Til' Your Scars Fade

Secrets Kept

Velvet sat on Veneer's bed, bouncing her foot.
He had called her over FaceTime and asked her to come in to talk as she was coming home from dance. They were FaceTimeing again, she was pleased with that.

She was also pleased to see that Floyd wasn't sitting on Veneer's shoulder for once. She knew he was the one behind most of Ven's ambitious behavior lately. She was no longer so bothered by their friendship.

At first it seemed he was trying to rip Veneer away from her, replace her. But oddly she found he had only been trying to help the two. Why he cared about their relationship was beyond her.

He was always trying to help "facilitate dialogue" between the two of them. Sometimes it felt like they were getting somewhere, sometimes Velvet clammed up because of course she couldn't talk so intimately about how she felt and how things were affecting her in front of Floyd.

He may be Veneer's friend but he wasn't hers.
Veneer was her friend. That was it. Not her 'friends' she'd party with, not her fellow dancers, not even Orchid, who she had now gone a few weeks without answering or acknowledging. That wall was still there.

She still wanted everyone out of her personal space. Of course, this didn't stop Orchid from trying to contact her and check up on her. She was just glad the girl knew that contacting Veneer was off limits. He was not to know about them.

Tch, what was she saying? There was no 'them', there had never been a them. Velvet had just gotten a little closer than she would have liked if she had been thinking straight. She was just vulnerable, and had gotten closer than she would of in her right frame of mind.

She felt so awkward about the whole thing. She felt like she had lead this other girl on. Maybe Orchid had lead her on. She wasn't exactly sure. She didn't know where to throw the blame. Maybe it was both of their fault. They both had let this very odd friendship get way too intimate. It felt so inappropriate looking back on it. She was just glad nobody had seen. She had sheltered the relationship from the world, nurturing it in private.

Maybe if she had done this more publicly someone would have been able to stop it, snap her out of it. She was being weird. It was weird of her to snuggle so close. It was weird and bad.

She had nearly had a heart attack when, a few days ago, Veneer had opened the door to a delivery of flowers. Orchids. Fuck.

"They're addressed to you," Veneer said, groaning in worry. "I was so careful about everything, I'm sorry sis," he said, setting the potted plant on the counter. Purple, her favorite color.

"Are you being careful about what you're posting? Do you have your location on?" Veneer asked, starting to pace the kitchen. Oh. Velvet realized Veneer thought they were from a fan, that their private address had been leaked.

"Don't worry. They're not from a fan," she said quickly, and realized she had been delicately fondling the petals of the flowers. Yikes! She stopped what she was doing. Veneer was looking at her, he had already observed what she was doing. Fuck.

"Oh," he said, getting a suspicious look. "They're not from mom and daddy are they?" It wasn't anywhere near anybody's birthday, he couldn't imagine they'd send her flowers and not him.

He questioned, reaching for the small card that came with them.

Velvets heart shot a lightning bolt of fear through her as she snatched away the card and tore it up.
It would read "take care of yourself, lovely," but nobody would know now.

"No," she said quickly.

Veneer smiled widely. "Is it from a boyyyy?" He said, leaning his chin in his hands as he looked at her teasingly. Yes! He never got to know these secrets about Velvet, and he loved getting to know a secret. Maybe she had a little boyfriend or something.