a better sort of ant

Valentine's Day has never been one of Blue's favorite holidays -- ridiculous hallmark marketing to finish the quarter: if you love someone, shouldn't they know it more than once a year?, though the weeks preceding do tend to bring business to Fox Way, as much as anywhere else.
At school she'd always felt distinctly bored with it, all these trappings of romantic love like a show she didn't care to watch. Something that would never touch her, could never, and wouldn't look like this if it did.

She wasn't expecting that the romantic gestures of the season would feel even more oppressive with someone she wanted to express her love to. Was she supposed to get Gansey something? Did she still think the day was stupid? Was she supposed to pretend she didn't care about him in any way differently than her other friends? (Was there any way to avoid Adam and Ronan?)

Right now, as 2:00 turns over and she's still awake, the answer seems best found in chocolate. There's a half eaten box sitting on the kitchen counter when she leans on it and she can't help but take one. It's delicious, and unconfusing, and she sighs, letting the various flavors of the chocolate come out as it warms on her tongue.

"Shit, did I walk in on something, maggot?" Ronan snarks as he beelines for the refrigerator, and she reflexively answers,
"You're one to talk."

He grabs orange juice and sleepily eyes it for just a second before drinking out of the carton, and she finds herself looking at him, the tilt of his throat and the easy way he owns his space, all harsh beautiful angles and infuriating layers of bluster over the vulnerability she's seen in person. She's caught.

Ronan will never know how much she values what he did for her, how much she cares about him at all, she thinks, and is startled by the ferocity of it, by how much it fills her chest. It seems to blot out everything else she's been thinking about, dizzying. Suddenly panicked, she slides down abruptly from the cabinet. "Um. Goodnight," she hastens, pink-faced, and ignores the look she's getting as she retreats to her room and curls up into a ball.

I love Ronan Lynch??, she thinks, first in abject horror. Then again, surer, I love Ronan Lynch, replaced by stubbornness. And, if I say something no one will believe me. Because -- because he's Ronan! And because of Adam, and -- and -- She steels herself. I have the right to date or to love however many people and not be shamed for it. I have the right to say something. Blue thinks defensively, and it feels so very much like something she would think that she's sure this is perfectly reasonable.

But how to go about that...
Several hours of lack of sleep later, she has some idea.