The Last Valentine’s

The world ended on Valentine’s Day, leaving the destroyed strip mall bathed in pink and white decorations. Roses that had once been carefully pruned now drooped in their vases, some of them completely deteriorating into piles of dusty petals. Songbirds would dart through the broken windows, grabbing colorful streamers and confetti to add to their nests. Emile sat behind the register, watching a bright red cardinal hop along the counter. He had only just woken up himself. It would be a few more minutes before his brain would decide to fully turn on.

         While the cardinal sang to its mate, someone stirred beside Emile. A girl rolled over in her sleeping bag, screwing up her nose at the noisy birdsong. She blearily opened her eyes. As soon as she spotted the bird, she picked up a nearby empty water bottle and chucked it at the blur of red. The bird fluttered off before it could get hit, and the bottle flew over the counter. It fell to the floor on the other side. With the bird now gone, the girl had to turn her ire onto someone else. Unfortunately, that someone was Emile.

         “Why can’t you let me have one day to sleep in,” she snapped, sitting up. The sleeping bag slinked off her body, revealing her tattered hoodie. Her hair is getting longer, Emile noted, watching as she ran a hand through her shoulder-length blonde hair. His own greasy black locks were about the same length. We’ll both need to cut our hair soon. He should explore the strip mall. Maybe someone had left behind some scissors. Emile stood, but not before tossing an unlabeled can to the girl. She barely caught it, popping the tab with only a moment of hesitation. It was filled with unknown chunks of meat. The girl frowned, taking a tentative sniff of the food, and not liking what she smelled. “Is this seriously all you could find?”

         “Oh, no, I found some fruit cans earlier.” Emile stood and brushed off his pants. “Maybe if you got up earlier you could have had some of the good stuff. It’s not my fault you care more about your beauty sleep than scavenging.” Even as he said it, Emile had to suck in his stomach to keep his stomach from growling. As if he would be able to find such a delicacy in an already ransacked strip mall. He was lucky enough to find the cat food. It wasn’t exactly nutritious, but they hadn’t eaten much in the past few days, and Emile wasn’t about to let his friend starve. He stuffed his hands into his pockets, feeling the thin wrapper that he had torn from the can.

         Thankfully, his companion didn’t push the issue. She was probably too hungry to argue with him. She reluctantly picked the meat from the can with her fingers and began to eat. The taste may not have been great, but when you got hungry, you could eat just about anything. Even the smell of the cat food was making Emile’s gut twist. He would need to leave before the girl heard his stomach growl. He quickly shoved his sleeping bag into an old green backpack he had found ages ago. As soon as his sleeping area was cleaned up, he darted around the counter. The girl watched him go. Her brown eyes glimmered as sunrays danced across her face.

         “Where are you going?”

         “To look around the shop. If there’s anything important that hasn’t been taken yet, I want to make sure we grab it.” The girl moved to stand, but Emile held up a hand, stopping her short. “Stay there and eat, Claire. I can work faster when you’re not pestering me every five minutes.” He walked off without looking back, but he could hear Claire’s huff of irritation. Thankfully, she didn’t follow. Emile walked through the store, eyes scanning the bare shelves. It wasn’t all that surprising that the store was empty. There were rarely any places that still had leftover stock from before the War. Maybe he should have split the cat food with Claire. Finding food in the wild was hard enough—the radiation had killed off almost every fruit-bearing tree. Other scavengers had picked nearly everything from the land. Emile felt a cough creeping into his throat, and he did his best to muffle the sound so that Claire wouldn’t hear it.

         If he didn’t die from starvation, he'd die from sickness. It was only a matter of time before his cough turned into something worse.

