Valentina

17: Libby's POV

Valentina and I's relationship has drastically changed. We hardly hang out anymore, we don't talk like we used to, and we aren't around each other like we used to be. I may be talkative and I talk with her a lot but with her not talking back it's harder for me to keep the conversation going. She hardly communicates back to me. Only on her really good days she feels comfortable enough to write to me.

All the girls on our basketball team used to hangout every week whether it was to party or to go bowling. Sometimes we would even go to the movies. Valentina never shows up to our weekly hang out sessions anymore. It doesn't bother me because I understand why she doesn't come anymore but the other girls on our team are growing annoyed with her. It's mainly because they don't care to understand her or how she feels. They don't get why she has changed or why she isn't the same person she used to be.

Valentina was always the girl who kept to herself most of the time but she would help others if they needed it, whenever they needed it. She would stop everything she was doing and she would help them even if it meant she was getting behind in something. She cared way too much about others more than she did herself. She chose her brothers and my happiness before hers. She chose making strangers happy more than making herself feel happy. Her happiness was always the last thing on her mind. It still is but it's different now. It feels like she doesn't care as much anymore about people who aren't close to her. Or specifically if it isn't her brothers or me. If she can't feel safe around them, she won't want to be around them for long and certainly won't go to them to help in any instances. When she sees people around that she does not feel okay around, she either runs off or sticks with her brothers the whole entire time. It's harder for her now to feel safe and I don't quite understand why. What happened at the party that would make her feel less safe than she was before?

Sadie has been going around spreading even more rumors about Valentina. I never understood why she is so jealous of Val but it's getting worse as time passes by. She needs to get over herself and stop making Val feel so miserable when she has never done anything to hurt her in any way. She has successfully turned almost the whole school against her for no reason. With the help of the boys basketball team, they have been putting Val down more and more. They don't care how she feels or find out what the truth is. They care more about their teammates than others even if it's for the wrong reasons, even if it's bad for them.

Valentina is having the worst time at school ever since the rumors started. Rocco and Romeo try their best to keep her distracted. I try to keep talking to her in hopes it calms her nerves down or to see if it will keep her mind off of the stares of others around us. I see so many people give her mean or dirty looks when they see her and I glare at them to stop but I'm sure Valentina notices it before I'm able to stop it from happening in the first place. The guilt I feel for not being able to help my best friend escalates every time we're together.

What could I possibly do if I don't know what's truly going on? If I don't know what has happened to her? I can try to get her mind off of the rumors or distract her from the whispers of people at school but I can't know what she feels on the inside no matter how many times I ask. If she won't let us in yet, we won't be able to find out what happened to her or completely understand why she is so distant now.

It pains me to see the pain in her eyes or the blank expressions she gives us.

Valentina and I used to control how basketball practices went whenever Coach Mitchell couldn't make it or chose to skip out. We loved to make competitions between the two of us. Val is competitive and she loves to compete against everyone she can. We would always have competitions that would require us to be against each other but it was only out of playfulness. It never got ugly between us. Most of our competitions consisted of who could shoot the most shots in the basketball hoop in a short amount of time or from the farthest away. She won every time. Everyone loved to see our banter and our competitiveness during competitions we had. Some of the girls even told us how much they wish they had friends like us. How they wished they had a best friend like one of us. Sophia told us a few times that we were best friend goals.