So, when I was in high school, I was the weird girl. You know the one; every school has one - style just slightly off from goth because goth is too conformist, obsessed with death and the afterlife, dabbles in fortune telling with everything from tarot cards to feeling the bumps on your head, gets impressive grades while not being the slightest bit studious. Basically your standard high school outcast female trope. And just like in the movie Juno, the popular jock guys ate that sh*t UP, which resulted in the alpha jock (let's call him Johnny Bravo) developing a weird four-year fixation on me.
Anyway, in my senior year, Valentine's Day rolled around yet again, and just like every other year, I somehow managed to be between short-lived boyfriends on this holiest of all days. So I moaned and groaned with all the rest of my friends about whyyyyyy I couldn't find twue wuv, and why the best I ever got every year was a pity flower from my favorite gay friend, even though every damn year I sent an anonymous valentine to a different random sad sack dude, figuring it'd brighten his day a little (in retrospect, it probably didn't).
Then an enormous shadow fell over my lunch table, like a solar eclipse, and Johnny Bravo was there, looking all fidgety, mumbling "this is for you" and dropping something on the table in front of me before scurrying away. When I saw what it was, I was shocked at how thoughtful it was - it was a book about the science of putrefaction, and how each chemical and physical reaction led to a different myth of the undead. I wasn't always single for Valentine's Day after that, but up until Mr. Kuus started actually remembering the holiday, it stood as the best VDay gift I'd ever received.
