The Dungeons

Dear Blaise,

Sorry I didn't go to the party. My evening took a gruesome turn. My boyfriend broke up with me. There were signs during our one-year relationship that foretell a Valentine's Day dinner where I'd sit in silence in front of half-eaten roasted lamb shanks listening to a roll call of my characters flaws and seemingly all the wrongs that I've done him, but when the end came it still feels so sudden it took my breath away. He said he had hoped that I'd change, or at least improve, mature. I'm not fucking Narnia. He shouldn't expect to go through a row of musty furry human failings to emerge into a wonderland of sparkling virtues.

I hate him. I hate our waitress who would not stop flirting with him and who toed the line with me between outright rudeness and indifferent service using grating cheerfulness as a balancing pole. I hate the bloke in front of me at Cafe Cosima who took an entire lifetime to order a latte. I hate the loud City-type tossers at the off-license. I hate the bitch at bookstore who banged my arm with her enormous purse and didn't apologise. I hate the bookstore for selling out of Squib. I hate the fucking world. But most of all I hate Valentine's Day. I want to erase it from the face of calendars. I'll start a petition. After I cease becoming a romantic cliché and stop listening to sad sappy love songs. Oh Adele, I don't really know what you mean by chasing pavements, but you should stop, you're making me cry.

Hatefully yours,
Antigone

For the first time in almost two years, I feel fantastic!

And I don't care what Madam Pomfrey says, it's my birthday, and I'm having CAKE! And Ice Cream! And I plan to participate in some strenuous exercise, as well.

Did you think I'd forget? Never, never.

Love forever on your birthday, on Valentine's day, every day,

(Pads)

The note is wrapped around a pair of tickets to see La Bohème on 19 February, 2009.