My Unexpected Valentine

“The jury finds the defendant guilty.”

The judge’s words played on repeat inside Emily’s head as she left the courthouse. This was the biggest case of her career as a criminal defense attorney and she had lost.

“You promised! You promised me you would get me off!” her client had screamed, as they pulled him from the courtroom in cuffs and chains. He wasn’t wrong. She had made a promise to him. Not exactly that she would get him off. She was thinking 5 years at the most. Instead his sentence was 15 to 25.

The man was guilty. He had burned down one building and two cars. In his defense, they were empty. No one had been hurt. That helped his case. It just wasn’t enough. He had done a lot of damage. The judge wasn’t feeling lenient.

Emily could come up with excuse after excuse, but deep down, she knew this was on her. A part of her didn’t want to get him off the hook. A part of her felt he deserved the jail time.

But it didn’t matter what she thought. Her job was to defend him to the best of her ability and she had failed.

With a heavy sigh, she walked to the parking lot and got into her car. Dressed in a black blazer with a collared white shirt underneath, complete with black dress pants, she very much looked like a professional lawyer. Too bad she didn’t feel the way that she looked.

She stowed her briefcase in the back seat and she sat there for a minute in silence. How was she going to recover from this? This case was all over the news. Everyone was talking about it. Everyone was going to know she was responsible for losing the case. And then who would hire her? A loss like this would not look appealing to potential clients.

This wasn’t the first case she lost, but it was the most devastating one. She felt sure it was going to be a huge blow to her career.

She snapped out of her thoughts when she heard the sound of something vibrating. It was her phone. She reached into her purse, pulled it out and on the screen, she saw a message from her older sister, Talia.

How did it go?

Clearly Talia hadn’t heard the news yet. Emily didn’t know if she was ready to tell her.

Her older sister had always been the shining star of the family. The one who could do no wrong. Talia was the good daughter. The perfect student. After she graduated from high school, she went on to bigger and better things. She was currently a web developer. She had created several popular phone apps, and she just finished up a new dating app that she had been talking about nonstop.

Right now, Talia was everything that Emily wasn’t. She had a successful career. She had a family. Emily didn’t even have a boyfriend. She couldn’t remember the last time she went on a date.

Bad, she reluctantly typed on her phone. She stared at the word a long moment, then hit send. Despite the envy she felt over her sister’s growing success, Talia was her closest confidant.

Oh no. I’m sorry, Em. Want to stop by the office and talk about it?

I’ll be there in a few, Emily typed back before shoving her phone into her purse.

Talia’s office was about fifteen minutes away from the courthouse. It was a small one-story building with big glass windows. It used to be an old RadioShack before it was shut down. Now it had been turned into a quirky office with bright colors. Inside there were several desks, each with a computer. Most of the desks were empty, except for one.

A young boy with dark brown hair turned and smiled at her. “Hey, Aunt Emily.”

“Hey, kid,” she replied. The boy was her nephew, Stefan. After school, he was always in the office with Talia, playing on one of the computers while his mom finished up work.

“Mom’s in the back. I think she’s on the phone,” he said.

“Cool. I’ll go check it out.” As she approached the door to the back room, she could hear her sister talking.

“No, that can’t be. I checked it. There’s already been 500 downloads. It’s a hit! I don’t think it needs it. Well that’s on you, Aaron. I did my job. Yeah, I know. I’m telling you, it works. There’s nothing on the market like it. Yeah, okay. Okay. I’ll talk to you later. Bye.”

“Hey. Bad time?” Emily asked from the doorway.

Talia turned to face her, her phone in her hands. “What? No. It’s nothing. Aaron is worried about the algorithms, but you know him. I’m surprised his head hasn’t fallen off from worrying so much.”

“The algorithms for the new app?”

“Yeah. Oh my gosh, it just went live and it’s blowing up!” Talia exclaimed. She stepped closer, showing Emily the screen of her phone. On the screen was a bubbly app, with bright pink colors, and in peppy, feminine font, it said Cupid’s Arrow. It really wasn’t Emily’s style. She had never been one for bright or even girly. When she was a kid, she had actually been sort of a tomboy. As an adult, she learned how to wear a dress, but it was never her go-to outfit.

“Awesome,” she replied, trying to sound enthused but failing. It was hard to be happy for her sister when she was feeling like a failure.

