I was thinking about how much the holiday really sucked for me on a regular basis.
There was though, this one year it was a little different- my second year of high school.
i was really not looking too much forward to everyone else getting the roses and chocolates and cards... the school i attended had a rose delivery event where you could order roses and have them delivered to your sweetheart's homeroom, proceeds going to student council.
i hated it the previous year- i was literally the only girl in my class who didn't get a rose, and had actually seriously considered being "sick" that day just so i didn't have to face that scenario again.
Can you imagine how surprised i was that morning, when on my desk was a single yellow rose, with a card attached...
"Happy Valentine's Day, from your secret admirer."
i had no idea who it could be from- i didn't even allow myself to think of who i wanted it to be from. i had never been so surprised in my life, i nearly burst into tears. I was so shocked to know someone cared enough to do this for me, and so touched.
i took it home and kept it in a vase even after it started to wilt. When it was obvious i couldn't keep it in water any longer, i pressed it. i still have it, even now.

Some years later, i got a letter from one of my high school friends. This guy and i always had the best arguments, the most wonderful discussions and wicked games of chess. We'd been friends as long as i could remember, because my mom was best friends with his mom.

The handwriting looked awfully familiar. I pulled the card out of my diary where i'd kept it all that time... and it was a match.
My heart ached, and still does, to think that he cared enough to send me that rose. My heart aches even more when i consider the possibility that he was interested in me and i never saw it... it certainly hurts to think that he was possibly the only other kid in that school that hated Valentine's day more. See, he had been born with several birth defects, and while reconstructive surgery had done him much good, he would always be a very odd-looking guy. Lots of girls giggles when he walked by and some outright made comments about how ugly he was. The part that hurts the most is that i think of how he must have felt when i fell madly in love with his best friend, and he held my hand while i cried because that same friend broke my heart.
i've never been shallow or cared so much about looks. i didn't ever think of him romantically more because he'd just always been there than because of the way he looked. i really and truly wouldn't have cared- i just never saw it.

i hope that he's found someone wonderful, and that if someone really cares for me in the future, i won't be so blind.
Never take a good friend for granted.