Always, Arlo [Published]

Chapter 11

Welcome.

"We'll see how you feel after your parents find out that you have no job Valentina, you're jobless and you don't even have anything supporting you on your feet." Marlin says in a bitter tone.

"You're so pathetic Marlin. I mean really, how old are you again? Because you're acting like a damn child by threatening to snitch on me to my mother." I groan in frustration, I'm so angered by his attempts to tear me down. He's acting as if we're in elementary school and it's getting ridiculous. He's incredibly immature and all this is really going to bite him in the ass one day.

He seems shocked, shocked that i'm speaking to him in this manner and that i'm actually fighting back with confidence for once. He still thinks i'd take him walking all over me, taking all the shit he gives me like always.

I'm exhausted though, it's been enough of his bullshit all these years and i'm finally ready to do something for myself for once and I'm not going to let him tear me down.

I push past him, closing my apartment door behind me and walking off. If he goes as low as to tell my mother then i'll take the temporary anger and disappointment from her and my father for now. I'll make it up to them soon, and thats all that matters.

Marlin calls my name countless of times from down the hall but I keep walking, I don't look back, I don't respond. I just make my exit, the way I should've done so long ago.

...

I finally make it to Arlo's company. I park in the parking lot and stare at my brown doe eyes through the rear view mirror. Staring back I see the bubbling determination of teenage Valentina, the youth inside me burning and the potential of what I could be; What we could be. I take a couple deep breaths, and then I make my exit out of my car.

Walking to the company's doors I immediately appreciate the architecture of the building. It's beautiful and so modernized. Theres big ads playing through glass windows of all the clothing items and the different models from the company, I stare in amazement. I stand there envisioning myself as one of them, in those clothes and in these ads front and center in the busy city of Manhattan. Gradually moving onto bigger billboards and then to those big advertisements in Times Square.

I stay caught in a daze imagining it all. Imagining how life would be when I finally have a name for myself, when I get a title, and when I become someone important. Someone no longer in the shadows, but in the limelight.

"That'll be you soon, Valentine." A familiar voice says as he walks up behind me. I turn to make contact with him and all his glory. I smell the faint aroma of weed around him but nonetheless I ignore it when I take note of his beauty. He's wearing a black tank top that is tight against his body, showcasing his muscles and his tattoos on full display. His hair is glistening with product which looks freshly done, and his eyes are a bit low and hazy.