AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Val slides her other hand on top of mine, sandwiching my hand between hers.
“I was a stupid kid, though. Because I always believed her. I believed her when she told me I came out late, rather than her conceiving later in February, because she wasn’t with my dad on Valentine’s Day. Because he was probably with his actual wife. And I believed her when she told me my dad was too busy and too important to live at home with us. I didn’t know seeing your dad only six times a year wasn’t normal.”
“You weren’t stupid.”
She clutches her fingers around mine. “The first funeral I ever attended was my father’s. I was nine. And I couldn’t figure out why we had to sit in the back.” She swallows. “Dom, I was so confused.”
I move even closer.
“There were so many people there. It was like…” She sniffs. “It was like your cousin’s funeral. Really nice like that. Lots of people. But my mom… I cried so much when she told me he’d died, but she only ever seemed angry about it. I didn’t see her cry once over him, and the more I cried, the angrier she got. I remember her pinching me during the service. Mad that I was being so emotional.”
“Fuck,” I whisper, wanting to wrap child Valentine in my arms and protect her.
“That was before the priest mentioned my dad was survived by his wife and kids, which he referred to by name.”
“Fuck.” It comes out louder this time.
“Pretty much.” She sighs. “It broke my little heart. Because he was the only person that ever told me he loved me. And… it was a lie.”
“He might’ve been a cheating asshole, but there’s no way he couldn’t love you,” I say, meaning it, before I realize how true the words really are.
Who wouldn’t love this woman?
Her stomach trembles with a choppy breath. “When the service was over, and the family walked out first, King’s mom glared at me like I was the worst thing she’d ever seen. I can’t even really blame her now, but at the time… It was bad. Made me feel really bad. And Aspen had the same look on her face.”
“It wasn’t your fucking fault,” I grit out.
“I know. But I was living proof.”
“What about King? You said you were nine. He’s twenty years older, right? He surely wouldn’t have blamed a kid for his dad’s infidelity.”
“I wasn’t brave enough to watch him walk past.”
Wasn’t brave enough.It’s like every sentence she speaks rips another piece of my soul.
I focus on her hands around mine. “What happened after? How’d you end up becoming close with them?”
“I’m not,” she whispers as her fingers tighten their grip on mine. “After the funeral, my mom got worse. She was a user. Different drugs. Different people. Whatever she could use to pretend life wasn’t real. We moved apartments a lot, but when I turned fifteen, King showed up at our front door.”
“Was that the first time you’d seen him since the funeral?”
“Yeah,” Val confirms. “And he was there to tell me that my dad had left me in his will. And that I’d be attending a private high school and that it was all paid for.”
“Those aren’t the actions of a man who doesn’t care,” I tell her quietly, hating that she thinks neither of her parents loved her.
“You’re probably right,” she concedes without conviction, and I have to wonder how intimidating a thirty-five-year-old King Vass would have been to a fifteen-year-old Valentine. “But it just made my life worse. Because my mom resented me even more.”
“How?” I seriously can’t understand this bitch.
“Because my mom got herself pregnant with me thinking she’d be set for life. And she kinda was. He paid her rent and gave her an allowance for food and stuff my whole life. Until he died and the money dried up, and my mom was still stuckfeeding another greedy mouth.” The way she says the last line tells me she’s heard it said before. “So when King came to tell us about the tuition, my mom lost it. Demanding that she should get that money. And how come King couldn’t just write her a check for the total amount of the tuition and let me go to public school. He obviously didn’t do that. And even though he was nice to me, I could feel how much he hated my mom. He scared me.”
“Did you go to the school?”
“I did. And eventually, my mom just got used to it. Or forgot about it. But she mostly left me to my own devices. Until I turned eighteen.”
I almost don’t even want to ask. I know the answer isn’t going to be a birthday party. “What happened when you turned eighteen?”
“King came back and told me that my college was paid for, too.” My eyes have fully adjusted, so I watch as Val blinks toward the ceiling. “He also told me my dad had left me seventy-five thousand dollars in a trust. That I’d get twenty-five thousand when I turned nineteen, twenty-five thousand when I turned twenty-one, and twenty-five thousand when I turned twenty-five. I know that might not sound like a lot to you, but for me… it was life changing.”
