Valentine's Day

Derek swooned around his bedroom, frilly white shirt hanging open, tousled blonde hair hanging over his eyes as he danced along to music audible only to him. He sang under his breath and, when he knocked over a chair and an entire mountain of videos-an act of clumsiness that on any other day could send him into a raging black mood-he merely grinned, shook his head and danced around them. Tonight was the night. Tonight, on the most romantic night of all, he would ask his girlfriend of six months to marry him.

Thinking about this, his happiness ebbed and he started to worry all over again. It had been like this ever since his decision to propose, episodes of happiness, followed by nervousness, then fear, then excitement, then after talking himself round again, the happiness would return. All these emotions experienced sometimes in the space of minutes. At this moment though, his fear took over and he began to worry out loud.

“What if she doesn’t love me?” he murmured softly, “What if she thinks it’s too soon? She will think it’s too soon. I should wait shouldn’t I? But what if she’s been waiting for me to ask. She might feel the same way as me.”

He pondered on this for a moment longer and his fear began to melt away again as he did once more the thing he was best at; he talked himself around to see what a damned good idea it really was. Of course she’d want to spend the rest of her life with him. There’d been no complaints from her corner so far so why not take it that extra step. This thought firmly fixed in his mind, he fastened his shirt, gelled his hair, grabbed a jacket and walked out of the room, down the hall and through the front door.

In the car, he tapped his fingers along to the crappy pop music on the radio; too nervous and fidgety to bother putting on a CD. Every so often he’d take a nervous glance in the mirror to check his hair was still in place and he looked all right. His thoughts were rushing about madly, mind in overdrive thinking about what he should do, how he should ask the question and what his reaction would be if she said no. Suddenly, without warning, he found himself outside of the flats, gazing up at her window.

He climbed out of the car, eyes remaining fixed on the window as he fumbled to get the keys out of the ignition and slam the door shut behind him. After once more feeling inside his pocket to check for the ring, he let out a deep breath and started walking.

It was a cool night and Derek’s breath streamed out before him in white clouds, his newly polished shoes crunching on the pavement below. He’d decided by then that he was going to pop the question as soon as he saw her instead of waiting to take her out to dinner. It was just going to be too difficult to hold it in for that long. It would be a great surprise either way; Sarah didn’t even know he was coming over to see her.

In the building, Derek wiped his shoes on the rug at the door then sauntered as nonchalantly as could be expected over to the lift. He lifted one slightly trembling finger and almost missed pushing the same button he'd pushed a million times before. The doors opened almost immediately. He walked into the lift and, his finger trembling even more, pressed the button marked ‘15’.

Outside her door he paused and looked straight ahead at the plain grey number positioned at precisely eye level, gathering his thoughts, which were going a little something like this; "ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod". After a few seconds, he stuck a hand into a pocket once more and pulled out his key to her flat. He stuck it in the lock and, with a sharp intake of breath, turned it sharply to the left.

Heading straight for the living room, he tiptoed almost silently through the flat, wanting to keep the surprise for as long as possible. At the door he stopped again for a second, psyching himself up. Then he burst through.

“Happy Valentine’s…” he stopped mid-sentence, suddenly unable to speak. Lying on the couch; completely entwined with another girl, their lips joined together, eyes closed tight against the rest of the world; was his girlfriend…