         He did his best to shake those dreary thoughts from his head. While all the food, medicine, and clothing had been taken from the store, there was a lot of Valentine’s Day décor that no one thought important enough to snatch. Emile began grabbing anything that could have possibly been considered useful. Some of the streamers could be used as bandages if they got desperate. Some emptied plastic bags—they probably held chocolates at some point—could hold water if Emile could find a stream that hadn’t been contaminated. He got on his knees and put his face on the dusty floor. There was always a chance someone had accidentally kicked something into the small crevice below the shelves. Emile reached his hand into the dark space, wincing as his fingers caught on unknown grime and spiderwebs. When he pulled his hand back out, the only things that came with it were dead ladybugs and a shriveled-up cricket.

         Well, I can’t stop now. Emile scooted forward to the next shelf and repeated the process. The results were all roughly the same. His tan hand was covered with brown and black smudges. At some point, Claire must have gotten up, because he could hear her moving around the shop. The two of them worked in silence. From her groans of frustration, Emile was guessing she was having about as much success as he was. That was until his hand hit something hard and smooth. His fingers curled around the object, crinkling some kind of plastic. Pulling it out revealed a dusty but fully sealed candy bar.

         Emile sat up, banging his head on a shelf. He barely registered the pain, instead greedily wiping off the dirt so that he could read the label. It didn’t end up doing him much good. The candy must have been imported from another country. Emile didn’t recognize the symbols printed on the white wrapper. Still, food was food. He nearly tore the wrapper open, his stomach snarling at the thought of getting food…but he froze just before he could rip it. He should share this with Claire. Who knew when the two of them would get to eat chocolate again?

         “Hey, Claire!” Emile stood, shoving the candy into his back pocket. He jogged through the aisle, head swiveling as he tried to spot where she was. He didn’t find her, but there were footprints in the dust near what used to be the medicine aisle, and he could see handprints from where she had disturbed the grime on the shelves. He rolled his eyes and followed the footprints. Of course she would get distracted by something. Because that’s what they needed right now. For her to run off without a word.

         The footprints led him to the broken front door. Thankfully, Claire didn’t wander much farther than that. Emile could see her sitting near the edge of the parking lot where the grass met the asphalt, leaning against a rusted lamppost. At least she’s not in danger. With a sigh, Emile walked over to her, crossing his arms and trying his best not to look upset. That didn’t last long, especially when he saw what she had come outside to do. Claire looked up at him, smiling and holding up a strand of dandelions that had been braided together. He raised a brow, coming to a stop in front of her.

         “Seriously, Claire? Is now really the time to make flower crowns?”

         “Sure. It’s not like you found anything of note in there, right?” She resumed her braiding. “I might as well do something productive while I wait. Did you see the stems on these weeds? Just long enough for me to make a crown that could fit on your big head.”

         “I am not wearing that.” Emile sat down next to her. As much as he liked to pretend Claire was useless and weird, she was good at crafting things. If they could find a yarn store, she could probably knit them both a full wardrobe of warm clothes. He shifted on the ground, nearly squishing the candy bar in his back pocket. “And by the way, I did find something good in there.” He waited until she got to a stopping point in her braiding before he pulled the bar out and dangled it in front of her. “Maybe if you had opened your eyes and looked a little harder—”

         Claire snatched the candy bar out of his hand and tore open the wrapper, dropping her flower project in the process. The chocolate glistened in the sun, already starting to melt. She neatly broke it in half, tossing the wrapper to the ground and handing him the other piece. Emile watched the white plastic get whisked away by the gentle breeze.

         “You’re not supposed to litter,” he admonished, to which Claire responded with her patented eye roll.

         “The world’s already ended. I don’t think we really need to worry about our environmental impact.” She tapped the two ends of the candy bars together. “Happy Valentine’s Day, Emile.”

         “Happy Valentine’s.” His mouth watered at the thought of the chocolate in his hand, and from the predatory look in Claire’s eyes, she was having similar thoughts. Together, they popped the candy into their mouths. Emile’s tongue curled around the chocolate like a snake around a mouse, and for a brief moment, the sweet taste coated every single one of his taste buds. His stomach, unable to contain its excitement, roared in demand of food. Emile bit down, ready to enjoy whatever the creators of the sweet treat had filled the bar with.

