Lonely Hearts Day by Kasie West

Author:Kasie West [West, Kasie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Teen Young Adult Clean Romance
Publisher: Paper Kiss Press
Published: 2024-01-29T18:30:00+00:00

Year 3

(Juniors)

Chapter 10

I handed the girl a smashed and mangled box of candy hearts. She was sitting in her car with the window rolled down, probably waiting for whoever she was riding home with. I wasn’t even sure if she was single, but at this point, it didn’t matter. I’d been handing them out all week and I was trying to get rid of the last few I had. “Come to my party tonight,” I said, pointing at the info written on the box.

“What happened to it?” she asked, holding it up by the corner and scrunching her nose. “Did it get run over by a truck?”

“That’s how it’s supposed to look. It’s a party celebrating singleness.”

Smashing and stomping a hundred candy heart boxes had been very cathartic. I knew how that sounded. How it made me come off. Bitter. Angry. This last year had been the worst of my life. But even so, I hadn’t lost the tiny sliver of hope I’d been clinging to that my parents’ separation would be a good thing. After all, it was still just a separation. The fact that they hadn’t made it permanent was a good sign . . . I thought.

Having to sit through another high school Valentine’s Day parade of roses today wasn’t helping though. It felt like even more people had gotten them this year. And this year’s poem was beyond atrocious. They rhymed fatal attraction with chemical reaction.

“Oh, you’re Scarlett,” she said. “The girl who throws the anti-love party. I was at Cassidy’s party last year and every time she heard someone was at yours she got angrier and angrier.”

“She did?” I asked. Why did that thought give me the first bit of excitement I’d had in a while? The last month I’d spent planning the party for tonight was the only thing bringing me any sort of purpose. “What about Micah?”

“He always has a sour face.”

“True. Oh.” I pointed to the invitation. “And it’s not anti-love. It’s pro-singleness.”

“I have a boyfriend.”

“Why?” I said. Okay, maybe I was teetering on the edge of the anti-love pit. “I mean, give it to one of your single friends?”

“Sure,” she said, throwing it onto the seat next to her. The box released a puff of powder when it landed.

“Scarlett!” I heard my name called across the parking lot and looked around, unable to find the source.

The girl I’d been talking to started her car and I walked around the front of mine to the driver’s side. That’s when I saw Jack heading my way from the school, his hand up in a wave.

I smiled. He was my only source of joy these days, it felt like, and I knew that was a lot to put on a person, so I tried to keep that to myself. Of course, he knew he was my best friend, but he didn’t need to know that without him I would be miserable far more often than I was. Okay, maybe he already knew that too.

“Hey,” he said.

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