with myself.

"Oh my goodness Christine, I am so sorry." My hands fluttered over the paperwork in front of me, trying to get everything in order again.

My secretary leaned against the side of my desk and tossed her long blonde hair over her shoulder.

"Please, you're the boss, you could hold a brothel in here and no one could say a thing."

I laughed at her, punching my password into the desktop.

"I think that may be a Department of Health violation," I replied. "Did I miss anything while I was out?"

She shook her head. "Nope. I would have let you sleep longer too since you barely leave the office, but your 4 o'clock just got here."

Glancing at the clock I could see that it was ten to four. Got to love a punctual person. My high school English teacher always said, 'To be early is to be on time, to be on time is to be late.' Never really liked the woman but it definitely stuck with me.