The ceiling lights are still on, so I watch Val walk around the bed and notice her thick sweatpants and my Yale sweatshirt.
I’m starting to recognize this as her comfort outfit, and as much as I wish she didn’t need it, I can’t help but feel pride that my wardrobe is a part of it.
Instead of lying on her side, like she does when she’s ready to fall asleep, she lies on her back.
I roll onto my side, facing her profile.
Her eyes are open, but she’s staring at nothing.
Something twists inside me, and I move closer until her shoulder is against my chest.
“Want to tell me?” I ask quietly.
She bites her lip even as she nods her head. “It’s a lot.”
“We have time.”
Val pulls the blankets up to her chin, and I slip my arm under the covers. She only tenses for a moment when I rest my hand on her stomach. She’s so soft. I want to be touching her always.
“I’m… I’m just gonna start at the beginning.”
I nod against my pillow. “I want to know everything about you, Valentine.”
I watch as her throat works.
She opens and closes her mouth. “Hold on.” She leans away from me, reaching out to turn off the ceiling lights.
There’s still ambient light from the city, but darkness settles around us.
Val lies back, and I put my hand back where it was, feeling her body rise and fall with breaths.
“I don’t know how much you know from your, um, research.” She exhales. “So you can tell me to skip stuff.”
“I don’t really want to talk about the background check I ran on you,” I admit, knowing I need to give her something in exchange for what she’s about to give me. “I know you have a different mom from King and Aspen. And that you grew up in a different house. But I want to know how it’s possible that you’ve never had a birthday party.”
The blankets shift, and one of her hands starts to settle on top of mine on her stomach, but I lift my hand a little, and she slips hers underneath, trapping it between my palm and her body.
I close my fingers around hers.
She’s quiet for a long moment. And I give her the time.
“I really loved my dad.” She takes another deep breath. “He would bring me presents on my birthday. They were always great kid gifts. Toys, stuffed animals… And there were a few times when he’d bring cupcakes, too. But there was never a party. My mom… sucked. She only ever pretended to be kind when my dad was around. When he wasn’t…” I can feel her shrug. “She was mean.”
Her mom was mean to her?
Rage starts to creep in on the edge of my vision. My mom is my rock. She’s always been there for me. For everything. To imagine growing up in a world where she was cruel to me… I can’t.
“Did she hurt you?” I ask as calmly as I’m able.
Valentine shrugs again. “Nothing bad.”
I squeeze her fingers. That’s a terrible answer.
“She liked to pinch,” Val tells me. “But she wielded her words with much more precision.”
“Angel…” I don’t even know what to say.
“When I was like eight, I found a book about pregnancy and birth. It was really simple. A children’s book with illustrations. But it talked about how a baby needs nine months in their mother’s stomach before they can come out. I’d always been told that I was a Valentine’s Day baby, which is what I was named after, so I pulled the calendar off my wall and counted back from my birthday. And when it didn’t match up, I made the mistake of asking my mom about it.” She huffs out a derisive laugh. “She told me I was stupid and I didn’t know what I was talking about.”
Val slides her other hand on top of mine, sandwiching my hand between hers.
“I was a stupid kid, though. Because I always believed her. I believed her when she told me I came out late, rather than her conceiving later in February, because she wasn’t with my dad on Valentine’s Day. Because he was probably with his actual wife. And I believed her when she told me my dad was too busy and too important to live at home with us. I didn’t know seeing your dad only six times a year wasn’t normal.”
“You weren’t stupid.”
She clutches her fingers around mine. “The first funeral I ever attended was my father’s. I was nine. And I couldn’t figure out why we had to sit in the back.” She swallows. “Dom, I was so confused.”
I move even closer.
“There were so many people there. It was like…” She sniffs. “It was like your cousin’s funeral. Really nice like that. Lots of people. But my mom… I cried so much when she told me he’d died, but she only ever seemed angry about it. I didn’t see her cry once over him, and the more I cried, the angrier she got. I remember her pinching me during the service. Mad that I was being so emotional.”
“Fuck,” I whisper, wanting to wrap child Valentine in my arms and protect her.
“That was before the priest mentioned my dad was survived by his wife and kids, which he referred to by name.”
“Fuck.” It comes out louder this time.
“Pretty much.” She sighs. “It broke my little heart. Because he was the only person that ever told me he loved me. And… it was a lie.”
“He might’ve been a cheating asshole, but there’s no way he couldn’t love you,” I say, meaning it, before I realize how true the words really are.
Who wouldn’t love this woman?
Her stomach trembles with a choppy breath. “When the service was over, and the family walked out first, King’s mom glared at me like I was the worst thing she’d ever seen. I can’t even really blame her now, but at the time… It was bad. Made me feel really bad. And Aspen had the same look on her face.”