“Oh, Em, I’m sorry. You came here to talk. Come sit down and tell me about the case.”

Emily explained everything that happened. She told her all the details of the trial. All the counters that the prosecutor had for her case. How the judge seemed to want to make an example of her client by giving him a long sentence. She explained it all, and then let out a heavy sigh.

“I don’t know. Maybe my heart just wasn’t in it…”

“Don’t beat yourself up, Em. It sounds to me like you did everything you could. You can’t win them all,” Talia said. She reached her hand to rub Emily’s shoulder. An affectionate gesture. Talia would always take her side no matter what. That was the kind of relationship that they had had since they were little.

“Did I, though? I knew he was guilty. The guy burned that building and those two cars for the fun of it. He said he learned his lesson, but I think he just wanted me to get him off.”

“Well of course he did. That’s your job. But if you think he would have done it again, maybe it’s not so bad he got put away?”

“Not so bad for him maybe burning something else down, but it’s pretty bad for my career,” she said with a frown. She hung her head and put her face in her hands. Her long brown hair fell to provide a curtain around her face. Talia put a hand on Emily’s knee. “Em…”

“My life is a mess…” she muttered.

“Don’t say that,” Talia said. “It’s one case.”

“One case can cost me my career.”

“That’s not gonna happen.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Emily retorted.

Talia was quiet for a few moments. She looked down at her phone, then her head popped back up and a smile spread across her face. “You know what, I think I can cheer you up!”

“You can’t,” Emily spoke, her tone muffled from her hands.

“Oh my gosh, stop!” Talia said. She shoved a hand at Emily’s shoulder. In response to that, Emily dropped her hands and lifted her head.

“Look,” Talia said, offering her phone to her sister. The screen was still on her new dating app.

“What about it?”

“You need something else to focus on right now. I know it’s none of my business but… you haven’t exactly went on a date in a really long time.” Talia had a look that was all too familiar to Emily. A look that said she was up to something. She was biting her lip, and had a mischievous glint in her eye.

Emily narrowed her eyes at her. “No.”

“Em, come on! I didn’t want to bring it up but Aaron is worried about the algorithms being off. He thinks the app isn’t gonna work. That it’s just gonna be like all the other apps. But I’m telling you, this code, it’s unlike any other dating app out there! It will find your perfect match! And if you try it out for me, and prove it, then it’s like a win for both of us!”

Emily couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She believed in her sister. She knew she was a great coder. But could an app really find someone’s perfect match? Emily highly doubted that. And to find her perfect match? She hadn’t even considered there being a man out there that was perfect for her. Everyone had flaws. She knew that firsthand. She was chock full of them.

“I’m not gonna be your guinea pig,” Emily said, with a shake of her head.

“I’m not asking you to be, I just… I worry about you. You’re in your 30s now, and you’re all alone. Don’t you want someone? Someone to talk to and confide in. Someone to hug and kiss, and just be close to? Someone that connects to your very soul?”

Emily rolled her eyes and let out a scoff. Talia had always been a romantic. She met her husband at a candy shop of all places. It was literally something out of a romantic comedy. They fell madly in love, and got married, and even had a variety of candies at their wedding, in honor of their first meeting. It was… sort of cute, in a way. But Emily had never been like her. Emily didn’t believe in love at first sight. She didn’t believe there was a one true love out there for her.

“I’m doing just fine, Talia. If I wanted a boyfriend, I would find one myself.”

“So you can say to me with complete confidence that you’re not at all lonely?” Talia asked.

Emily gave her sister a hard look. Was she lonely? Sure. Maybe she did wish she had all that wishy washy stuff that Talia had just mentioned. It would be nice to have someone to snuggle up with and watch a movie. Someone to come home to other than her pet tortoise, Leo. But that required dating, and putting herself out there, and she didn’t know if she was ready to do that.

“And you know, Valentine’s Day is just a month away. Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone to spend it with this year?” Talia pressed.

Emily had already considered that she was going to spend Valentine’s Day alone again. It wasn’t enough to convince her to agree, but…

“I’ll think about it,” Emily said, which caused Talia to squeal with excitement. She jumped up and wrapped her arms around her in a tight hug. Emily hesitantly hugged her back. Maybe Talia was right. Maybe it would be nice to have someone to spend Valentine’s Day with this year…