Page 5 of Not Your Valentine
“Thanks,” I say awkwardly, then finish my last wonton.
Mom immediately serves me more soup, and I’m not going to complain about extra wonton soup, but I can’t help feeling like I got an extra helping because she feels sorry for me.
Once upon a time, I was ambitious.
I started undergrad bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I mean, as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as someone like me could be. I’d discovered that I had a knack for chemistry in high school, and I was excited to see where it would take me. A PhD and then becoming a professor? That was my top plan.
By the time fourth year came around, some of that enthusiasm had worn off, but I still continued with my plan to do a PhD.
Unfortunately, my supervisor was an asshole, to put it mildly, and I quit after one nightmare of a year. Maybe I could have switched into a different PhD program, but I just couldn’t summon the enthusiasm to figure it out, and given the number of tenure-track positions that would be available once I finished a post-doc in my thirties, I was more than a little pessimistic.
The thought of realizing my earlier dreams made me exhausted, so I decided to start working instead, and I found a job in a lab at a different university. I just wanted to live in Toronto, and make a little money and come home to do whatever the fuck I feel like doing. I’m still making use of my degree, but not in the way I’d planned. For the first year or two, my parents would regularly ask when I’d finish my PhD, but eventually, they accepted my new path.
And right now, it’s Tuesday afternoon, and my “new path” has involved spending five hours binge-watching a show on a streaming service. It’s a popular show that will probably not be renewed because, well, life isn’t fair, and the decisions this streaming service has made lately continue to baffle me.
I’m craving bubble tea, so after I turn off the TV, I put on a bra and some pants without holes—the lengths I will go to for bubble tea!—and head outside. It’s already dark and it’s far from warm out, but fortunately, the bubble tea shop isn’t far.
“Hi, Helen,” says the owner, Vin. “The usual?”
I do, indeed, come here a lot. “Yes, please.”
He rings up my milk tea with tapioca, and I tap my credit card.
“How are you doing today?” he asks. “Anything new?”
“I’m fine.” I’m not in the mood for small talk, but I manage to get out the words.
However, apparently my “I’m fine” wasn’t convincing, and Vin looks skeptical. Concerned.
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
Like everyone else in my life, he’s probably thinking of that Valentine’s Day video. Feeling sorry for me. Worrying about me because I wasn’t able to say “fine” in a cheerful tone. It’s not as if I told him what happened, but he saw the video like so many others did, and he recognized me.
I don’t want people to worry if I’m okay; I just want to forget about that nightmare. I might not have an exciting and glamorous life, but there’s nothing wrong with it. I have lots of time to be cranky alone, which is how I like it.
Except I can’t say that, and for some reason, the words that come out of my mouth instead are: “Actually, I have a new boyfriend.”
“That’s great to hear. After…you know.” He smiles at me, no skepticism in his expression now, and I feel relieved.
A few minutes later, bubble tea in hand, I embark on the long five-minute walk home, wondering if making up a boyfriend is a little pathetic. But people tell lies to strangers and near-strangers all the time. In fact, “I have a boyfriend” is a common lie, though it’s usually something that a woman tells a man who’s hitting on her at the bar. A very different situation from what happened today.
But the more I think about it, the more I wonder if that lie is actually a solution to my problems. Rather than telling it to the owners of bubble tea shops, I could also tell it to Whitney, Jasmeet, and Esther. Mom, Dad, and Shirley. Just a little white lie. I’ve started dating again! I have a boyfriend! Complete with jazz hands.
Scratch that. No jazz hands. It would make them worry that I had a complete personality transplant. I mean, you don’t see Eeyore doing jazz hands, do you?
Anyway, I could tell them, in a normal tone, that they should stop feeling sorry about the “It’s not me, it’s you” incident because I’ve clearly gotten over it: I have a boyfriend again.
Except lying to people who actually know me will be more complicated. They’ll ask questions about what he does. They’ll want to meet him. They’ll want to know how I met him.
And I don’t know the answer to any of those questions, though I do know one thing: he likes soup, and when he tastes my mother’s wonton soup, he will love it.
That’s non-negotiable, but everything else? Who knows.
Yeah, making up a boyfriend sounds like too much work.
I return to my apartment, shed my winter clothes as well as my bra, and put on the comfy pants with holes. I sit down at the table and waste time on my phone as I sip my drink. My half-sweet bubble tea is as delicious as usual, and it never disappoints me the way that people sometimes do. (Looking at you, Charlie Kung.)
I’m scrolling through Instagram when I get a text.