“It wasn’t your fucking fault,” I grit out.
“I know. But I was living proof.”
“What about King? You said you were nine. He’s twenty years older, right? He surely wouldn’t have blamed a kid for his dad’s infidelity.”
“I wasn’t brave enough to watch him walk past.”
Wasn’t brave enough. It’s like every sentence she speaks rips another piece of my soul.
I focus on her hands around mine. “What happened after? How’d you end up becoming close with them?”
“I’m not,” she whispers as her fingers tighten their grip on mine. “After the funeral, my mom got worse. She was a user. Different drugs. Different people. Whatever she could use to pretend life wasn’t real. We moved apartments a lot, but when I turned fifteen, King showed up at our front door.”
“Was that the first time you’d seen him since the funeral?”
“Yeah,” Val confirms. “And he was there to tell me that my dad had left me in his will. And that I’d be attending a private high school and that it was all paid for.”
“Those aren’t the actions of a man who doesn’t care,” I tell her quietly, hating that she thinks neither of her parents loved her.
“You’re probably right,” she concedes without conviction, and I have to wonder how intimidating a thirty-five-year-old King Vass would have been to a fifteen-year-old Valentine. “But it just made my life worse. Because my mom resented me even more.”
“How?” I seriously can’t understand this bitch.
“Because my mom got herself pregnant with me thinking she’d be set for life. And she kinda was. He paid her rent and gave her an allowance for food and stuff my whole life. Until he died and the money dried up, and my mom was still stuck feeding another greedy mouth.” The way she says the last line tells me she’s heard it said before. “So when King came to tell us about the tuition, my mom lost it. Demanding that she should get that money. And how come King couldn’t just write her a check for the total amount of the tuition and let me go to public school. He obviously didn’t do that. And even though he was nice to me, I could feel how much he hated my mom. He scared me.”
“Did you go to the school?”
“I did. And eventually, my mom just got used to it. Or forgot about it. But she mostly left me to my own devices. Until I turned eighteen.”
I almost don’t even want to ask. I know the answer isn’t going to be a birthday party. “What happened when you turned eighteen?”
“King came back and told me that my college was paid for, too.” My eyes have fully adjusted, so I watch as Val blinks toward the ceiling. “He also told me my dad had left me seventy-five thousand dollars in a trust. That I’d get twenty-five thousand when I turned nineteen, twenty-five thousand when I turned twenty-one, and twenty-five thousand when I turned twenty-five. I know that might not sound like a lot to you, but for me… it was life changing.”
“It is a lot. And smart of him to spread it out.”
Val huffs. “Funny, my mom didn’t agree. She wanted seventy-five in a check written to her, right then and there. King told her it didn’t work that way. And that the money belonged to me, not her, and she had no say or access to it. He told me that he set up an account for me at a bank my mom wasn’t a customer of, and since I was over eighteen, she couldn’t access it.”
“Smart man.”
“He was nice to me.” Sadness fills her voice. “He gave me his phone number and told me to tell him when I got into college and that he’d arrange the tuition payments, just like he’d done for high school. And he did.”
“You say that, but why does it feel like he wasn’t nice to you?”
Val shakes her head. “He was. I think he knew how shitty my mom was and felt bad for me. We weren’t, like, friends or anything, but he never seemed bothered by my existence.”
I grind my teeth. “Angel.”
“I just mean that he didn’t actively hate me. Like our moms did.”
I close my eyes. “Jesus.”
This poor fucking girl. Not being actively hated is her gauge for niceness.
Val had nothing to do with her shitty parents’ actions, and yet all the adults that should’ve been protecting her put the blame on her tiny shoulders.
“I got into a college in the Twin Cities and found an on-campus job for the summer that would allow me to move into a dorm early.”
I slide my eyes open to look at her profile. “My smart girl.”
“It felt really good to finally feel safe.”
Fucking fuck me.
Needing her closer, I push my hand through her grip and hook my arm around her waist.
Valentine rolls to face me, and I pull her into my body, slipping my other arm between her and the mattress.
Her hands are between our chests, her little fists pressing against my bare skin over my heart.
I want to rip her childhood apart.
But I can’t, so I just tuck her head under my chin and wrap both arms around her in a hug, keeping her where she is. “You’ll always be safe with me,” I promise her.
“I know,” she breathes. And her acceptance settles inside me.
“Did she leave you alone once you moved?” I have a sense of dread for what must still be coming.
“Mostly. The month after I moved out, she met a guy and followed him to Florida. I think she lived with him for a while because I didn’t hear from her for a few months.” Tension builds in Val’s shoulders. “King reached out at the start of the school year. He’d seen I’d taken a summer course while I was working. Told me I did a good job. And then reminded me that I’d be getting my first payout in a couple months. As though I could forget.” She scoffs. “He told me not to spend it all at once. And when I told him I was thinking about getting a car, he said to send what I was looking at to him first. It felt a little overbearing at the time, since no one had ever been that involved before, but I was grateful to have someone to help me. It’s not like I knew what I was doing.”
