An Ode to Bartholomew

This Valentines Day, I finally mustered up the courage to make a move on my crush of ten years: Bartholomew. I had been sending him hints for a long time, such as looking at him for a whole three seconds straight in Geometry two years ago. But men are just so clueless. 

So, this year, I decided to go all out and send him a candygram with a romantic message that would surely make him fall head over heels: “Happy Valentine’s Day. Let’s date I guess?”

I made sure to time the delivery so that it would be during a class we shared, Chemistry, so that I could feel the chemistry between us as he opened the message in front of me. On the big day, I wore a cute outfit from this underground brand called Brandy Melville, so Bartholomew would fall for me even harder. All of a sudden, I heard Miley Cyrus’s voice get louder—the seniors were coming, blasting “Party in the U.S.A” on their JBL speaker.

“Candygrams!!!,” they screamed, and started chucking the candy bags at kids in the class. Our teacher Ms. Watterson looked annoyed, and grumbled, “Ugh, they always interrupt our lesson at the worst times.” I thought she was mad because she got divorced last year and this was her first Valentine’s Day alone in a while. 

I looked at Bartholomew but he had no candygrams on his desk! I started to panic, but I told myself that I would find the seniors later and ask them if they had lost it.

When class ended, I packed my stuff and rushed out the door, but I suddenly felt a hand on my shoulder. “Yes. My answer is yes!”

I turned around and found myself face-to-face with some random kid with a crazy cowlick that made him look like an upside-down pushpin. “Wait, what do you mean, yes?” 

He waved a candygram in my face. “You asked me to date you, and I say: absolutely!” I was totally confuzzled, and to make things worse, my headache from the two cans of Celsius I had chugged earlier kicked in. “But that was for Bartholomew…”

“Yeah, I know. I’m Barthomolew.”

Oh shoot—there were two Barthomolews in my class! I really should have checked GCal to see who was in my class before sending the candygram. Well, maybe I should have known everyone’s names already because it’s been six months, but you can’t blame a girl for having TikTok-induced short-term memory loss. 

“Uhh, that was meant for the other Bartholomew. Sorry.” I snatched the candygram out of his hand and ran out of the science building towards the love of my life. 

As I ran, I could hear the rejected Bartholomew sobbing on the floor of the Science Building, repeatedly muttering, “I’m such a single loser.” Weird.

I ran like the wind and finally caught up to my crush. Panting, handed him the candygram. He looked at me with what could only be described as deep adoration. I felt like I was in a Netflix movie, where I was Sydney Sweeney and Bartholomew was also there. So you can guess how surprised I was when Bartholomew said, “Um, I have a girlfriend. Yo, thanks for the candy though.” Unfortunately, it turns out the look of deep adoration was really a look of disinterest. 

I stomped away and locked myself in the Recharge Room in the library (very underrated space, by the way). I’m such a single loser.