Page 13 of Never Your Valentine

I find my favorite playlist and turn on “A Beautiful Day” by India Arie, hitting the repeat button to make it loop. That song always gets my mind right, and by the time it’s on its fourth playthrough, I’m up and dressed, hair done, makeup on, ready to face whatever comes next.

I’m not going to let some stupid man dim my light. Not today. Because today’s a beautiful day, dammit.

It’s also a cold day. It’s fifteen degrees at the beach, with wind whipping off the lake. It feels like sticking my face in a freezer that hates me personally. Last night’s snow squeaks under my boots with a smug little noise that says yeah, try me.

I try her. Because the beach is stunning. The lake is edged with jagged shelves of ice that catch the light like cut glass. Tiny waves kiss the ice and slosh back. The air is so clean it smells expensive, like I’m breathing sapphires.

Back home, January means endless gray skies, slush in your boots, and repeated arguments about whose turn it is to shovel the driveway. Up here, though? It feels like the landscape is offering a different kind of endless. It’s one of endless possibility. Like if I’m tough enough to stand here, I’ll see something worth freezing for.

Just then, the sun breaks over the clouds on the horizon, glittering on the waves like a fairy sprinkling pixie dust over the surface. I pull down my scarf, let the wind sting my face, and grin like a happy fool.

I can’t keep this beauty to myself. I need to capture as much of this sunrise as possible, before it’s gone.

I grab my phone from my bag and scan the shoreline for the best place to film. The only other person in sight is a young woman with a slim build and REI-ish layers that mark her as outdoorsy. She steps off the boardwalk and heads toward the lake.

I’m panning over the frozen shore with its sun-kissed waves when I hear a “Yip!” as the woman slips on some ice and goes down hard.

Oh shit. I gasp a strangled breath and rush over to her. Is she okay? What was she doing walking so close to the water? Did she break anything in the fall? “Are you all right?” I ask.

She’s on one knee now, trying to get up. I extend a hand and pull her the rest of the way. “Oof, thank you,” she says while dusting herself off. “I’m all right.”

“Are you sure?” I have an urge to check her for broken bones or a concussion, although I don’t know what either of those would look like. “Should I call someone?”

“Like who?”

“I…don’t know?” Where’s the nearest hospital? What’s the ambulance service like up here? I’m actually no help at all.

“I have to wipe out once a year or my winter isn’t complete. I was overdue.” The woman laughs and my worry drops to zero. She rubs her left butt cheek, then kicks a stone out of the way. “Wish I hadn’t gone down on a rock, though. Geez, that’s going to leave a bruise.”

“I’ll bet.”

“Tell me you didn’t film that. I don’t need my high school frenemies watching that on TikTok.”

I shove my phone into my bag. “I don’t film people without permission.”

“Refreshing.” The woman smiles and holds out a hand. “I’m June.”

“Annabelle.” We exchange a fuzzy-gloved handshake. “Isn’t it safer to walk on the boardwalk?”

“Boardwalk’s for tourists,” June says. She points to a cluster of small houses farther up the shore. “I live right over there.”

“Wow. Nice.”

“I made my husband promise we’d always live near the water, because I have to see the lake every day.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t hard for him to agree to lakefront property.”

“It was summer,” June says, as if that explains everything. “What about you? Are you here with your family?”

“I’m not married.”

“Boyfriend?”

“Nope. I, uh, haven’t found the one yet.” I haven’t even found the one-night stand.

“Are you a travel influencer? Because we don’t need⁠—”

“No, no, no. This was just b-roll for my Instagram. Background stuff. I like to show my followers where I get my inspiration.”