a bitter sweet beginning

 

"I don't know if you really want anything for Christmas," Matty's words shocked Valentina.

Here they were doing their normal thing at school. Although, at a distance, but still they spent lunch together. 

She hadn't meant to put him off. It was true. It didn't feel like the holidays.

"What do you mean? You want to breakup?" She was overwhelmed with grief these days. There was the matter of finding out about her real family, and she didn't want to lose her mom in the process.

"Are we even going out?" His voice was somber.

"You know, I like you too. I just haven't been the best at ..I dunno..going out. I mean, we are in a pandemic." She felt certain these were good reasons.

He nodded and took another sip from his milk carton.

"It's just..I don't understand, how..how you can be that way to..to your brother." He shrugged.

"First of all, what if he's not." She needed to keep her guard up.

"But what if he is?" Matty was serious.

"You're right, I shouldn't be so hard on him," she sighed and took a sip of the cafeteria shake which was thick with ice cream. It was about all she could manage. "It's just..when I saw him with Ivy..I dunno..I didn't like it. Why her?" She told Matty she'd been friends with Ivy, but she felt it was all fake now. Ivy didn't know how to be friends. "But she was older and I thought, you know, I should just go along and well, I was there when she met Brian at Adventureland. Even then, I knew I should have told her boyfriend, but I didn't. I kept quiet." She shook her head. "I don't trust her and now..why should I trust this guy who says he's my brother."

"Some things you can't do anything about, but this, you need to give Dan a chance. I know that's what your mom would want," Matty told her.

"I don't want to be in this mood," she told him. "I'm not like this..but it's been a hard year and even before then I learned I could carry a grudge." She knew he wouldn't want to hear it, but ever since her first love Ollie cheated on her she'd never been the same. 

"I know," Matty reached for her hand then. If she stayed calm she could get through this too.