         His teeth met instant resistance. It was like he was trying to chew through a thick taffy, and now that the chocolate had been stripped away, all he could taste was a stale and dried-out core. Claire’s face screwed up, mixing between confusion and disgust. Neither of them spat it out. It was too precious to waste.

         Claire swallowed her part of the bar first, shuddering as it went down. “Ugh. That was…”

         Emile held a hand over his mouth as he forced the bar down. The stale and sticky substance had grafted itself onto his teeth. He could feel the awful texture covering every inch of his enamel. He let his hand fall to his lap once he realized the worst of the taste was gone.

         “That was bad,” he finished for her. Groaning, he leaned back and laid down in the grass. “I was stupid to think we’d be lucky enough to eat real chocolate.”

         “It wasn’t that bad. Don’t be dramatic.” Claire resumed her braiding. From where he was lying, Emile could see she was starting to connect the two ends. “Besides, you managed to find me candy on Valentine’s Day. I doubt many other people got that luxury.”

         “Yeah, some luxury...” His mumbling earned him a quick kick in the leg. Emile winced, reaching down to rub the spot Claire had hit him. “Okay, okay, fine. I’m just saying it wasn’t a very good gift.”

         “Well, it’s not like I was expecting anything,” Claire said slowly, “but I still appreciate it. And…you know…you gave me all that food to eat. I know you’re hungry, too. We should have shared it.”

         Maybe, but Emile wasn’t about to admit to that. Deflect, quick!

         “I wasn’t about to eat cat food.” He realized his mistake a second too late. Claire froze, her face going pale. She slowly turned toward him, murder in her eyes.

         “You made me eat cat food? What is wrong with you!”

         “Hey, food is food!” He scooted away from her just in time to avoid another kick. “Just…just think of it as revenge for when you made me eat the nuts we found on the forest floor!”

         “Those are meant to be eaten, you idiot! I can’t believe you!” She tied off her crown, accidentally snapping one of the daffodils. “I should leave you. At least then I wouldn’t have to eat pet food.” The anger on her face was raw, and for a second Emile worried she was serious. Would she split with him after all this time? She was the only reason he hadn’t completely lost it after the War. She was all he had. If she left, he didn’t think he would ever recover. He sat up quickly, worried she would take off then and there.

         “Come on, don’t be like that.” She didn’t answer him, and Emile felt his chest tighten. “Hey, listen, I was just trying to make sure you were eating. Don’t think I haven’t noticed you taking smaller portions of food. I didn’t want you to lose energy—”

         Claire sighed and leaned toward him, gently placing the crown on his head. He could barely see the little yellow petals just above his eyes.

         “Calm down. It’s not that big of a deal. I’d still be pissed if I could taste the stuff, but the candy bar managed to nix that. In a way, it really was a good gift. Now it’s your turn to get a present. It’s not as good as candy, but it's all I could do on such short notice.”

         Emile gently touched the edge of the crown. It fit him perfectly. “Wait, so you made this for me? You weren’t just goofing around?”

         “I never goof around.” She stood, brushing the grass from her pants. She held out a hand, and he readily took it, her pale skin contrasting with his darker tone. “Come on, let’s ditch this place. I remember going to an amusement park somewhere around here. That could be a good place to crash.” She pulled him up. Emile kept a grip on her hand, something Claire didn’t seem to mind.

         “Sure thing,” he said, pulling her back to the strip mall. Even though the world was burning around them, Emile swore he had never had such a good morning. “We’ll go wherever you want, so long as you stick with me.”

         She snorted and pulled him close. “You’re such a dork.”

         “Yeah, your dork.”

         Claire grinned. A piece of chocolate was stuck between her two front teeth. It was the most beautiful smile Emile had ever seen.

“Yeah, my dork.”