by Gemma Weir
I don’t remember much from the day the social worker came to collect you, but I think I felt happy knowing you would be cared for when I was gone. After that I sunk into a depression so deep that the next six months are a blur.
There is no excuse for what I did. My actions are unforgivable, and I will live with the knowledge that I gave up my beautiful son because I was too narcissistic to think about the impact of my behavior, for the rest of my life.
I wasn’t acting as your mom when I made these lifechanging decisions for you. All I could see was my grief, my need to die, and for that I can never express how truly sorry I am.
For the last eighteen months I’ve been in a treatment facility, finally seeking help and with the support of my doctors I’m now back home and living a somewhat normal life.
This letter is three years too late and my apologies are a pathetic attempt at making amends for everything I’ve done. But I need you to know that I will never forgive myself for giving away the best, most important thing that ever happened to me.
I don’t know where you are. The social worker told me that they wouldn’t release that information to me. But if you want to come home, I will fight to get you back. I will move heaven and earth to bring you home where you belong.
I took away your choices when I made my selfish decision all those years ago and I won’t do the same now. Please be reassured that I won’t pursue contact with you unless you let me know that you want to see me or speak to me. I don’t deserve a moment of your time and I know that, but I’m a selfish enough being that I’m going to ask for it anyway.
My darling boy, I love you so very much and I’m so incredibly sorry that I haven’t been there to watch you become a man. I will regret that every moment of every day for the rest of my life.
The terms of your trust fund say that you cannot access your money until you graduate from high school, but I’ve had my lawyers amend that and now that you have turned eighteen that money is yours. I hope this letter finds you happy and loved with a family who appreciate you and support you, but if it doesn’t, then this money will allow you the freedom to move on with your life however you see fit.
I’ve attached a copy of the lawyers’ details who have the paperwork for your trust and should you decide to contact them they will never disclose that information to me. This money is now and always has been yours, so please use it and live a long and happy life.
I’m so very, very sorry.
Love now and always,
Mom.
When Nova forces out the last word, I open my eyes and look at her through tear-filled eyes. Her cheeks are wet with tears and while the letter is still held in one hand, the other is covering her mouth to stifle the sound of her sobs.
I can see her emotion, recognize it, but all I feel is numb. My mom threw me away because she wanted to kill herself. The notion is so far beyond my understanding that it barely makes sense. She wasn’t the only one who was wracked with grief, she wasn’t the only one who lost part of what made them whole. I lost my dad, then I lost her too, and all she wanted to do was get rid of me so she could kill herself and not have to consider her child.
Grief and anger swirl together into a potent rage that I’ve never felt before. I don’t know if I should scream or cry or destroy everything around me. Then all of a sudden every single emotion leaches from me and all I feel is dead.
Devoid of emotion, drained of life, and empty. The feeling settles over me and it’s so much better than the confusion and pain, so I let it consume me. I let the emptiness filter into every atom and cell that makes me ‘me’ and I bask in it, glad that I can’t feel.
“Valentine, I—” Nova starts, but I shake my head stopping her.
“I need you to go. I need to be on my own,” the words come out like a robot is speaking them, monotone and stiff. Her eyes rake my face, searching for something and then she nods, climbing off my lap, folding the letter and sliding it back into the envelope.
“I can stay. I want to stay,” she whispers.
I shake my head. “No, not tonight, I need, I need some time.” A mix of pity and understanding flashes across her face.
Moving slowly, like she doesn’t want to startle me, she curls her arms around me, her fingers smoothing my hair. Her soft lips touch my temple, my cheek, my lips. I lift one arm and place my hand on her back, holding her to me for a long moment then dropping it.
Reluctantly, she climbs off the bed, slowly making her way to the door, pausing with one hand on the handle. “Do you want me to send Auntie Brandi or Uncle Sleaze up?”
I shake my head and she nods.
“I don’t know if there’s anything I can say or do to help you right now. But I’m here and I’m not going anywhere. This is your home, and we’re all your family, Valentine. You’re not alone anymore and you don’t have to deal with this on your own either.”
I can hear her speaking, but her words don’t make any sense. I nod anyway. She quickly rushes back to me and kisses me like she’s trying to tell me something with her touch. Then she leaves and I’m alone.
He’s gone.
Somehow, I knew he would be, but hearing the confirmation still hits me like a punch to the gut. “When?” I croak out, pulling Auntie Brandi’s attention.
“Sometime last night.”
It’s been two days since we were together in his room and I read him the letter his mom had written to him. I watched him shut down, saw the moment when all of the feeling left him and all that remained was an empty husk.
He didn’t come to see me the next day, didn’t leave his room according to Auntie B. I tried to call him, to see him, but he didn’t reply. Instead, he asked Auntie B to let me know that he needed some time.
I know Zeke and Griffin tried to see him too, even Emmy called him, but he didn’t respond. Somehow, I knew it was only a matter of time until he ran. The file he gave me about him only a few days ago mentioned a trust fund that he would gain access to upon graduating high school and his mom’s letter told him how he could access it now and the details of the lawyers he would need to contact.
