Not a Valentine

Chapter 7

February 2

I get to school on Wednesday with a smile on my face. It was the fact that I was excited to send out more telegraphs. When I meet Mason and Quincy at school, I'm excited to be around them.

Quincy laughs at my excitement and says, "You know. I logged into the website this morning, and there are a lot more being sent over as we speak."

"It's kind of crazy how fast it's going," I say with a daze in my head. I couldn't actually believe that this was going well; my plan was going well. It made me happy.

Mason stops by the restroom and says, "I'll see you in class, Thea. Bye Quincy." We let him slip off into the bathroom before heading over toward our classes.

I tap Quincy on the shoulder and say, "I've been meaning to tell you something."

"What is it?" Quincy says it with an attentive gaze.

"There was a weird note from yesterday's Valentine function," I say to her as I start the conversation. Quincy only tilts her head to the side, a sign for me to get going.

"It didn't have anything on it," I say to her. "But listen, it had an email that was anonymous, and on the public confession, it wasn't a confession. It wasn't a Valentine."

"So, like, what does that mean?" Quincy says as we fall in step with each other.

"No, listen," I say with a smile. "The person asked how to tell someone you like them when there wasn't a chance in the world for that person to like them as well."

Quincy stops in her spot and says, "So what happened next?"

"I didn't know if I should have thrown it away or..."

"Oh my God, you replied to them!" Quincy says with her eyes widening, and I duck my head in answer. She laughs out loud as the both of us get closer to our English classrooms. She turns to me and says, "Oh, I just knew you would do that."

"What does that mean?" I ask with a laugh, and she only presses her hand into my shoulder. Turning in her spot once she realizes her classroom is right there, she says, "So what happened? Did they reply?"

"Yes, they kept saying that they couldn't risk losing what they really had by confessing," I say with a slight frown. "I asked them why, and it was left unanswered."

"Hm," Quincy hums, and I give her a quizzical expression.

"What?" I say with a laugh, and she gives me a shrug.

"I don't know," she says, and then throws a wave at me. "I've got to go. I'll see you later."

"Okay," I answer back with my own wave and then head into my classroom as well. Once I get there, I open my laptop for the first time today to get to the website again.

Once I open it, I find there are a lot of different hearts popping up, but I ignore them as my eyes automatically go to the other side of the screen. There's a notification notice on the side, and I press on it to find that the person has responded. It was an hour ago, and I opened it up.

Sorry, I didn't respond yesterday. It's just that we are so different.

I read over the answer once, twice, and go to read it the third time when someone takes a seat next to me. I turn my head to find Mason sitting on his spot and close my laptop as I say, "Hey, you made it here on time."

"I did," he answers quickly before shutting his mouth when the teacher stands up from her spot at the desk. I cringe softly as I turn over to the front of the room and bring my attention to the lesson and not to the fact that Anonymous had texted back.