“Did you buy a car?” I try to picture what nineteen-year-old Valentine would buy. Something practical, I’m sure.
But Val shakes her head. “My mom called me on my birthday and asked me to come visit her in Florida.” A rumble of anger vibrates my chest, and Val flattens her hand against me. “I thought the worst, too, at first. But she never mentioned the money. And I wanted… It was so dumb, but I just wanted to believe she wasn’t awful. So I told her when the semester was over, I’d visit.”
I hug her a little harder, my own throat starting to itch.
“That was the first thing I spent any of the money on. A plane ticket to see my mom.”
Val is quiet for a long moment.
“What happened?” I ask against her hair.
“We got into a huge fight. The guy she’d followed down there ditched her, and she said she needed some money to get by. And I told her no. I told her no because I was hurt. I wanted her to want me around, but she only asked me to visit because she wanted my money.”
I press my lips to the top of Val’s head; the theme of being tricked and used isn’t lost on me. “You didn’t owe her anything, Valentine. You did the right thing.”
“She called me all sorts of names, but that was the first time I ever shouted back.” Her body starts to tremble. “I packed up my bag to go, didn’t even care that I’d be wasting money on a hotel if I left, but then she convinced me to stay. Said she’d drop it and that we could go out for breakfast in the morning. So I stayed.”
It falls together. Before she tells me, it all falls together.
Her mom died when she was nineteen.
I curl my fingers into her sides. “Valentine.”
“She killed herself that night.” The tears finally fill her voice.
“Angel.” I kiss her head again.
“It was a shitty little one-bedroom apartment. And she told me I could have her bedroom and she’d sleep on the couch.” Her fingertips press into me. “I figured she’d just drink until she passed out, so I locked myself in her room and cried myself to sleep. When I got up in the morning, I found her sitting at the little dining table. Slumped in her seat. With an empty bottle of vodka and an empty bottle of painkillers prescribed to someone else.”
I can’t imagine. I cannot fucking imagine.
“Was she already gone?” I have to ask.
Val nods against me. “I didn’t realize at first. I thought she was asleep. But when I touched her shoulder… She was stiff.”
“Jesus Christ.” I stare over the top of Val’s head. I know exactly what happens to dead bodies, so I know exactly what teenage Val would’ve seen. “Did she leave a note?”
“Not in the way you mean.”
I close my eyes. “What did she leave?”
“Her stack of bills.”
“I fucking hate her,” I snap.
And I swear Val laughs a little.
“I’m serious.” I hook my leg over Val’s thigh. The hug doesn’t feel like enough. “If she wasn’t already dead, I’d kill her myself. You didn’t deserve that. Tell me you knew that you didn’t deserve that.”
Her hand flexes against my chest. It’s all she can do with how tight I’m holding her.
“A part of me knew it. I knew she was miserable, and no matter what I did, she’d always be miserable. But it was still hard, ya know? Because she set those there for me to find.” I feel her shake her head. “I’d been used to being on my own, but once she died… I really was.”
“I hate her,” I repeat.
Val’s exhale tickles my chest hair. “The second funeral I ever went to was my mom’s. And it turns out everyone else that knew her hated her, too. Because it was just me and the priest. Or, well, funeral director, I think.”
“You had a funeral?” I furrow my brows. “Should’ve just fed her to the alligators.”
Valentine snorts. “First, gross. Second, I was a stupid nineteen-year-old. I thought you had to have a funeral.”
“You planned it?” I can’t hide the shock in my voice. But I don’t know why I’m surprised. Like she said, there was no one else in her mom’s life that would’ve done it.
“Unintentionally. I called 9-1-1 when I found her, and the ball just kinda started rolling on its own. Her body was brought to a funeral home. The director called me and asked what I wanted to do with the remains and if I wanted to do the service in their hall. I just kept answering questions, and before I knew it, there was a funeral.” I make a mental note to look up this funeral director because if he’s still alive, I’m putting him in his own incinerator. “And then her landlord was demanding payment for rent she was behind on and that I deal with moving all her stuff out.” I add landlord to my list.
“You paid for all that, didn’t you?”
“It was the second thing I spent my money on,” she admits, and I curse again. “I was worried I’d get in trouble with King over spending it on my mom. But he never said anything, so I figured he didn’t know.”
“Wait.” I pull back a little. “What do you mean?”
She leans her head back to look up at me. “What do you mean what do I mean?”
“You said you were at the funeral alone. Why wasn’t King there?”
