February the 13th

Valentina couldn't say when it exactly happened, but she knew Ollie had changed. It was last month. Just after the new year.

Of course, people evolve. She knew this, but he was not who she remembered. He was quieter. The silence drove her to imagine the worst. She hated to lose faith in him, but she had.

Maybe...

it was her fault. This thing with Jools. She knew she wasn't perfect, but he was her best friend. If only it could have been that way with Ollie.

Valentina thought back, how long she'd watched him. In her eyes, Ollie was her first love. He was the strength she needed, but now it wasn't so.

Ste wasn't so sure about Gabby, either.

"Don't hurt her." Valentina knew this much. It wouldn't help either of them. But neither had to be geniuses to know something was going on between Gabby and Ollie. "Don't you lay a finger on him, either."

"But he deserves it," Ste said as he beat his fist into the bread dough.

"It'll only hurt you more in the end." She told him if he was really strong, he wouldn't give in to such meanness. "You have to be strong," she told him.

He looked at her as if she must be an idiot. But she reminded him, love wasn't love until you gave it away. "She was never yours, to begin with." Valentina told him everyone made mistakes. "It doesn't mean you have to go back to the way things were." Of course, it didn't mean she was happy about letting Ollie go. She might never think of him like she once did.

Yet Ste was thinking of revenge. What if they got them back?

Valentina shook her head, no. She would always be the little sister that Ste never had. Nothing more. Still, winter was bitter and cold. She'd just have to hibernate with a good book. And hope her creativity would come back to her. After all, it was the only passion she truly knew.