Valentine's Day

(The beginning to this started as a draft that i published on Love's Got Me Doin' Time, but i never got very far with it. So, i'm using it for this and making it better!)

I hate Valentine's Day, Star thought as she parked out front of Cheyenne's house. The motion light on the garage clicked on, illuminating the driveway. Kayla's silver Cavalier was there, as was Jeanette's Nona. Looked like Star was the last one to arrive. Better late than never, right?

She grabbed her fifty-page Ex's flaws list from the passenger seat and got out of the car. It wasn't that cold, considering how frigid it'd been in the middle of January, but still, cold was cold to her. And any kind of cold was bad.

They'd all decided Valentine's Day was the perfect day to spend inside, hanging out with each other while reading their ex's flaws out loud. It wasn't like Star had anywhere else to be.

A twinge of sadness wedged in her chest. She should have been de-virgined by now. She should have been Dean's girlfriend and they should have been together right now eating dinner at Bershetti's.

But instead she'd barely talked to him in the last week, yet it seemed she spent every waking minute thinking about him. Wondering where he was and what he was doing.

Jeanette pulled open the door before Star rang the bell. Jeanette's hair was up and disheveled, as if she'd bent over, bunched her hair up, and wrapped a rubber band around it. Star took in a deep breath and her shoulders loosened.

She pulled a wide smile on her face. "Star!" She waved Star inside. "Finally, we've been waiting forever."

"Sorry," Star muttered, setting her purse on the table near the door. "Monica wouldn't leave me alone, and then my brother hid my car keys." She groaned, the irritation still fresh. Her older brother, David, sometimes was more of a pain in the butt than her little sister. Exspecially since he broke up with Jeanette.

Star unbuttoned her vest and hung it on a hook beside the door. She headed into the living room with Cheyenne and stopped just over the threshold to look around. Black crepe-paper streamers hung around the room. Black cardstock hearts, torn in half, were taped on the walls. Spider confetti was strewn all over the coffee table. Star bent down and picked a piece up.

"It was all i could find." Jeanette shrugged as she fingered a big, silver hoop in her ear. "They should make broken-heart confetti for Valentine's Day. I bet they'd sell more of it than stupid chocolate."

"Chocolate," Star breathed. "You got chocolate, didn't you?"

Jeanette nodded. "It's for later though. After the popcorn."

Kayla turned sideways on the couch and straightened her shirt. "Did you bring your list?"

Cheyenne held up her pathetic page and nodded remorsefully. "I tried super hard." Which was totally true. She'd spent the last hour trying to think of something negative about Kevin, but he was just too damn perfect. Maybe that was one of his flaws.

"It's okay," Star said, coming up behind her. "I didn't get a hundred pages either."

"I did!" Jeanette gloated, fanning her list in the air.

"She cheated though." Kayla narrowed her eyes at Jeanette. Jeanette suck out her tongue. "She only put one thing on each page."

"No one ever said there were rules for rules," Jeanette countered, tossing a piece of popcorn in her mouth.

"Where are your mom and dad?" Star asked Cheyenne, ignoring the argument starting in the living room.

For the first time in a few days, Star saw raw emotion pass across Cheyenne's face, but she was quick to recover her stony expression. "Dad's upstairs and Mom's staying overnight in Hartford."

Star didn't miss the air of disappointment in Cheyenne's voice when she talked about her mom being gone. From what she'd gathered over the last few months, Cheyenne's mom was staying in Hartford more and more.

Star felt sorry for her friend. She didn't know what she'd do if her mom started spending more time away from home.

"Should we get started?" Cheyenne said quickly.

Star sat next to Kayla. Jeanette lay down on her stomach on the floor.

"Let me go first," Jeanette said, bringing her list in front of her. "David's flaws. Number fifty: He doesn't go over his tongue while brushing his teeth."

"And you used to kiss him?" Star asked in disgust. She bent her legs at her knees, her feet swinging back and forth. The TV behind her played a commercial for diamond jewelry. "Get your Valentine something special this holiday," a delicate female voice said over the display of glitzy diamond earrings.

