“So I was thinking,” said the blonde-haired beauty beside me, also known as my best friend, Sarah. “You remember how I told you that when I feel like I’m in love, I’ll tell you?”
It was late evening of the same day as my breakfast date with Austin. Our date had gone amazingly well, and he had dropped me home before going to Sunday evening soccer practice. About an hour after he had left, Sarah had pulled up to my house and told me to get in the car. We ended up at the mall, looking for a dress that Sarah had seen in a store last week. This normally would have been an easy task, but Sarah had a very bad memory, and had forgotten which store she had seen the dress in. So here we were, dragging our flip-flops to every store, looking for the dress.
“Yeah,” I replied. “Have you finally fallen in love? Or is it just another one of your many trial dates, like the one with the guy who moved to Alabama or the one who ended up running away to join the circus?”
“Eww! Don’t ever speak of those two again. They are deemed “unspeakable” now.”
“Okay, okay. Continue.”
“Yes, I think I may have fallen in love.” This was new for Sarah. She usually dated a guy, and then when she found someone better, she dropped the guy like a hot potato. For her to actually admit she was in love was a huge step.
“Who’s the lucky guy?” I asked, genuinely curious.
“Austin.” My blood froze and my heart skipped a beat. I looked over at her, only processing some of the words. “Cute…smart…funny…I love him…”
I felt like I was going to throw up. My best friend was in love with my secret boyfriend. What was I supposed to do? Choose my love or my friend? I faked being sick, and called my dad to come pick me up, after listening to Sarah talk about Austin some more. When my dad pulled up into the parking lot, I bolted into the car, teas streaming across my face. He didn’t bother to ask, just held me, and let me cry.
As soon as we reached the house, I ran inside, locking myself in my room. I thought about my choices: either break up with Austin for Sarah or stay with Austin and betray Sarah’s trust in me. I supposed I could tell Sarah about Austin and I, but that would just make her hate me. I don’t remember making a choice, but I guess I did because the next thing I knew, I was calling up Austin to tell him we were done. He didn’t pick up, probably because he was still at soccer practice. In a trembling voice, I told him that we were done and not to call me back. I didn’t think he would obey my request, and I was right, because as I sat, tears trickling down my face an hour later, my phone vibrated violently, almost causing me to yelp. It was Austin. I didn’t pick up. My phone rang about twenty times after that, and I had a dozen new voice messages. They were all the same: Austin apologizing for whatever he had done that caused this and for me to please call him back. I cried harder, the tears forming an endless river. I pulled myself up and shifted to my bed, where I curled up and cried myself to sleep.

The next day, I avoided Austin like the plague. I ran from class to class, usually trying to submerge myself into a large group. I knew my brown hair would blend in easily so I wasn’t so worried about being noticed. I knew Austin was looking for me because when I had walked into school that morning, he had seen me, and we had held eye contact for what seemed like ten minutes, but was actually only five seconds. As soon as I looked away, he had broken away from his friends and started pacing towards to me. I had ducked, almost crashing into Sarah, who was fluffing her hair and reapplying her makeup behind me.
“Hey, there’s the hottie,” she had said, not even trying to hide that she was checking him out.
I had run away to my first period class, the first one in there. Until lunchtime, I had managed to avoid Austin’s repeated texts asking to see me, but when I walked into the lunchroom, my heart sank. There was Austin, sitting next to Sarah, in my usual spot. Sarah was mercilessly flirting with him, almost in his lap. Austin seemed to be oblivious to this, keeping his eyes trained on the doors to the lunchroom. Luckily, a giant group of cheerleaders was walking in front of me, and I was able to hide behind them and grab my lunch, heading out of the doors as soon as I saw another group of people to hide behind. Unfortunately, these were the gothic people. They all had dyed black hair, and my brown hair was as noticeable as a fire truck in the middle of the desert. I felt someone grab a hold of my arm.
“Hey,” the deep voice that I had come to love but could no longer be with said. “What’s going on? What did I do?”
“Nothing,” I said, my heart breaking a little more by the apologetic tone of his voice. “Just leave me alone, okay?” And with that, I wrenched my arm out of his hand and walked off, leaving him. But not before I heard him whisper something.
“I would never leave the girl I love alone.”

His last words stayed with me throughout the day. They echoed inside my head as I walked from class to class. Eventually, by the end of the day, I had gone through so much emotional and mental pain that I wasn’t sure how much more I could take. But life had something else for me: a simple look at the date made me realize that tomorrow was Valentine’s Day. I was going to be boyfriend-less on Valentine’s Day. Just great. Worse, I had dumped the only guy that I had ever loved and still loved two days before Valentine’s Day. How great was I? After dance rehearsal that night, I trudged over to my dad’s minivan, waiting for me in the parking lot. Normally, Austin would have driven me home, but since we were no longer together, I had to find other options. I groaned, knowing that a couple of grueling hours of calculus homework lay ahead of me. As I reached home, my phone vibrated. It was a text from Austin’s older brother, Jeremy. He and I were good friends, and we usually hung out whenever he was home from college. Of course, that was when I was still with Austin. I braced myself for whatever he texted me, as I figured it would probably have to do with my breaking up with Austin. There were only five words: meet me at golf course. I was ecstatic, a nice surprise form the horrible day I had just had, and I jumped out of the van, leaving my dad looking at me in confusion. I loved Jeremy like an older brother and I knew I could talk to him about this whole situation. He would understand, and then give me advice.
