Be My Valentine

Jess had the perfect day by herself - and it ended well, too!

- JACQUI COOPER

Was Jess the only one strugglin with the assignment her creative writing tutor had just handed out? Five hundred words on "What Valentine's Day means to me," and the clock was ticking. Around her, people began scribbling madly. Terrified she'd be left with a blank page if called upon to read something out, she quickly grabbed her pen.

"OK, time's up. I can't wait to see wha you've all written. Chloe, why don't you start us off?"

The creeping death began.

"What does Valentine's Day mean to me?" read Chloe, a twenty-something redhead. "More often than not it means gifts of expensive but utterly impractical underwear..."

Round the room it went. Jess grew more nervous as her turn approached. People had written light-hearted and touching slices of life.

She on the other hand...

Soon there was only Nick, a single father around her age who managed a local restaurant. "To be honest most of Valentine's Day passes me by - too light-headed and dizzy from blowing up so many heart-shaped balloons." Then it was her turn. She fingered her pages. "I'm not really sure....

"There's no right or wrong," encouraged the tutor. "Go on."

Jess drew a breath. "On Valentine's Day last year my husband of twenty-five years wrote two Valentine's cards and mixed up the names on the envelopes.

And that's how I found out that he was having an affair..." Lak