Val tries to lift a shoulder, but I’m holding her too tightly. “Why would he be? I didn’t expect him and Aspen to actually come when I invited them. Their family didn’t exactly like my mom.”
“So fucking what? He’s your brother!”
She shakes her head. “No, Dominic, it’s okay.”
“It’s not fucking okay. Don’t make excuses for him. You told him your mom fucking died, and he left you to deal with her suicide alone.” I’m mad. I’m so fucking mad. My sweet, precious little Valentine didn’t have a single person to count on.
“Dom.” Her tone is soft as she tries to comfort me. “It wasn’t like that. I don’t even think he knew how she died.”
“You didn’t tell him when you told him about the funeral?”
“Well.” She dips her chin so she’s back to looking at my chest. “I left a message.”
“Say that again,” I growl.
“I only had his office number. I left a message with his assistant.”
“And he never called you back.” I don’t ask it. She, at nineteen, left a message for her brother telling him her final living parent had died, and he never even called her back.
He’s going to pay for that.
“Don’t be mad at him.” She tries to defend her piece-of-shit brother.
“None of that is okay, Valentine.” I don’t care if he has the power of the free world at his back. I’m going to hurt him.
“It’s in the past. We’re okay now.”
“If you were okay, tonight wouldn’t have been your first birthday party.” I stroke a hand up her back. “What happened after the funeral?”
“I came home and went back to school. And that next summer, King invited me over to have dinner with him and Aspen.”
“And you went?”
“I went.”
“Why?” I can’t imagine letting all that go.
“Because I wanted a family.”
My eyes close.
I fucking hate them all.
Valentine deserves a life full of gold, and all she got was ashes.
“Ask me about the third funeral I went to,” she whispers.
“I don’t want to,” I say truthfully.
Val moves her arm from between us so she can wrap it around my waist, hugging me back. “The third funeral I ever went to was for your cousin.”
I breathe through the ache behind my eyes.
And I hate myself the same way I hate King.
That funeral was the day she woke up with a tattooed finger.
It was the day after I revealed my plan to join The Alliance and destroyed her heart.
It was one more horrible fucking experience for her to go through alone.
And I was the one who did it to her.
I remember the way she paled when I told her we were going to a funeral. And the urge to apologize, for the first time in twenty years, grips at my throat.
But then Val continues. “It was everything I’ve always dreamed a family could be. Could mean.” She presses her forehead against my sternum, and I slide my hand up to grip the back of her neck. “I was terrified to go.”
“Val—”
She cuts me off. “I want to thank you for letting me be a part of that. It doesn’t change the other funerals I’ve been to, but it proved to me that it doesn’t always have to be like it was.”
This fucking woman.
“It will never be like it was. Not for you,” I promise her. “We grieve together.”
“I know.” Her lips press against my skin. “I like your family.”
Her muscles loosen under my hold. “They’re your family now, too,” I say quietly because I think she’s falling asleep as we talk.
“Only if you keep me.”
I barely hear her.
“I’ll keep you forever.”
Her tired fingers grip my sides. “But now you know.”
“Know what?” We’re both whispering now.
“That I’m not valuable.”
I’m not valuable.
Her words hit me with such force I can’t breathe.
I hate the people who made her feel this way.
I curl around her, trying to protect her from her own past, her own awful emotions.
She’s so fucking valuable.
She thinks because King is a shitty-ass brother to her that I’ll just… what? Return her? That I suddenly wouldn’t want her anymore?
I press my nose into her hair and inhale her scent.
Of course that’s what she thinks. Every member of her family has either betrayed her, ignored her, or left her.
I inhale again.
Not me.
Never again.
“You’re worth more than everything I have,” I tell her a moment too late, as her body relaxes fully into sleep.
I stay that way, holding my wife, for the next hour as I stare into the distance.
I fill my lungs with her.
I don’t shy away from the story she told; I replay it. I do my best to understand how she’s felt all these years. I listen to what she said she wanted.
And then I contemplate if there’s anything that’s too far when it comes to making sure I can keep her.
There isn’t.
So if my wife wants a family, I’m going to give her one.
Carefully, I extricate myself from the bed and silently move into the bathroom. I shut the door to block the light, then go into the closet and open the safe I have hidden in the back wall.
I don’t hesitate. I just reach in and take out the three rectangular sheets of pills.
This is how I keep her.
And how I give her everything she craves.
I open the drawer where I know she keeps hers and replace the two backup sheets with two from my hand, and then I pick up the one she’s currently using and pop out a matching number of pills on the last sheet from my safe.
I let the water run, washing away the evidence, while I make sure to put the last packet down exactly how I found it.
Then, with a feeling of rightness filling my chest, I put Val’s real birth control pills into the safe. And lock it.
