While you were Sleeping

4. What a day

Valentina walked into her sister's office at lunchtime and threw herself, face down, onto the sofa.

"Good afternoon, Valentina!" Eva said as she looked up from the papers on her desk. "What's wrong with you? Has a day and a half been too much for you?" she smirked.

Valentina ran her tongue over her front teeth while taking deep calming breaths, trying her best not to snap at her sister. This day was not going well and Valentina was only a few snide remarks away from totally losing it.

Eva walked around her desk to get closer to her sister, she knew her silence didn't mean anything good. "Vale, what's wrong?"

Valentina took a deep breath and turned her entire body around to look at her sister.

Eva frowned as she ran her eyes over her sister's clothes. "What's on your shirt?" she asked innocently but was not prepared for the answer.

Valentina sat up, her blue eyes burning with unshed tears. "Which bit?" she asked. "The black marks? That's toner Eva, do you know what toner is?" Eva looked at her sister with a confused expression. "Yeah, neither did I until an hour ago!" she gave a humourless laugh. "I swear Eva, if I have to spend another day strapped to that fucking machine, I'm going to lose it!" She buried her head in her hands.

Eva was becoming concerned for her little sister. "Vale, what happened?"

Valentina locked eyes with her sister again. "I don't know if karma has been fucking with me these last two days, or if all the equipment on Mateo's floor is faulty or out to get me, or if I'm just useless!!" Tears began to slide down her face.

Eva sat beside her sister pulling her into a one-armed hug, getting a better look at the stains on her sister's shirt. There were black dots on her stomach that had been streaked downwards and there was a brown stain all over the right arm of her shirt. Eva's gaze moved to her hand which looked red and irritated, her fingers covered in tiny paper cuts.

She lifted Valentina's hand to inspect it. "Did you burn yourself?" she asked softly. Valentina nodded as she continued to sob quietly. "Did you run it under cold water?" Again, she nodded. "Vale, it's still quite warm I think you need to put it back under cold water." There was no response this time. "Honey, look at me."

Valentina knew she must look pitiful, because she couldn't remember the last time Eva had used any kind of endearment when speaking to her. She laughed at the thought, bringing her 'clean' sleeve up to wipe her eyes and nose. She didn't care anymore. Between the photocopier from hell and the cup of hot coffee, that thankfully had lots of milk, she had reached her limit.

"I want to go home," she finally looked at Eva.

"Of course, I'll take you home. Does Mateo know all this happened?" She gestured to her shirt and hand.

Valentina shook her head. "No. I haven't seen him since this morning."

"Come with me," Eva pulled her up and into her private bathroom, a perk of being the deputy director of a million-dollar company.

She guided Valentina to sit on the closed toilet seat and filled the sink with cold water before rolling Valentina's dirty sleeve up and placing her hand in the cold water. She turned to look for something in the cupboard, reappearing with wipes and began to clean her little sister's face.

"Vale, you've had a bad day, and that's okay, we all have them," she lifted Valentina's chin, directing her face up to meet her eyes. "But you know you always have me, Guille, dad, Mateo and even Lucia. Don't let things get on top of you, come and speak to one of us, okay?"

Valentina nodded as Eva finished wiping her face and told her to take off her dirty shirt as she left the bathroom. She was only removing it when Eva quickly reappeared with a clean t-shirt, with a familiar logo embroidered on the chest, and held it towards her. She rolled her eyes at the large LC. It was one of the t-shirts the company had designed to give out as free advertising for the company. Valentina shrugged, at least it was clean.