I always hated Valentine's Day. No, it's not because of the fact that I've never had a relationship that lasted longer than a month. And it's not because I don't believe in 'true love'; in fact, far from it, I'm actually something of a hopeless romantic myself.
No, the reason is because the holiday always seems to bring out the worst in people. I've heard a statistic that said men are far more likely to break up with their lovers on, or right before, Valentine's day. I don't know if that's true, but it certainly sounds like it could be. But even if it's not, people run around acting like doing one romantic gesture on Valentine's Day makes up for being neglectful of your lover the other 364 days of the year. It's just kind of sad.
Case in point, what happened with my friend Carmen. She is an absolutely beautiful, lovely little Latina chick -- dark skinned, curvy in all the right places, and deep eyes that you just feel like you could stare into until the end of time. Sounds like the perfect girl, am I right guys? Well she got dumped by her long-term boyfriend
ON
Valentine's Day.
Oh, that's not all. She also happened to be nine months pregnant at the time! Yeah, that tells you what sort of guy her boyfriend was to just walk out on her like that.
I got a call from her that morning. She was literally in tears. Seems that she didn't know who else to call. She couldn't exactly call her family, and I was her only friend still living in the city. We'd known each other for years, but of course, our relationship had always been strictly platonic. So, I decided to call off work and go try and cheer her up. I told her that we could meet up at the deli just a couple of blocs from my apartment.
It didn't take me more than fifteen minutes to get dressed and out of the apartment, but somehow, she wound up there before me. She was sitting at one of the booths by the window, still crying. And... somehow all I could think about was how beautiful she looked. So fertile and full of life. Like I said, she was already about nine months along, and her belly was huge. Heck, her whole body had filled out very nicely. You know how those Latina girls are.
I know this will sound clichΓ©d, but there was just something about her... a 'glow' I guess you could say.
I walked up and greeted her.
"Hey," I said, not really sure of what else to say. "How you holding up?"
Carmen just looked up at me and tried to smile, tears still running down her face. The poor girls make-up was smeared, and her hair was a mess. But underneath it all she was still very pretty.
"How do you think," she asked. "I just got dumped... on Valentine's Day... and I'm pregnant! Whose going to help me raise this baby now?"
It looked like she was going to start crying again at any moment, so I reached down and hugged her, savoring the feeling of her warm little body pressed tightly against my chest.
"Shhhh," I said as I comforted her, "It's all right. I'm here for you Carmen."
"Thanks," she said, trying valiantly not to cry.
"Don't mention it," I said as I sat down. "Mind if I join you for coffee."
Carmen just smiled at me.
We made small talk, at least, as best we could under the circumstances. And exchanged snipy little comments about her boyfriend, or rather ex-boyfriend. I told her how I never really liked that bastard, and told her that he still owed me five bucks that he borrowed from me and never paid back. All in all, it seemed like we were having a rather good time. And then came the question that I was dreading....
"So why do you think he left me," she asked. "Am I not attractive any more?"
"What," I exclaimed, more than a little surprised and, quite honestly, unprepared to deal with that sort of talk.
"Well I mean look at me," she said, "I'm huge!"
"Don't say that Carmen."
"It's true," she continued, looking down at her swollen belly, "He didn't touch me much during the pregnancy. We stopped having sex months ago when I started to show."
"Well then he didn't know how to appreciate a good thing," I exclaimed boldly!
Carmen looked up at me, probably a little shocked by my bold assertion. She almost looked like she was blushing, in fact.
"What," she asked meekly.