He hasn’t gone to his mom, he’s gone for his money, his freedom, and although I’m heartbroken that he’s left, I’m not surprised. “Did he leave a note?”
Brandi nods, her eyes downcast. “Yeah,” she hands me a single sheet of paper folded in half.
Unfolding it, I read the words.
Thank you for giving me the closest thing to home I’ve had in three years.
Tell Nova I’m sorry
Valentine xo
A smile twitches across my lips, sad and resigned, and I sigh when Zeke drops his arm over my shoulder. “He’ll be back,” he says.
I shake my head. “No, he won’t.”
* * *
One month later
Time doesn’t stop because he’s gone. I don’t allow myself to fall apart, and I keep seeing my shrink. Sometimes we talk about him, sometimes we talk about me, sometimes we just chat. But I’m down to one appointment a week and although I had another panic attack the first time we tried to go to a party, most of the time I’m okay.
“Have you heard from him?” Emmy asks, as we sit down at our table in the cafeteria.
My eyes glance to the empty table at the back of the room and I sigh wistfully before I turn back to my friend. “No, and I don’t expect to. I’ve texted him a few times, but he doesn’t reply.”
That’s only partially true. I haven’t only texted him a few times, I text him every day; but he never texts back. A few times I’ve seen the three dots appear, but whatever he starts to reply, he never actually sends.
Our table is full; no one ever went back to our old table after our showdown with Brit and a couple of days later she was caught trying to post the video of my meltdown to social media. Her parents withdrew her from school the next week. I think Auntie Dove might have suggested we’d sue them if they didn’t get their daughter in line, and their house went on the market pretty s
oon after that.
Life is almost back to the way it was before Valentine came to town, except now I’m not playing a role, pretending to be someone that I’m not. Somehow, despite actively choosing to step away from the limelight, we’re even more popular now than we were before. Half the kids that hated us for being top tier, now like us because we keep trying to get away. It’s ridiculous.
When the final bell rings, I’m so ready to get home and I rush to grab my stuff and meet the others out front. We all still travel in one car and as Emmy and I climb into the back seat a pang of longing cascades over me for Valentine.
I miss him.
Our time together was nothing but drama, but I miss him and I wish he was here.
We drop the others home, then I climb into the front seat as Zeke heads toward our house. “Do you think he misses us?” I blurt, not having meant to speak.
“I don’t know. I still don’t really understand why he left,” Zeke admits.
We pull into the driveway and I open my door and climb out. “I’m gonna swim,” I announce.
“Cool, I’ll message the others and call Mom and see if she has anything we can put on the grill.”
I nod, passing him after he unlocks the door and heading up to my room to change. It only takes me a moment to pull on a pretty green bikini and I grab my sunglasses, pausing to reach for my cell and Kindle.
The urge to text him rises up and I snap a quick selfie and send him the picture with the caption. “Wish you were here. Come home.” I don’t wait for the reply that I know won’t come; instead, I head downstairs.
I dream of him that night; a hazy, hot dream about his touch, his kisses, and I wake up missing him more than ever. That day I text him four times. I send him pictures of his desk, the guys, all of us together, the empty seat next to me in art.
The next day is Saturday and so I bombard him with texts all day. I send him photos of Auntie Brandi and Uncle Sleaze; his bedroom; his old cell phone that Puck managed to repair, but that Valentine never took with him. I send him pictures of the college applications that we all spent the day filling in, and even random pictures of the town. I caption every picture with ‘miss you’, ‘wish you were here’, or ‘come home’.
I’m starting to feel pathetic, but short of tracking him down and turning up at his door this is all I can do.
I never get a reply.
The last message came from her three days ago.
It’s been two months since I’ve seen her in real life, but she never stopped texting. At the beginning it was just one text a day, a single line asking me to call her, to let her know where I was, if I was okay.
I tried to reply a few times, but I couldn’t find the words to admit that I’d run away and hidden.
I expected her to stop, but after a month she upped the ante. Some days I’d get text after text after text reminding me of the life I left behind when I ran from Archer’s Creek. I’ve saved every single picture she’s sent me to my cell phone, even the random ones of the shops in town, the clubhouse, and the little kids I’d lived with but never made any real effort to get to know.
Her texts torture and plague me. Days and days of reminders of what I left behind and her telling me to come home. Was Archer’s Creek my home? I only lived there for a month, much less time than I spent in Virginia and New Mexico, but does time spent somewhere dictate how you should feel about a place?
The day she read that letter to me I went numb, and by the time I thawed, I was sitting inside an expensive lawyers office in New York. The bus ride had been awful, but the cash I had stashed wasn’t enough for a plane ticket and somewhere to stay when I got there.
When I’d sat down in front of Arnold Willis of Willis, Willis, and Cockburn attorneys at law he’d taken in my ripped jeans and crumpled shirt with a sneer. The look had cleared pretty quickly when he realized the trust I now had access to was worth millions. By the end of that day I had a shiny new bank card and enough money to last me twenty lifetimes.