Cheyenne waved her list around. "I only managed to get thirty-eight flaws. So, this is thirty-eight. Kevin doesn't eat candy."

Kayla groaned. "He is such a meat headed freak!"

"How can you not eat candy?" Star asked, shaking her head in disbelief.

"Now you, Star," Jeanette said.

Star sat up, crossing her legs in front of her. "Dean always has to have a plan." She visibly swallowed, then nodded, as if satisfied with that flaw.

Jeanette popped a few more pieces of popcorn in her mouth. Cheyenne took a handful out of the pink plastic bowl and started picking at the buttery pieces. When was Jeanette going to break out the chocolate?!

"All right, good enough," Jeanette said. "Number forty-nine for David is he never puts things back where he found them."

"Well, that's Kevin's next flaw then," Kayla said.

"Yeah," Cheyenne nodded thoughtfully. "I guess it is."

They continued like that for the next hour. Jeanette undoubtfully had the most flaws to share since her list was the longest. Star ran out of steam about halfway through and Cheyenne had a hard time listing Kevin's flaws fifteen minutes after they started.

After hearing about Kevin's nasty BO and his tendency to jerk like crazy when he was falling asleep, Star had to wonder how Cheyenne ever put up with him. And when Star asked her, Cheyenne thought for a minute and said, "You know what, i'm not really sure."

Listing Kevin's flaws and laughing about them with her friends made Cheyenne ten times more aware of how perfect Kevin tried to be. Did he seriously not like candy? Or did he not eat it in front of anyone so people thought he was healthy?

With the lists finished, they all headed into the kitchen, where Jeanette finally broke out the chocolate. It was the expensive kind, too. The ones where you had to follow a little illustrated map on the underside of the lid just to figure out what chocolate was what. It was a game of treasure hunting, except the reward was chocolate!

Jeanette hoisted herself up on the laminated countertop, her long legs hanging over the edge. Star threw another bag of popcorn in the microwave and punched in a few numbers.

"Get off the counter," Cheyenne said, giving Jeanette a push. Jeanette rolled her eyes but slid down. Those two were always picking at each other. It drove Kayla nuts.

"Thank you," Cheyenne said, then, the phone rang.

"What?" Cheyenne said as a way of greeting when she picked up the phone.

Jeanette chewed a piece of a milk chocolate and carmel candy in her mouth.

"Star, it's for you." Cheyenne handed the phone over to Star as she leaned up against the wall and said, "Yeah?"

"Dude, where are you?" David asked.

"I'm at Cheyenne's. I told Mom that when i left. Why?"

"Oh," he said. "You haven't gone over there in forever."

"So? What do you want?"

"Dean just called here looking for you."

Star's heart suddenly hammered in her ears. Dean had called for her? Did he miss her? Did he finally want her as a girlfriend?

"Did he just call?" Dean was usually in bed by ten. He only stayed up late if he was working.

"Okay, okay." David groaned. "He called about two hours ago, but i just remembered."

"Thanks a lot, doofus!"

"Hey, i'm not your answering service."

Anger blazed her cheeks, but then she realized all of her friends were staring at her.

"Did Dean call or something?" Cheyenne said.

Star opened her mouth to make up and excuse, but she didn't want to lie to her friends. And she didn't want to start defending Dean when they'd just had the liberating experience of reading The Ex's flaws.

"Yeah," she said. She took a breath for courage. "But i'm not going to call him back."

"Hey! Hello!" David said.

Star turned her attention back to her brother. "Sorry. Anyway, i gotta go, David."

"Wait. One more thing. Mom wants you home."

"It's getting late, Star," Mrs. Waters said in the background.

"Did you hear that?" David said.

Star rolled her eyes. "Yes. I heard her."

"See you soon!"

The phone went dead. "I gotta go," she said.

"You won't call Dean back, will you?" Kayla asked, raising her eyebrows.

"No. He called hours ago anyway. He's probably in bed by now."

"If you feel the need to call him," Jeanette said, "don't."

Star smiled. "Sure."