Paper Flowers (Pretty Plastic People) ★

004. Valentine's Day (Alone)

004. Valentine's Day (Alone)

At Aquino High, to lose your reputation is to lose everything.

[Brynn pictured above.]

The next day is Valentine's Day.

I arrive at school slightly late to find several girls already clutching bouquets of roses and blushing slightly, a telltale sign of Aquino High's Valentine's Day traditions. Since I've celebrated every Valentine's Day in this building alone I barely react to the ecstatic exclamations as I make my way to my locker.

Cassidy is waiting for me by my locker, holding her own bouquet. Her roses are a beautiful bright red, and there have to be more than a dozen of them.

"From Nathan?" I ask her, raising my eyebrow. Usually, girls only receive one or two roses from their secret admirers; Nathan must really be going big this year.

Shrugging, Cassidy watches as I open my locker and pull out my calculus book. "Probably," she says. "I mean, nobody ever knows for sure."

"Who else would it be?"

Again, Cassidy shrugs, and she opens her mouth to say something but is stopped when a freshman hurries up to us. She's short and has black hair in a bob, and most surprisingly, she's carrying three sets of roses.

"Erika Soto?" she asks in the voice that implies she knows exactly who I am but wants to pretend that she doesn't.

Cassidy and I exchange confused glances as I nod and the freshman shoves me all three bouquets. Before I can say anything else the delivery girl is gone, probably to pick up another set of flowers to deliver.

I stare after her for a few seconds until she disappears into the crowd, then am finally able to glance down at my flowers. One of them has a little white tag wrapped around the thornless stem; I turn the paper towards me and see that it reads love, your "boyfriend."

I shouldn't be surprised that Liam got me flowers; after all, we have to maintain the act somehow. But the other bouquets? I have no idea.

"Is one of these from you?" I ask Cassidy, who has plucked one of the other bouquets from my arm and is inspecting it for identification. My best friend has been known to buy me bouquets just so I don't feel completely alone on February 14.

"No." Cassidy hands me back the bouquet she's holding and snatches the third one. "This is so weird. Do you know who that one's from?"

She's gesturing towards the bouquet I haven't released yet, the one from Liam. I don't know what to say for a few seconds, because I haven't told Brynn or her about my plan, and yet I can't lie to her.

"It's from Liam Alvarado," I say finally.

Her eyes widen and she snatches the flowers from me, squinting so that she can read the sloppy handwriting on the tag. "You're dating?" she demands, her wide eyes locking on mine. "Since when? When were you going to tell me?"

Clearly, she hasn't noticed the quotation marks around the word "boyfriend."

I open my mouth to tell her that we're only dating to make Celia and Spencer jealous, but suddenly, that sounds ridiculous. Cassidy's life is perfect: she has a boyfriend of six months and they're going strong; she doesn't have to worry about a sister who's threatening to ruin her life; and most of all, she hasn't gotten herself into the unexplainable situation that I have.

So because I'm a coward, I say smoothly, "It's only been a few days. We sort of wanted to keep it quiet until we figured out if it would work out or not."