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Chapter 26, Part 4
Back to: Chapter 26, Part 3 Next: Chapter 26, Part 5

“Dad, I’m here!” Valo called out, as she entered the house. Tacita, Emily, and Ophelia followed closely. “Dad?”

A chubby middle-aged man rose from a chair in the nearby living room. Ophelia almost laughed out loud when she saw the man; he looked like an older male version of Valo!

“Hey, Jess,” he greeted her. “Brought some friends over?”

“Yeah, I guess you could call them friends,” Valo replied. “Or more like people I haven’t decided I want to kill yet.”

They both chuckled at this. “Weird family,” Emily muttered to Ophelia.

“We’re going to be going through some of the photo albums and scrapbooks. Where’s Grandma and Grandpa?” Valo asked.

“At the hospital. Grandpa’s not feeling well,” her father replied.

“Again?”

“Yeah, again.”

Valo snorted a little. “Wow. Okay, we’re going to my room. Watching Ghost Hunters?”

“Yeah. It’s the one that was shot locally.”

“Yeah, that was a really cool one! They really seemed to like the Quarter,” Valo remarked. To her friends, she said, “Come on. To my room!” Wordlessly, the others followed her through the living room to her bedroom. Valo opened the door and then flipped the light switch. The group entered the bedroom, and Tacita laughed.

“What’s so funny?” Valo asked.

“Your room is… well, I expected something more… I don’t know… dark,” Tacita replied, indicating the primarily blue color scheme.

“I like the color blue. So what?” Valo replied. She walked over to a bookshelf crammed with books and tugged out a good-sized volume. “Here,” she said, tossing the book onto the bed. “My high school memory book.”

“Oh, this is going to be good,” Tacita chortled, flipping the book open. Emily and Ophelia peered over her shoulders. Tacita flipped through a few pages. “Where are you at? These are pictures of pretty much everyone but you.”


Valo shrugged and responded, “Guess I didn’t feel much need to remember myself. I thought it was more important to remember the people in my life who mattered back then.”

Tacita turned another page and gasped in astonishment. “This is you?” she exclaimed, staring at the picture. In the photograph, an adolescent Valo smiled at the camera. She was clad in a red formal dress.

“Yeah, that’s me,” Valo said, peering at the picture. She smiled a little and added, “It’s funny; back then, I had so many of my classmates saying all kinds of insulting things about me. They had me convinced I was this hideous creature, and the people who didn’t say that to me, they either just laughed or didn’t try to take up for me. Most of my educational career has been like that. It’s no wonder I’m such a bitter old hag now.”

“You’re not a bitter old hag,” Emily said. “You’ve just had some really unhappy experiences because of some jerks who didn’t take your feelings into consideration. Trust me, I know how you feel.”

_____________________________


“I feel fine,” Jade insisted again. “I just have a lot on my mind, that’s all.”

“Like what?” Mark asked. “Maybe if you talk to me, it’ll make you feel better.”

“It’s…” Jade started, then stopped. She shrugged. “I don’t know. You know, there’s something I’ve been wondering.”

“Yeah?”

“Do you have any other ‘special friends’ like me?”

Mark paused for a second, and then replied, “Not currently. There was this one girl, but we’ve sort of split up and haven’t really picked things up.”

Jade felt her heart drop. “Oh.”

Mark smiled a little and added, “But I think what you and I have is really special. I mean, it’s nice that we have this kind of friendship.”

“Yeah,” Jade said slowly. “No pressure, no stress.” And no real connection either, she thought, swallowing hard. I shouldn’t feel this way. We agreed it would be like this. But it just kind of hurts, to know that you can’t really have something you want. “I… excuse me for a minute.”

“Sure.”


Jade slowly made her way to the bathroom and, after entering, locked the door. She slowly sank to the floor and began to sob, trying to be as quiet as possible. Stupid, stupid, stupid, she cajoled herself. She rose to her feet, flushed the toilet, and washed her hands in the sink. As she emerged from the bathroom, Mark asked, “Are you okay? It looks like you were crying.”

“Cramps,” Jade lied. “My period started early, and it really surprised me.”

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