As I reached the golf course behind my house, I headed to our usual spot: a table and a set of chairs near the kiddie golf course, overlooking the little stream that ran through the lush patches of green. As I neared the table, my jaw dropped. The normally rusty, falling-down table had been covered in a red tablecloth, on which was a card that was propped up on a bottle of Martinelli’s Apple Cider, my favorite kind of fizzy drink. I cautiously approached the table, oblivious to the hues of red and pink strewn across the sky as the sun prepared to set, always my favorite time of the day to look at the sky. I was able to read the card, which said Call me crazy, but I’m in love. As I reached for the card, I became aware of my surroundings, including the six-foot-one guy who had just come out from behind a tree, holding a teddy bear with a giant heart on which was stitched I LOVE YOU, and was staring at me with an intense look in his eyes, making me feel as if we were the only ones in the world.
“Umm hi,” I managed to say after getting over my shock at seeing him. “Did you do all of this?”
“Well,” he started, finally breaking eye contact to fix the adorable red tie he was wearing, which made me realize he was wearing a three-piece suit, complete with the pocket hanky. Compared to him, I felt entirely underdressed in my faded jeans and now somewhat sweaty Hollister tee. “Before your unexpected change of mind, I had this all planned out for tomorrow. I just figured I could do it a day before to show you how much I loved you.”
I could hear the hurt in his voice, which made my eyes start to tear up. He must have realized this because he came over to where I was standing a safe distance away and started to gently wipe the corners of my eyes with his thumb, until he realized what he was doing.
“Oh, uhh sorry.” He pulled the pocket hanky out, gave it to me, and then decided to continue with what he was saying prior. “I know why you broke up with me.”
I looked up at him in surprise, unable to process what I had just heard. As if he had sensed my confusion, he elaborated.
“At lunch, after you left, I asked Sarah why you were acting so weird. Apparently, she didn’t think you were acting weird at all, and then sidled up to me and asked me if I was dating anyone. She then proceeded to confess her love for me, concluding with ‘Let’s be friends so we can make out.’ At that point, I knew I had to tell her the truth. So I told her about us, and she explained to me that you might have broken up with me for her sake. Is that true?”
I looked up, pretending to be interested in the sky.
“Maybe,” I answered, starting to ramble uncontrollably, almost crying. “I didn’t know what to do and I didn’t want to upset anybody but I guess I did and I also didn’t want to lose Sarah and now, I’m just confused. Do you hate me? Does Sarah hate me? Ohmigosh I am a horrible person. You should just never talk to me again. I don’t deserve you love and I can’t believe I didn’t trust you enough to believe that we could make it thorough this. Gosh I’m so stupid—”
I was cut off abruptly as Austin came to stand above me, towering over me like he always did. He stood above me, making it impossible for me to see anywhere.
“I think you should shut up now,” he said teasingly, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “And to answer all of your questions: No, Sarah doesn’t hate you. When I left to go set all of this up, she was practically sitting in the lap of another guy. I don’t hate you. I understand why you did this. You care a lot about your friends. You do what you think will please them, not what pleases you. And that’s what I love about you. That’s what made me fall in love with you. Remember how I first asked you out?”
I sniffled, tears slowly retreating out of my eyes.
Seeing that I was unable to talk, he continued, “I was so nervous to ask you out, but I finally built up the courage to, and when I ‘accidentally’ bumped into you, you just murmured something like sorry and then walked away. I was heartbroken. I tried again a couple of times during the day, but you kept ignoring me. So finally—“
“You waited until I finished dance practice and got down on one knee in front of the stairwell after everyone else was gone and asked if I would go on a date with you, and—“
“You were so shocked that you dropped your backpack down the stairs and we had to rush to get all of our books and—“
“After we were done, I said yes, and there was a look of relief that swept across your face, and then your face broke into this gigantic smile and—“
“I think that’s enough,” he said, the smile forming on his face. “I think we both remember what happened pretty clearly.”
“But why are you here?” I asked, knowing that I didn’t deserve to have a boyfriend this great. Wait a second, did I say boyfriend? Oops, my bad. I meant ex-boyfriend. We weren’t officially back together.
“Because I love you. Happy Valentine’s Day.” And with that he put his arms around me and drew me near, giving me exactly what I wanted like he always did: the perfect kiss.
And with that I knew the answer to the question: true love really did exist. And my true love was Austin.