Between You and I

Chapter Three

May 16, 2012: 78 Hours After

After signing papers saying that I got the laptop intact and talking a bit more with Mr. Jackson, my parents met me out in the parking lot, shooting a billion questions at me.

"What did she leave you?"

"Dan, are you alright?"

"Do you need a tissue?" My parents have horrible timing. They ask questions when you're not supposed to, they're always too late or always too early, and they do all the wrong things and right things at the wrong time.

Even my older sister- Marcelline, who's stuck in college at the moment- makes it seem like it's in her genes. But one thing I love about them is that I can just say one sentence to get them to leave me alone for a while.

"I'm not up for answer giving right now."

So we're all silent during the car ride home. I can't stop thinking about the things I could find in the very thing Valentine kept everything in. All her stories are sitting there, waiting to be read by someone. And she chose that someone to be me.

For some reason, Valentine thought of me before she left, but I think it's because she spent her last group of hours with me. What is utter shit is that on her last day, she busted deeper into my life, took me on some wild journey, then left me to fall and hit the ground.

The moment the car hits 'park', I jump out and rush straight for my room. A billion questions race through my head as I slam my bedroom door, swing my bag onto the bed, unzip it, and slide the laptop out.

Now, it's sitting in front of me, the password screen bright.

She locked it.

My eyebrows furrow. Why in the world would she give it to me if it's locked? Automatically, I click the 'forgot password' button and a hint's revealed.

'My name for you when we were eleven.'

A ton of bricks hit me the moment I read that. What is she doing to me? Is she trying to make me feel worse than I already am!? Like she didn't do enough already!

For the first time in a long time I finally felt like Valentine wanted me again. After loving her for so long, I finally felt like she could be mine. Then, she goes and offs herself. Taking a part of me with her. Now? Now she digs up our friendship from when we were kids: the very friendship where she ditched me. It's like she's trying to make my life a living hell, even though she's gone.

"Jesus, Val." Groaning beneath a breath, my fingers type 'Sherlock'. When we were eleven, I got into listening to my dad read Sherlock Holmes' Adventures aloud before I went to bed, and I told Valentine that it was cool that she had the same last name. The more dad read, the more obsessed I became, and one day, she said, "You can be my Sherlock. We'll be Sherlock and Valentine Holmes and solve mysteries all over town! Starting with Wisty's missing hamster..."

And 'Sherlock' stuck. We'd solve mysteries (ridiculous mysteries) like 'Who stole Mike Ranger's candies?' and in that while, we'd be the Holmes, two kids who were immune to failure. Then when we turned fourteen, she just drifted. She started talking to me less and less, and eventually, stopped altogether.

I'll be honest. I fell in love with her. Worst part is that I never got over it. For four years of silence from her, I'd still stare at her through the crowds. In class, I'd notice the way she fixed up her hair that day. Even though she wanted nothing to do with me, I wanted my everything to do with her. But now she's gone, and I'm never going to be able to tell her that.

The wallpaper was a picture of us the day before she died. The day after the night she walked up to me on the sidewalk, and told me to just get in the car.

We were sitting on the ground in that picture, in the middle of a rarely used road, both smiling and alive. She was alive. Her dark brown eyes were blazing with laughter and her lips formed the smile I miss so much that my heart aches at the thought of it. I remember exactly what we were doing there. She just finished laughing at something I said when she told me, "I want to remember this," and took the photo with her camera.

I sit there for a long while, just looking at her. Not only the way her long curly brown hair flowed softly down the sides of her face, but of why she was hurting and how she hid it so well from me.