As soon as she walked in, Valley was hit in the face by Valentine's Day. Metaphorically, but also literally when the wind whipped someone's giant heart-shaped balloon into the side of her head as they walked by. She stood still for a second, immediately regretting leaving her bed today. The woman who'd hit her with the balloon apologized, smiling and blushing, and Valley really didn't want to hate happy people today... but she did.
It wasn't their fault. It wasn't anyone's fault but her own that she was alone and miserable on a day meant to celebrate love. She'd had love - a perfect, passionate, silly, safe, indescribable love. She'd found her partner, someone who would always be on her team, and she would always be on his. They were each other's rock, and each other's priority, and they had everything that this day was supposed to be about. And she'd fucked it.
So now the pink and red cupcakes made her nauseous, and the pink and red streamers were blinding her eyes, and she was trying to dodge thoughts of him, but it was like trying to dodge raindrops in a downpour. He was making fun of the streamers with her, and smushing a cupcake into her face, and he was buying her flowers, and making her dinner, and kissing her under the stars, and he was everywhere, all the time.
And even when she couldn't get rid of him, she wished he were here.
That's probably why she saw him out of the corner of her eye. Of course, she'd run into a man who looks just like the love of her life on Valentine's Day. Of course he'd be the same height and build and would be wearing the same cologne and would be buying the same brand of beer that Murph drank. The universe was exactly that cruel.
She was wondering whether this trip was even worth the wine she'd come for, when he said her name.
And it was his voice. And she looked up, and it was his face. And the universe hadn't just given her someone who looked like the love of her life, it had brought him here, to this pink and red grocery store on a February Friday, a million miles away from where either of them belonged.
"Murph..." she said back.
She remembered meeting Simon last week, and searched the memory for whether he'd mentioned Murph visiting. He hadn't, she was sure.
"I... didn't know you were in Chicago," she said. Which was a stupid thing to say to the love of your life on Valentine's Day when you haven't seen them in six months, but... what are you supposed to say?