Valentine

The table was covered in flowers and chocolate when I came downstairs in the morning. Gavin and I smelled the roses and looked at the heart-shaped box for a few minutes before we walked to the store to pick up Mike's Valentine's Day liquor (I'm a die-hard romantic, obviously) to go with the box of chocolate covered cherries...

The Chocolate Covered Cherry

1997. Three months into our relationship. On Thanksgiving weekend, Mike and I packed up our letterman jackets and hopped in the rattling Chevy Nova for a road trip to Indiana. During the long stretches of cold Midwestern road, I read aloud from a book of Stephen King short stories. At midnight, we stopped at a lonely gas station and bought steaming cups of cappuccino, pouring little packets of flavored creamer in them until they were sickeningly sweet and delicious. The car was littered with the usual traveling debris; empty tubes of Pringles, juice boxes, soda cans, tissues, clothes. And two boxes of chocolate covered cherries.

Unable to finish reading the Night Flier in the dark, I took out the candies to break the monotony. I popped one in Mike's mouth and turned up the radio. We drove onto a long rail-lined bridge, and I chose that moment to crack a joke. Mike laughed, and then made a funny noise. I thought my joke must have been much funnier than I thought, but it quickly became evident that Mike was choking. The bridge had no shoulder. I grabbed the wheel and had a moment of panic when I didn't know what to do - stop in the road? Could he wait until we pulled over? Would he be able to operate the brakes? Were we about to crash and die?

But this is Mike. He held his breath and waited for the lanes to widen, then pulled over smoothly and politely hacked up a wad of cherry. He wiped his lips and then smiled at me, "You just tried to kill me." I decided at that moment that I loved him.

Fast Forward

8 years later.

Mike smiled when he saw the chocolate covered cherries. "You're trying to kill me," he said on cue. He's a few years older and has more hair, but he's still the guy I tried to kill all those years ago. He took me to a coffee shop in the afternoon. We sat in big purple chairs and sipped over-sweetened drinks while Gavin played with a coffee stirrer on the floor. We stopped for ice cream, and then had dinner with my mom at our favorite Chinese joint. I did my best to pick at all the food, and I chased the meal with a half hour on the recumbent cycle, but all was lost once the liquor came out. It was really a good day.