Valerie

3 - Val

One day, just as I was about to leave for school, it rung again. Today was a Friday, which meant that my dad's one shift a week was today. This reason, and this reason only, was why I decided to build up the courage and pick up that scarlet phone.

"Finally!" I heard my older brother, Will's, voice down the other end of the line. "I've been trying to reach you for ages! Why didn't you pick up the phone?" A surge of relief hit me like a wave. It was my brother. Even though I knew it would be, I couldn't describe how pleased I was that I wasn't currently hearing my father's husky voice.

"Oh, you know. Just started school and stuff." I lied.

"Right." He said, his words clipped. He obviously didn't believe me but my brother loved avoiding confrontation and unpleasant truths so he said nothing about it. "How is that going by the way?"

"Well, I was just on my way to school. I'm kind of running late. Can I call you back later?" I heard him sigh. "Will, you can check, over there its one, but here it's eight, I really am going to school."

"Yeah, yeah I know." He said. "Fine, you can call me back but it's got to be sooner rather than later."

"What's so urgent?" I said, unsure.

"I have something that I need to talk to you about." Panic flooded through me.

"What's this about, Will?"

"Look, Val, let's just talk about it later tonight. What's the earliest you can talk?"

"Since when do you go to bed early?" I asked. Out of all my family, I was probably closest to my brother. After Mum of course. We knew everything about each other and I should be grateful that he's checking up on me.

"Er... Since I got engaged and moved out?" He said shyly.

"You and Molly got engaged?!" I said, elated. My brother only being 23, I was slightly shocked but happy for him nonetheless. "How far along has it been? Have you had your stag-do yet?!"

"No, no, no. This only happened about two weeks ago." And I was too busy ignoring his calls. "But that's not what I want to talk about. Is four your time okay for you?"

"Yeah, that's perfect, just give me a ring on this phone."

"You know, it would be so much easier if you just gave me your mobile."

"I know." And with that, I hung up.

---

Over the last week or so, Thomas had been coming to fewer and fewer lessons. Out of the twelve we've had so far, he's only been to five. Not that I was keeping track or anything.

On this Friday, he happened to be in and I felt his eyes on me several times. What was his problem? I had managed to talk as little as possible to him, only when absolutely necessary, and from what I had gathered, he did not remember how we first met at all. He probably thought that we first met in this classroom. My ruined letter was evidence against that.

I had tried to salvage what I could of the letter but due to my mother's persistence in using real ink, all of the words were smudged beyond recognisability.

At the end of the lesson, I was packing my things up as quickly as I could to try and get away from Thomas as quickly as I could before Professor Twine came up to us and asked to talk to us.

"Mr. Verner, may I call you Thomas."

"Not really." Thomas deadpanned.

"Great, Thomas." Twine smiled.

"And can I call you Valerie Ms Fawkes."

"Oh, it's Val. You can call me Val." Thomas gave me an unreadable expression. Professor Twine smiled again.