A grammar school valentine

 She took the small cardboard heart from the shelf where it had sat gathering dust for a very long time. She wiped the top with her sleeve. Then she opened it. The faint smell of chocolate drifted towards her—another trip down memory lane. Grammar school valentines so many alike, but a certain few were kept as they had more meaning than the school's bully card did. She took a card out of the heart-shaped box from Billy, whom she had the biggest crush on in the fourth grade. She traced his name with her finger, recalling laughter in the schoolyard as he smiled at her, melting her heart.

She knew all the verses on the various cards and other reminders of Valentine's past. A red ribbon she wore in her hair at the school dance, a white handkerchief with a red heart embroidered by her grandmother, and even a couple of candy hearts with simple but memorable words like "Be my valentine," hardly legible anymore.

Then there was the stack of red envelopes postmarked over the years. She always kept them for last as funny valentines were replaced with real letters of love. One by one, she read every word slowly as if it were the first time. He wrote about ports he visited and life on a Navy ship. He professed his love for her in words he had often written on a star-filled night, looking at the sky, knowing she would be looking at them with him as tears fell from her eyes, coming to rest on his own tear-stained words.

Time had taken its toll on the faded letters, just as it had on her heart, when she realized she'd read for the last time, the final expression of love from her childhood crush, Billy. She put the letters back into the heart-shaped box where they'd remain until next year, gathering dust and a few more tears of both sorrow and joy, knowing she was loved when she traced his name on a grammar school Valentine.

Mike 2026