A Valentine's dream of pizza
it's all I've ever wanted
So tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. Not one of my favorite holidays (although I do love me some chocolate).
It’s a great day if you have someone. If you don’t, it sucks.
Plain and simple.
But there’s always Twilight memes to brighten my day. This is one of my faves from the vault, I think it’s the 3rd Twilight meme I ever made.
I have no actual good memories to delight in this day, as I’ve only ever been dating someone for one “February 14th” in my life, and he got me FLOWERS! Ugh.
Not that I didn’t appreciate the gesture, as we had only been talking for about… a month?…but anyone who knows me - or takes the time to get to really know me - knows that despise getting flowers for any occasion.
WHY? Well, I have a lot of reasons. Some of them come from painful high school days of loneliness.
A majority of them come from working in an office and seeing all my coworkers get huge bouquets, stuffed animals and boxes of candy delivered to them while I quietly watched on, focused on my work - while they tried to make room on their desks for their extravagant gifts of affection.
I remember looking longingly out the glass office front door, wishing that I could have a gift delivered to me, too. In my mind a handsome young man politely knocked, a large red package in his hands.
He would call my name, and would leap up, and he would gently open the side of the red case and remove a hot box of pizza. Just for me. I would take it to my office and eat it - and if anyone asked me for a piece I would say, excuse me, DID I ASK FOR ONE OF YOUR ROSES???
Sigh. It never happened for me. HOWEVER, when I was writing my retelling of Twilight, Bella didn’t seem like the type to like flowers either. So I put quite a bit of effort into explaining what happens to Ella on Valentine’s Day, and how she worries about it and what actually happens. I guess it’s like what I wish would have happened for me.
Also, I don’t remember the Twilight movies covering any Valentine’s Days, so I wanted Ella’s character to move to Ports in January so she would have time for Tedwin and Jason to work on how they would woo her. So her worrying about Valentine’s Day is in Part 1, and what actually happens on Valentine’s Day is in Part 2. Here is a snippet from Chapter 5 of Part 1 entitled “Valentine’s Day is Next Week”:
“So you and Tedwin were talking over there, care to share?”
Ella could feel her cheeks starting to blush, so she took a deep breath and laughed. “Oh, we were just talking about work stuff…”She took a bite of her apple - one without nasty shoe germs on it, and got up the courage to ask while chewing slowly.
“So, Angela, what’s it like here at school on Valentine's Day? Like...do people have flowers and candy delivered to them in class?”
Angela shook her head and snickered, looking at Ella sympathetically. “You’ve been watching too many movies my dear”, she said, patting her on the hand. “Plus, these are high school boys. Don’t waste your time hoping for anything”
“I wasn’t planning on it”, Ella chuckled as she mentally breathed a big sigh of relief. “So...nothing goes on then, right? No…student council fundraisers or…secret admirer stuff?”
“Nope. But it’s a good thing you asked me and not Jessica,” Angela mused. “Who knows what she would do with that kind of idea. Did they do something like that at your old high school?”
The bell was about to ring in a few minutes. Ella didn’t want to talk about it, she wanted to be alone. “Uh...you know what? I have homework to finish. I’m going to get to English class a little early. See you there.”
Ella got to the empty class room and plopped down in her chair. Crossing her arms on her desk, she laid her head down waiting for class to start. She was so relieved that at this small High School, it was looking like the day would pass unremarkably - just like any other day.
What she didn’t feel like sharing with anyone was how annoying - or rather how painful - that day was for people like her at her old high school. Every Valentine's Day, during first period, the members of the student council would visit classrooms - if they were holding any red carnations that meant that someone in that class was going to get one.
The tradition was to sign the card from “a secret admirer”, so there was always a little bit of hushed guessing and excitement around each recipient as to who sent the flower. Ella always assumed some of the money for the flowers went towards some kind of fund or cause, but it was never publicized.
For the people who did receive carnations, it was a romantic and exciting day. But for the people who didn't - and that was a lot - it was a disappointing day. She had always wished that the deliveries could be sent to people's houses and they would open them at home - like Christmas presents, so people who didn’t get anything - like her - wouldn't feel bad.
The day wasn’t all bad though she remembered, as she and her Mom would usually share a heart-shaped box of chocolates and Ella would cook a special dinner. But she was ready to put that all behind her and have a fresh start.
*I was planning of course as having this all as one book, but the diagnosis I got changed up my timeline, more about that in March or April’s newsletter.
But there’s SOOOOO much about Valentine’s Day that had to get separated and put into part 2. All my rants and raves about the crazy stuff I had to put up with in that office is a big part of it. I can’t wait to finalize it and get published!
And of course, there is the day AFTER Valentine’s which is a good day to hit up the stores. So here is a final Twilight meme for y’all Locas.
Hope you all have a good Feb. 14th, whatever your relationship status is. Sign up for my newsletter to get alerts for all kinds of news and random newsletters, I plan on making another one soon to cover all the crazy stuff that happened back in Feb. of 2021 as I was writing this retelling.
Love,
Stef Mellor, author of the newest, bestest and FUNNIEST retelling of Twilight, The Ovenlight Saga. Purchase here at my linktree.