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Valentine tried to sleep in this year, but the enticing smell of birthday pancakes lifted him gently from unconsciousness into a chilly Sunday morning. He pulled himself up with a groggy smile, pushing a hand through his tousled curls before scraping his glasses off of his bedside table and joining his uncle in the kitchen.
“Oh, you’re up!” Escalus said as Valentine dropped himself into a chair. “I was just about to come get you.”
“Can’t sleep through anything that smells that good,” Valentine replied with a bleary smile. “I don’t know what you put in those, but I’m fairly certain it’s illegal in this state.”
Escalus chuckled and set a plate of pancakes down in front of Valentine: chocolate chip with rainbow sprinkles.
“Happy birthday,” he said. “Jeez, sixteen. Doesn’t seem possible.”
“I know,” Valentine said, voice muffled in a mouthful of pancake. “I’m really gettin’ up there in Verona years. Got a foot in the grave already.”
And though it had been over a year since Mercutio’s death, they both winced a bit.
“Sorry,” Valentine mumbled. “That was dark.”
“He’d want you to keep your sense of humor about it,” Escalus said, waving him off. “Especially after all this time.”
Valentine gave a little smile in response, but a few moments of tense silence passed before Escalus spoke again.
“Ready for your road test? Only two more days.”
Valentine grinned into his glass of milk. He didn’t feel the need to explain that Mercutio had started letting him drive his car when he was 12. Even if Mercutio couldn’t exactly get in any trouble for it now, he’d still promised never to tell.
“Yeah, I think so,” he said. Then, teasing, “Are you ready for my road test?”
“I don’t know,” Escalus sighed dramatically. “Mercutio only had a license for a year and I’m pretty sure I lost a decade off my lifespan worrying. Who knows how much more my poor heart can take?”
He had spoken in jest, and Valentine had laughed, but as the words settled into the room they acquired an uncomfortable weight. An unwelcome reminder, again, even now, of just how young Mercutio had been. How quickly he’d been snatched up. Valentine put his fork down.
“I miss him,” he said.
Escalus nodded, moving to give Valentine’s shoulder a comforting squeeze.
“I miss him, too.”
Valentine nodded, staring at his plate for a moment before shaking himself and scooping up the last few bits of pancake.
“Sorry,” he said. “Don’t know what my deal is today.”
That wasn’t completely true. Valentine knew that there were things that time would continue to heal, and things that time had healed already. He no longer had to drag himself through a haze of bitter static just to get out of bed in the morning. He no longer lashed out at his uncle, at his classmates, at inanimate objects and life itself. He was better in a way he could never have imagined a year ago.
Valentine also knew, however, that some things would always hurt, and that today was one of those things. There would always be a sweetness to it; there would be Uncle Escalus’s pancakes to eat and gifts to unwrap and time to spend with his friends. But there would always be bitterness, as well, because though it was Valentine’s day, it had been Mercutio who had given him an adventure every year. Mercutio had made it special.
Escalus said nothing at first, perhaps understood, as Valentine did, that there wasn’t much that could be said. Then he stood, finishing off the last swallow of his coffee.
“How about we go for a drive today?” he said. “Get a last little bit of practice in before Tuesday?”
He moved to the sink to rinse out his mug, not meeting Valentine’s eyes as he continued with a shrug.
“And maybe while we’re out we could look for something fun to do, just the two of us.”
Valentine smiled, even as a dull twinge of grief tugged at his heart, even as an itch rose to his eyes to be quickly blinked back.
“Yeah,” he said. “That sounds good.”