Bitter (wlw) (teacherxstudent)

thirty-five

Valentine's day

"Happy Valentine's day darling" was the first thing Sam said as we met in front of her place that morning.

"Happy Valentine's day" I got on my tiptoes to kiss her because she'd once again decided to wear heels to work.

"Thank you" she pecked my nose. "I have something I wanna give you but I'll wait 'til this evening so we can take our time"

"Same" I smiled. "It'll be really painful to see couples together all day and to not be able do that with you"

"Don't worry about it, we'll make the most of our evening" she also smiled. "Let's get going" she grabbed my hand as we walked to the car.

It really did make me a bit sad to know I was in the same building as my girlfriend, even in the same room for a couple of hours, but couldn't really act like any couple I'd seen that day.

Mei made some jokes about us both being alone on Valentine's day and I had to pretend I was genuinely amused by it. I also wondered why she wouldn't spend it with Sarah, but she said she wasn't sure about the status of their relationship and didn't want to "scare her".

I was pretty sure Sarah was also probably thinking the same thing in that moment, but I got what she meant.

I'd always been very rigorous about hours and timing of my work shifts, but I finished quite late that day and it wouldn't allow me to spend much time with Sam before dinner, which slightly upset me.

And to make things worse, my shift was with Maya, so I instantly regretted asking her if she minded if I left fifteen minutes earlier, since the reason would be fairly obvious.

"I don't mind" she shrugged.

"Really?" I said, still fearing she'd get mad or something.

"Yeah. You go and have fun, I guess. Whatever it is that she organized"

"I- We- I mean, uhm" I stumbled on my words. "Yeah, thanks" I concluded wishing I hadn't even opened my mouth in the first place.

"I hope she remembered you're supposed to show some kind of affection at least on Valentine's day" she laughed to herself.

"Can you not?" I asked in the nicest way possible. I hadn't said anything about her similar comments in the past few days but it'd been getting tiring.

"Sorry. Coping mechanism"

"It's okay" I sighed. "But like, I know this is an awkward situation for the both of us. Please don't make it worse"

"Unfortunate more than awkward. But yeah, fine. Whatever"

The last thing I wanted was to hurt or offend her, but I also didn't want that to mean she'd keep making vaguely passive aggressive comments about Sam.

"Have a nice evening" I said as I got ready to leave, wishing I could already be home.

"You too Ellie. Enjoy it while it lasts" she replied, but I decided to ignore it because replying would just mean getting home later.

Once I got to my apartment, I nervously checked that everything I'd prepared for Sam looked fine.

I'd printed out two copies of a selfie we'd taken when we went to Central Park under the snow, and framed one with an emerald green frame with little flower decorations on the sides.

I wanted to keep the other one for myself because it really was one of my favorite photos ever, even if I looked more similar to a potato than to a human because of how wrapped up in clothes I was. But Sam's smile in it was something I could stare at for hours. I would have set the photo as my lockscreen if I could have.