now a new day comes, clears the darkness out of sight, and the shadows that were sleeping come and dance beneath the light

Belle and Sebastian, “Waiting For The Moon To Rise”

So it’s been awhile. I wish I could say I’ve been busy with something awesome, like curing cancer or wandering through Paris writing poetry, but actually, it’s been a lot of homework, evenings dissolving in impromptu card games and Youtube videos and, once, a surprisingly successful cookie baking adventure involving no measuring cups, barely half the ingredients, and a bipolar oven.

It’s Valentine’s Day, which was less of a big deal than I’d dreaded. At Bailey it was always a big show, a day to be accessorized with giant teddy bears and dozens of roses and bunches of heart-shaped balloons, classes and lunchtime invariably filled with gossip about where you were going and what you were wearing that night. Chris and I had an awkward dinner one year, awkward only because there was that heavy expectation that tonight had to be more special, more expensive, more profound, and we couldn’t really fake it. Most years I was single. Allie and I had a lot of anti-Valentine parties, and we always bought each other sale candy the day after.

But I barely noticed it today, aside from the two hours Audrey and Will sexiled me tonight, which isn’t really an unusual occurrence. I’m a little sketched out at them constantly doing it in our room, particularly since she left a (shockingly illustrated) “Top 40 Sex Tips” article open on her computer the other day, which recommended “finding a new setting every time!” I’m REALLY hoping these new settings don’t include my bed. (Or desk. Or chair. Or floor. Ugh.)  I’ve taken to constantly leaving piles of papers all over my bed, with the pretense that I’m organizing my research paper (which I should actually be doing).

Anyway, I escaped their Valentine’s Day hookup in Alice’s room, eating Necco Sweethearts candy her professor had given her. She’d told Jay she would flat out reject anything he gave her; I didn’t expect anything else to happen, and I didn’t want it to. I’ve always disparaged the holiday—it’s fake, commercialized, Hallmarked, overpackaged insincerity.  But I sort of wonder if my cynicism is just a front, if I don’t really, secretly want something to do something for me. Not roses and chocolate and balloons, not a mass produced teddy bear, but something creative and thoughtful and different.

Things with Jason are going slowly, but I think they’re going somewhere.  We had lunch the other day, and have plans again for this week.  Part of me thinks this pace is okay, ideal, even; I’m still getting myself back together after the disaster with Paul, we don’t know each other that well, and so on. But part of me wonders if I’m rationalizing something that obviously isn’t working, if I’m just trying to fit this into my ideal pattern of how things could go, convincing myself it is perfect.

Paul has been texting me. Sometimes I respond, often I don’t. I think I can handle this, because I usually respond with neutral statements that I intend to be dripping with apathy and condescension and indifference. Of course, he can’t catch the tone of the words, but I like knowing I can keep that up, this angry shield against him.

Twice he has said he misses me. I don’t respond to those.  I tell myself it’s not really him, just words, like our fake dialogues in Spanish class, just phrases, empty letters in a row. Yesterday in class a cute boy asked me to dinner, but it was only a staged conversation in a stupid game. For a moment I let myself pretend it was real. And I told him yes, I would love to, pretending I was pretending too.