Book 1: Valentina

Chapter 25

He watched me walk towards him, but he didnt move, he just stared becuse he knew that he deserved whatever I was about to do to him. Nate and Danny were calling my name and people were staring as I pushed through them to get to Jared.  But as soon as I had gotten closer someone grabbed my arm.

"Artura, don't do this you just got back." She said.

I looked to my right and there she stood with her silky hair, and wearing the first frown that I had ever seen on her face since I met her. She held my arm and pulled me towards the school, once we were inside I was  pacing.

"Why? Why can't I destroy his life like he destroyed mine? Why can't I take his life like he took my bestfriend's?" I asked.

Naomi sat on a bench and placed her hands over her knee, very gracefully  and patted the spot next to her, I politely declined because right now I was heated and all i wanted to do was rip Jared's throat out through his stomach, how dare he come here! How dare he even show his face in this state!

" Artura, since I've been here all of the things that i've heard about you have been relatively bad and I don't want to beieve that. I don't know what happened between you and that guy but don't let him ruin the last few months of your senior year, whatever he did you have to forgive him." she said.

"Excuse me?" I stopped in the middle of pacing and deadpanned her.

"Forgive him, whatever he did he probably dont mean to do it, and you cant just ruin  the Spring Parade becaue some guy ticked you off. Causing a scene the way you were planning to won't just get you into a bunch of trouble but it'll ruin everything I worked on." she said.

This had nothing to do with me, this was all about her and what she'd done and how she'd prepared the Spring Parade and me not ruining it with my problems.

" Well, we wouldn't want that now would we?" I asked giving her a fake smile.

"No. We wouldn't and as Spring Queen," she said making a dissapointed face," You have to set nd example for how a queen should act and present herself and we wouldn't want younger students t think that the queen is some violent hoodrat, now would we?" She explained.

This girl had to be the nicest bitch I had ever met in my life, like I wanted to choke her about ht he had said but I couldn't because she was so polite about it.

"Spring King Marco Giovanni and Queen Artura Valentina, please report to the float!" Principle Wilkerson called.

I saw a flash of anger hit her face when my name was called after Marco's and then it disappeared and the smile was back like it never left.

"Well that's my cue to leave, thanks for the uh, talk." I said walking back to the parking lot.

I looked around before got to the float and Jared had disppeared, but Nate aand Danny were stil stading near my car, lookin until danny's eyes hdd landd on mine, he turned to Nate nd tapped his shoulder. When Nate saw me he mouthed "where the hell did you go?' and all I did was point  behind me to Naomi and he made a face.

By the time I had finally made it to the float Marco was already sitting with his crown on and as soon as he saw me his face lit up and as if my face were programmed to act according to his, mine did too. I wouldn't deny the fact that Marco looked like a piece of candy sitting up here in that black tux, but I couldn't deny the fact that he had aa girlfriend, who he loved.

"Hey." he said still smiling like  child.

"Hey, do you know where my things are?" I sked referring to my crown and sash.

"Oh yeah, Wilkerson left so he asked my to crown and sash you." he said standing  to place the crown and sash on me.

Don't be weird about it. I had to tell myself repeatedly.

Marco cleared his throat and I had to looked up straight into the devil's eyes, he placed the crown onto my head without breaking eye contact. My heart was beating fast like  was doped up on crack and I couldn't stop cheesing like an idiot. He grabbed the sash and placed it over my shoulders and smiled like he'd built the greatest statue in America.

"Why are you smiling like an idiot?" I asked.

"Huh?"

" You're smiling like an idiot." I repeated.

He looked down at his feet, we were still standing in the same position from when he'd put on my sash.

" I'm just still shocked that you're here. It's been three months and I-"

"Have a girlfriend, who you love very much." I interrupted and walked past him to sit on the make shift throne.

I looked down from the float and saw Naomi staring at me and then she looked to Marco who was still standing. She looked back at me and gave me a fake smile turning to walk towards Danny and Nate, I could tell that just by  Danny's body language when she approached them that he didn't like her, but Nate fake entertained in the conversation. I could tell that she was asking questions about me because every so often one of them would look towards the float.

"Students, please take your position we are ready to begin the parade." announced Principal Wilkerson.

And  watched as all the students scrambled to get to their rightful positions in front of and behind the float, Marco came and sat beside me, I looked everywhere but to him still pretending to watch the band students get in formation with their instruments and the dancers lining up in front of them.

"Naomi, doesn't mean anything to me compared to you." he said.

"Then why'd you tell her you loved her?" I asked not facing him.

"Because I-"

"Didn't think I was coming back?" I answered for him.

"Artura, I don't love her, it was just- I just- I didn't mean it." He said as the float began to move.

" Well you shouldn't say things that you don't mean."  I said.

We spent two hours on that float smiling and waiving and smiling and waving. Being fake happy for the crowd of at least 300, the band played, the dancers danced and everyone else did what they could to make this parade festive whether it had been just handing out candy to the elementary school kids or dressing up as lowers and trailing behind the float.

I would lie if I said that my stare didn't linger every time I looked to my left at the crowd bt Marco's smile got caught in the crossfire and I couldn't help but stare because this is the most that he's ever smiled at me and that's my fault because I was always arguing with him and always upset with him and he didn't need that, he needed Naomi.

And I was going to do everything in my power to make sure he kept her.

--

Hi guys!

So I know, I know, I'm slow asf on the updates but I apologize life has been treating my like Cole treated Marco before the secret came out and last week I turned 20, how exciting lol but a couple of announcements.

1. if you guys have noticed there are now ads on my stories nd it would help me a lot if you uys helped by just watching the ads, its only like 15 seconds long and maybe you'll see smething you like lol.

2. I recently published a new story, it's just a chapter long because I'm testing the waters with it, it's called Anatomy of A Star and if you guys would just read it and give me feedback so that I know if t's wise to continue the story or not. And also I have an old story called The Best friend, in my opinion that story is better than this one and is definitely worth the read.