A HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY TO YOU, TOO

The card arrived that morning. With the two dozen red roses. With the big red bow. With the box of expensive chocolates in a gold-foiled box and tied about by black satin ribbon. All very nice, but the card was the most interesting. It was not pre-printed. Instead, in bold black ink, a careful, but large, clear hand read: "A ridiculous and anachronistic custom. Highly inappropriate to the date of a matrydom of a Christian saint. However-you matter. I'm not sure why, but you do. And you keep mattering to me in the strangest places, as though everything I enjoy I'd like you to know about, and everything I hate, I want you to dislike, too. "

That was all.

Robin stood and looked at it a long time. He put the roses in the common room, opened the candy and put it out to, but the card, well, that he took to his room and put in the locked drawer by his bed. Not too far back, but near the front so he could take it out and read again, later. Not that he needed to. He'd memorized it already. He carefully locked the combination lock and left the room. He wondered if he would ever reply and how. He still wasn't sure but felt he wanted to, so he pulled out his phone, typed in "Happy Valentine's Day to you, too!" and sent it off into the ether. "Electronic love," he whispered.