Bittersweet Valentine

Bittersweet Valentine

National English Honor Society chooses winners of short story contest

Bittersweet Valentine By Kristina Pham, Reporter

Love is Wine Tasting

By Avantika Matele, 11

Imagine entering a small cellar lined with beautiful and weathered mahogany. A musty smell of long-forgotten dreams and heartache brings back all the memories back. You taste each wine from the aging bottles carefully tucked away from your mind on racks along the wooden walls. Each wine is a different flavor, ranging from sour to sweet, but unknown until you’ve tried it.

Swirling each experience around on your cup, you breathe in the essences of the sorrows and joys, the beginnings and endings. Each taste was unique and left a different kind of hurt over your heart. The maroons and rust browns stain your lips a deep red, scratches left deep on your soul. Shivering on a bench in the train station, wondering whether that love took the train straight to the underworld. The heartache never leaves you, but turns into a dull ache over time. Some simply leave your lips a baby pink, and your face flushes remembering a bittersweet end to something you both understood wasn’t meant to be. Sometimes you still catch up with that old friend. Some wines are a deep plum, reminding you of the wild, young times you had whizzing along those winding highways in that beat-up Toyota and dancing drunkenly under the golden street lamps.

Every past relationship lies in discarded, half-empty glasses, but when you finally find The One, it stays in your hand, half-full. This one doesn’t leave a stain, because it waits with you till your soul leaves your body for the blue skies. It is a liquid crystal that swirls gently in your cup as long as you promise your heart to never go back to the ones who stained your lips before. Uncorked and bottomless, because its love endures.

Anniversary

By Madison Lou, 9

“Hi, welcome to Millie’s! Are you dining with us the same carbon-copy smile every waitress has. table, please.” “Of course!” the hostess replied, gathering up some menus from behind the counter. “Have you been here before?” As she spoke, she tucked dark brown curls behind her ear, revealing small gold hoop earrings that glimmered in the dim lighting. when she was young. She didn’t remember from where. They weren’t special; she’d probably just bought them at the drugstore, but she’d worn them every day throughout high school. Or was it college? Who knew? The days had started to blend together a long time ago. fact,” she added, gesturing to the many couples when it was remodeled. Those chairs used to upset. Once he tried the vanilla sundae, though, your husband, ma’am?” for a long time.” occasion then?” one, please.”