I checked into a hotel and cried like a baby for two days straight, then I got a cab to the airport and tried to decide where to go next. When the whole world is your oyster and money is no object, you’d think I’d be on a beach in the Caribbean or living it up in the Hollywood Hills. Instead, I’m enrolled at a boarding school about forty minutes from Houston, Texas.
It had taken Arnold Willis exactly two weeks to petition the courts and have me declared emancipated from the state’s guardianship. I’m now a fully independent adult and instead of living it up, I go to a private school full of overly privileged assholes.
I could have gone to any school in the country, I could have given up on school and bought a house. But instead, every road has led me back to Texas, to her, and that’s how I found myself at Constance Academy.
The thought of buying a home scares the shit out of me now. It’s what I’ve wanted so badly since I realized my mom didn’t care, and yet now when I can, when I am free to do as I please, the desire to settle somewhere has gone. Well, except if that place is in Archer’s Creek with her.
I miss her and I’ve eagerly anticipated every single message she’s sent me. Only in the last week or so they’ve slowed from three or four a day, to one, and then three days ago a whole day went past without receiving a single text from her. Another day passed and then another. Two months. Eight weeks of hearing from her every day and now nothing and I only have myself to blame.
It’s the weekend and the dorms I’m living in are quiet and practically empty. The majority of the boarders leave on the weekend. I’d know where they all go if I’d bothered to speak to any of the other kids, but I haven’t.
I have my own room but share a bathroom with six other guys. This place is incredibly similar to the prep school I attended before my life went to shit, but unlike when I was fifteen, I don’t fit in here anymore.
Standing in the airport all those weeks ago, I had no idea where to go. Everyone I wanted to be near was in Archer’s Creek, but I’d snuck out like a thief in the night and disappeared leaving nothing but a note behind me. Five hours later, I’d walked out into the Texas sunshine and seriously thought about just getting a cab back to Brandi and Sleaze’s, but with access to my trust I could be on my own and Brandi and Sleaze had no reason to feel any responsibility for me.
I’d sat on a bench outside the airport and Googled schools. Constance Academy was the first one that came up.
Lying on my bed, I stare at the dimpled white ceiling above me, trying not to reach over and check my cell for messages for the twentieth time this morning. The school insists that uniform be worn at all times while on campus, so even though it’s a Saturday I’m in navy-blue chinos and a crisp white shirt with a red and blue tie hanging loosely from my neck. My navy-blue blazer with the red and silver embroidered logo, hangs over the back of my desk chair. I look like a fucking idiot and feel like an imposter.
Unable to resist, I grab for my cell, clicking into the message app, but just like I expected there are no new messages. I should be happy that she’s given up, but instead a dull ache of loss fills my stomach. Grabbing my blazer, I take a quick picture then send it to her before I can think of all of the reasons why I should let her forget me.
My heart is pounding, but it’s not from regret; it’s pounding with a mix of excitement and anticipation. I’m only just over an hour from Archer’s Creek, from the closest thing to home I’ve come across in three years and the people who behaved like family.
I stare at my cell, hoping to see those three dots, only the screen remains blank. It’s been two months and I haven’t replied to a single one of her messages. I’m a fucking idiot to think that she’d reply now.
Dropping my cell back down to the bed, I close my eyes and try not to think about her. I must fall asleep because a loud knock on my door wakes me. Rubbing at my sleepy eyes, I pad across the room and over to the door. On the other side is a pimply-faced kid, his uniform perfectly pressed, his tie straight.
“Yeah.”
“House Master wants to see you,” the kid informs me.
“Why?”
“I don’t know, he just asked me to come and fetch you.”
Sighing, I run a hand through my messy hair. “Okay, give me a minute to grab some shoes.” Closing the door on the kid, I slide my feet into my ratty chucks, ignoring the shiny loafers I’m supposed to wear.
My uniform shirt is wrinkled, the sleeves rolled up to the elbows and my tie loosened and hanging askew around my neck. If one of the teachers catches me, I’m going to get a demerit or whatever they call the points they give you when you get caught breaking a rule here, but honestly, I couldn’t give a fuck.
Pulling open the door, I find the kid still hovering on the other side, biting at his nails nervously. I grab my cell and my key and step out into the corridor, shutting and locking my door behind me.
“What do you want, kid?” I ask.
“The House Master asked me to escort you downstairs. He wasn’t sure if you knew where to go as you’re new.”
“I’ll find my way,” I growl, opening my message app, hoping to find a text, or a picture, or, hell, even a middle finger emoji from her, but again there’s nothing and I fucking hate it. The kid follows me all the way to the House Master’s office, only leaving when the balding butler looking guy, dressed in full livery steps out to greet us.
“Thank you, Lancaster,” he says to the kid, who smiles brightly then rushes away.
“Mr. Miller,” the man says, practically clicking his heels together as he turns to face me. “We have a situation.”
“What’s up?” I ask, not really giving a fuck, but recognizing that this this guy isn’t going to be easily dismissed.
“We are aware of your somewhat unusual situation and that upon entering the school you requested that your presence here not to be disclosed to anyone should they contact the school seeking you.”
