“We’re?” A tall man stood at an island opening take out cartons. His eyes widened at the sight of me and then drifted to my duffle bag.
I braced myself, feeling like an intruder.
“Jim, this is Micah, Molly’s son. Micah, my husband Jim.”
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Fairchild,” I said.
Jim chuckled as he rounded the island. His dark eyes glittered warmly as he reached for my hand. “Please, Mr. Fairchild’s my father. Call me Jim.”
I nodded, but I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do that. It would be like calling Mrs. Fairchild Caroline. Too weird.
“We’ll be back in a minute.” Mrs. Fairchild took her husband’s hand and led him out of the room. Presumably to fill him in on my situation.
My pride stung.
It was fucking humiliating taking her charity, but I didn’t know what else I could do about it. I didn’t want my future to fall to shit because my mom took off, and I didn’t want her life for myself. With a 3.9 GPA and as captain of the swim team, I was on course to receive a scholarship, preferably to Boston University. All of this with a part-time job. I couldn’t screw it up.
If that meant accepting Mrs. Fairchild’s help, then I guess that’s what it meant.
“And who are you?”
The girl’s voice had me whipping around.
I’d remember the sight of her always because it was like someone had punched me in the gut. All the air went out of the room.
The girl was bout my age, I’d guess. She had long, thick dark hair that spilled around her shoulders in shiny waves. The prettiest dark brown eyes I’d ever seen filled with humor and curiosity. Her lush lips quirked upward at the corners. Suddenly she grinned and killed me with her dimples. Dressed like one of those hippy girl images from the seventies, she wore a thin gold circlet around on the top of her head like a crown. Her dress was long, fitted at her tiny waist, then flowed to her feet. It was a light pink color and had oversized sleeves that fit at her wrists.
I’d never seen anything like her before.
It wasn’t just her sense of style… it was the way happiness and warmth seemed to radiate from her.
I didn’t even know her and yet I sensed she was just good.
Beautiful all the way through.
“Do you talk?” she teased.
I cleared my throat, my heart hammering in my chest. “Uh. Yeah. I’m uh—”
“Oh good,” Mrs. Fairchild strode back into the kitchen with her husband at her side. “You’ve already met Valentine. Our daughter.”
Even though it should have occurred to me that’s who she was, disappointed flooded me.
Valentine Fairchild was most definitely off limits.
2
Valentine
AGE 15
* * *
Five months.
That’s how long Micah Green and I had been dancing around our chemistry. And we definitely had it. According to my friend Kim who had been dating older guys since she was thirteen, when two people were truly attracted to one another there was this electric tension between them. The plethora of romance novels I devoured every month, that my mother didn’t know about, verified Kim’s claim.
For five months Micah had been living with my family. His mom Molly took off, left him, and when my mother finally tracked her down, Molly refused to come home. So Mom and Dad, being lawyers and all that, sorted things so that Micah could stay with us for the rest of his high school career. And they went even further by pulling strings at the private academy I attend so he could start his junior year there. My parents even gave him his own car because he also made the swim team and so left school later than I did.
You would think Micah would have problems fitting in at my school coming from such a different background.
But no! He fitted in better than even me.
Whereas most kids there were ambitious and academic, I’d much prefer to be in my room sewing myself a wardrobe no one else at school had. That was if we were allowed to wear our own clothes and not the mandatory black and red plaid uniform.
Although I did cover the left lapel of my blazer in cute brooches I’d created and the teachers had finally given up telling me to remove them.
But I digressed.
My palms were sweaty.
I’d just lied to my English teacher that I needed to use the restroom. The truth was, I knew this was the period Micah used the darkroom for his photography class. Although he was super smart and academic, he was also artsy. Like me. Micah wanted to be an architect, which I thought was impressive.
He thought my clothes designing was amazing.
“You’re so talented, Val,” Micah had said when I showed him my clothes and the Singer sewing machine I’d begged my parents to buy me when I was twelve.
Sometimes Dad would tell me I was clever and talented when I walked downstairs in one of my new creations. But Mom would just give me that look, because she knew I’d spent all my time sewing instead of studying.
It was appalling to my parents that their child was a B student instead of the A student she could be if she only applied herself.
I shook off those thoughts as I tried to act casual, walking through the halls of the school. Sometimes I let myself get too worked up about Mom and Dad. Today wasn’t about my parents. It was about Micah. The one person who made me feel good about myself. Who told me it was okay that I couldn’t envision myself at college. That it didn’t make me a bum because I wanted to get out in the world and get a job and start living my own life, rather than spend another four to seven years in the land of academia.
There were moments when I caught Micah looking at me in a way that made me sure he too got butterflies in his stomach like I did whenever he was near me. I could still remember the first day we met, when I found him in the kitchen. He’d looked so sad and hurt. Those gorgeous gray eyes of his full of pride and anger and gratitude all at once. Then he’d seen me and he looked at me like no one had ever before.
He stared at me like he thought I was beautiful.
I grinned, my heart racing just thinking about it.
So okay, it was weird that we lived together, but maybe we didn’t have to tell Mom and Dad right away. In fact, that’s why I’d put off approaching Micah about our feelings because I thought it would go down better with our parents if I was sixteen. And I was sixteen in January. Next month.
Yet I found I couldn’t wait past Christmas.
I wanted to go to bed on Christmas Eve knowing that Micah was mine. Best Christmas present ever!
Holy crap, it felt like my heart was going to explode out of my chest as I approached the darkroom. The light was on outside, which meant someone was in there processing. Which also meant I had to slip in really fast and close the door so I didn’t mess up Micah’s photos. His photos were pretty good. Mostly of buildings and architecture. I didn’t personally get his fascination with them but I loved his passion. So few boys our age had genuine passion beyond the instant gratification of gaming, sports and sex.
“Okay, here we go,” I whispered to myself before taking a deep breath.
I gently pushed open the door.
I’d barely gotten it wide enough to slip through when my heart plummeted into my stomach.