Not a Valentine

Chapter 32

On the drive home from school today, I started to think about how everything had changed again. I hoped that this change was a good one, because the adrenaline coursing through my veins at the fact that I was so excited about the idea of keeping my webiste. I was so excited, as I spent the whole time driving home with a smile. This was real excitement, and if this got ruined, I would lose it.

I didn't want to think about the negatives, though; I wanted to think about the good part, which was the fact that I'm keeping my website! I was excited that I was able to keep my website and have it running for the next four days.

There were four more full days before Valentine's Day, and I was excited for the people who hadn't gotten a chance to get a Valentine to get one. I was excited at the fact that our fundraiser would be successful and that all my hard work on this idea wouldn't go to waste.

As I head into the house, there's a little smile on my face. My mom gives me a once-over when she sees me, her attention shifting away from my brother, who had been demanding to be fed. I knew that my mom had already breastfed Harry and that he was just asking to eat for no reason.

"You talked to Quincy today?" my mom asks, hopeful, as she walks toward me. I shake my head and say, "No. Well yes, but it didn't go well."

"Why exactly is she mad at you again?" my mom asks as she pulls on my hand to make me take a seat on the couch. I slip my backpack off my shoulder and drop it on the floor as I take a seat on the couch, my attention directed toward a topic I wasn't too much of a fan of.

"Um, I asked her to sit with me at lunch the other day," I start, my eyes pinned on the coffee table. "I asked her to sit with me, and she said okay. But then I sat without her, and she never came. I asked her about it after she said it, and she said that I hadn't even noticed it. I hadn't. That's true. But at that moment, I hadn't said much about it, and Quincy went on and on about how I was starting to be like the version of me during those years when I was dating my ex-boyfriend, Mark. And then she left, saying that it wasn't him who changed me but rather that it was just me. I was just like that."

My mom is taken back by my explanation. She hooks a hand under the necklace my dad had gifted her for their seventieth anniversary. It's a delicate necklace with a rose pink pendant, a tiny w for my dad's initial. It's a cute one—one that told me that even though my parents were married for so long and had so much money, they would never be materialistic people. They are more sentimental people who gifted each other things that actually mattered.

"There must have been something that had bothered Quincy," my mom says, her eyes meeting mine. "Maybe she was going through something."

"I know," I say with a sad smile. "I think that it was because she was scared that I would break off contact with her again, so I talked to her about that. I had apologized profusely in an attempt to get her to see that I had seen her point. But it just never worked."

My mom pulls her lips into a thin line, and short for words, she just opts for a squeeze on my shoulder. I nod and say, "I know. I miss her. I want to talk to her, but she hasn't been wanting to talk to me."

"I'm sorry, Thea," my mom says, and I nod, standing up as I grab my backpack off the ground. Hiking it over my shoulder, I pull at the strap as I look down at my mom.

"It's okay, mom, I'll be upstairs," I say to her, and then wave goodbye to my brother before heading up to my room. Once I'm inside, I drop my backpack on the floor and immediately head to the bathroom. When I'm done, I pull out my laptop and start to look at my website.

It was going to be back, and I wouldn't have to feel as though everything I worked for would have gone to waste. I'm pressing the main page and thinking about how Mason made all of this possible. He had been the one who had coded all the messages off my website in the first place. Furthermore, he had made it impossible for someone to send a Valentine to the girl who was bullied.