No other Valentine’s Day can be compared with the one when I was nine years old.

For me there has been only one Valentine’s Day worthy of the name. It vas when I was nine years old. And no Valentine’s Day since has even come close to measuring up.
    Her image had never left my mind，and sometime at about Valentine’s Day last year，the idea got stuck in my head: I needed to find Lori Lee.
    In 1972, for two years I have been in love with Lori Lee, an angelic creature who lives across the street. Our walk home from the bus stop each day is the highlight of my young life.
    The situation is complicated. First, Lori’s older brother，Ted, happens to be my best friend.  Second, I am grotesquely bashful in Lori’s presence. In the company of friends I am a sparkling wit. With Loft, I communicate chiefly in grunts. And although she is always sweet to me，Lori’s heart does not appear to pound to the same desperate rhythm as my own.
    The whole thing comes to a head on Valentine’s Day. In class，children pass out cards and I get a generic "Be Mine!" from Lori and the other 26 pupils.
    On the walk home from the bus stop that day, however, Lori says, "I have something for you." I go numb. She pulls an oversized red envelope from her school bag, presses it into my hand and takes off running.
    I rush to my bedroom, carefully open the envelope and find the most beautiful handmade card of red poster paper, with a big white doily, shiny stars and all sorts of hearts. Inside, Lori has spelt out "I love you" in glue and covered the perfect cursive letters with glitter. After reading it 30 or 40 times, I hid the card under my socks.
    Lori and I might be married now for all I know — if not for one extenuating factor: my elder brother, Mike, who was 11-year-old. Pawing through the drawer the evening, he stumbled upon the envelope. He foolishly showed Lori’s card to Ted and some other children in the neighborhood. The commotion that ensued mortified Lori and me, and pretty much crushed any major developments in this early love.
    Then my father announced that we would be moving to Alaska. It seemed a rather severe place to be exiled from the summery smile of Lori Lee. I suggested that I stay behind and live in an orphanage. But in the end, there was little I could do.
    At school, Miss Lochhart organized goodbye party. All I could do was stare at Lori — who, for the first time since Valentine’s Day, stared back at me with great, liquid eyes.
    On the bus, Lori sat next to me and clasped my hand the entire way home. At my door, I searched for words to describe the terrific bursting in my chest.
    "Well", I finally managed, "bye."
    She kissed me on the cheek and darted across the street. Just like that, she was gone.