Valentine (A Short Story)

It don't matter be combative or be sweet cherry pie.

5

There was only 3 days until Valentines Day. Luke swore that days were turning to hours and hours were turning to minutes.

He'd been to the cafe once more, full of hope. The sky was bright and full of light, mirroring how Luke felt. He wanted to win the bet and prove everyone wrong, he knew he could do it. There was a bounce in his step and a smile that kept threatening to appear unwanted on his face. Only when he arrived, there was no sign of Rain anywhere. He sluggishly ordered a cappuccino and sat alone, the taste bitter to his tongue. He cursed the sun that blinded his eyesight and the unbearable heat that suffocated him in the stale air.

Luke escaped sooner then he first expected, dashing out of the door and away from further embarrassment. He briskly walked home and tried to keep it out of his thoughts for the rest of the day but a frustrated feeling seeped in. He wanted to see Rain and ask her out for Valentine's Day. He wanted to be capable of something that everyone thought he wasn't.

His eyes flickered up to the calendar on his wall, the big love heart circling the 14th mocked him with a large, boastful grin. Everyone knew Luke didn't stand a chance and they wanted to see him fail helplessly. It was terribly disheartening when they all were eagerly waiting for him to call it quits. Not that that was an option for him, not yet at least.

He tapped his finger against the table repeatedly. Boredom heavily coated him as he sat alone in his room. The boys were  all at work and Luke was catching up on his 'studies', which were just his excuse to watch more films.

It was 7pm and his stomach knew. It grumbled with frustration, exhausted by all the sitting and watching Luke had been doing all evening. He decided it was time for a break.

Outside the sun was close to setting, a darkened blue coating the sky. The moon was beginning to peep from behind a misty collection of clouds, barely visible but enough for Luke to be transfixed.
He often found inspiration at night. He enjoyed watching passing families and couples from afar, like a personalised tv program that only he could see. He would create stories for them, giving them names, descriptions and characteristics after only seeing them for a few moments.

People came to life at night, he noticed, like toys in a childhood bedroom. They all seemed louder and more free spirited, their clothes becoming tighter and shorter, makeup caked heavier and cologne oozing out of every male pore. It was like a flashing circus.

He locked the front door on his way out and begun to walk towards the busiest part of town. He wondered how many groups of giddy girls would be prancing around the street with skirts just below their bottoms, or dresses that left nothing to the imagination. It enthralled him and disgusted him all at once. He wasn't the club type, he didn't like that sort of thing. Drunk girls falling all over the place wasn't his idea of romance, much to the boys disbelief. He'd been partying with them on many occasion and acted the part because that's what they wanted, he just preferred being away from all the fights, the haziness and the staggering heat that was almost unbearable.

When he reached the town centre he looked around. It was still early evening, so people were only just beginning to file in. A short man walked ahead of Luke, talking loudly through the phone about his daughters ballet recital.

His name was Gregor, Luke decided. He was a businessman who worked in a lonely, boring office, spending all his time dreaming of being abroad in places like the Caribbean or the Maldives. Which is why his daughters success was very important to him because it meant something to converse about over dinner with his snobby wife who cared very little about him and would rather focus on the chip in her nail than his droning small talk. A ballet recital was sure to liven up their dull Friday night curry, Gregor was certain of it.