Valerie

12 - Val

Guilt slammed into me. When I had run away just over three months ago, I was only thinking of myself, I was being selfish, as per usual.

"I'm sorry, Will, I'm really sorry."

I heard him sigh again.

"Look, how about this, me and Molly come to you to visit. I really want to see you and she really wants to see you, especially before the wedding."

I breathed a sigh of relief, he was listening to me.

"The twins don't want to see me, do they?" I asked tentatively.

There was a pause again. "You know how they are, they can really hold grudges." Not only did my brothers hate me for what happened to Mum, they hated me for running away too. I couldn't blame them, not really. But it still stung. 

"Okay, so when do you want to come?" I asked, suddenly a bit more excited at the prospect of seeing my brother again.

"In a month and a half? I'll be able to give you the wedding invitation myself." I could practically hear the smile in his voice. 

"You can stay at my place, if you want." I offered.

"I'd love to."

---

Monday came around and I was walking to college with a spring in my step which was very unusual for me.

"You're... giddy." Mable grumbled from next to me. 

Usually these roles were reversed but I was  too happy about the idea of Will coming to stay that nothing could dampen my mood.

"He's not coming for another month and a half." Mable pointed out.

"You know, I got a full night's sleep last night, haven't smoked a single fag since the phone call and I woke up at 7 today." I said, smiling. 

"That's great, Val. I'm happy for you." Mable said.

"Thanks, I'm happy too."

"Also, you know the hockey game in three weeks? Yeah, we're going." She said, shrugging.

"What?"

"We're going." She repeated.

"Mable, we don't know the first thing about ice hockey. Like literally nothing."

"It doesn't matter what we do and don't know. What matters is that Marcus invited us. Us being the key word because I'm definitely not going by myself." She said matter-of-factly. 

"What do you even do at hockey games? How do you know when they've done something significant?"

"I guess we won't know but it's all a part of the fun."

I was about to argue further as we crossed the road to campus when a big black car screeched in front of us, coming to a sudden halt mere inches away.

"What the fuc-" I started to say but cut myself off when I saw who came out of the car. It was Thomas.

He climbed out and suddenly we were face to face. 

"Oh, hi." I said, not knowing how to act after the events of his party.

He cocked his head to the side, looking and smiling at me before saying, "Hi."

"Hi." Mable added, grinning. I subtly elbowed her in the ribs but I guess it wasn't that subtle considering Thomas was full on grinning now. "We were just heading to class. Why don't you join us?" Mable said with a sly smile. 

"Uh, sure." Thomas said. He was closest to Mable but he walked over so he was beside me as we started walking to class.

"By the way, I was going to ask how you were after the party." Thomas said to me. "I went after you but I got... caught up."