The shuttered footage begins to unwind, whirring quietly in the middle of the night. He chased me down King Street, as though closing that distance would take back every 3 a.m. conversation when I had found myself hailing an Uber back to Etobicoke.

The streetlights blurred, and as he reached for my waist I turned around for the last time. There we were, in a crowd full of pretty girls and Bay Street suits — nights I had lived without but those days, haunted my every morning after. And he echoed the words I have heard a hundred times before, as though I belonged in his arms forever.

But as I stood there in radio silence, he realized we had died in the war. And that was our last night – his hand in mine, my once-upon-a-Valentine.