Etta Valentines POV
Two things about big families.
One - At family gatherings, it can be easier to sink into the background unnoticed, passing the attention onto the next Valentine.
Two - Said attention can be used to put you in the spotlight, and with four brothers, it tends to have a negative effect.
My momma and paps summoned us Valentine children to the annual tradition of watching a broadway show altogether for grandmas birthday.
It's a tradition that's been held for as long as I can remember - as far as I'm concerned, that's twenty three years.
Growing up in the city with two hardworking parents and four brothers who were a lotta hard work, life was seemingly never dull.
But of course everything is not always as it seems.
Whilst my brothers all inherited traits of my parents' confidence, outgoingness and just generally optimistic happiness - naive in my opinion - I was born and threw the dampener on everybody.
No, they all love me and I them. I'm just a raging introvert with interests less intense than theirs.
I aspire to become an author one day.
Books are my life. I eat sleep and breathe them, finding comfort in fictional worlds where the main character's problems always magically disappear by the time the finishing sentence comes around.
Perhaps living in my books makes me the naive one, a pessimist as my friend Meg likes to put it. But I'm not like that all the time. I have dreams too.
My dream would be to move upstate, find a nice small town where the bookshops are something straight outta Pinterest and the coffees always taste like autumn.
I'm ambitious in my own way, saving up to live what others call a simple life where the stress can be cancelled out by walks among nature and a cosy home to welcome me home to write till my hands hurt.
One day, is what I tell myself. One day, everything will work itself out.
I just wish I could believe that more than I do right now.
Long story short, I had a tricky breakup early last year. I think that's all I'll note on that for now.
"How was the show last night baby girl?" Meg and her boyfriend Carter invited me over for coffee this morning. They were headed on a business trip in Chicago and wanted to meet up with me before they go.
They have a shared tattoo parlour and there's this convention across state they've been raving about for as long as they've been together. Which is four years.
Four years of endless unconditional love that I'm not bitter about one single bit. Love is overrated anyway.
"I can tell you that the first half was good." I warmed my hands on the mug of steaming coffee whilst the thoughts of last night played on repeat in my mind.
"Oh god. What happened?" The tone of Meg's voice displayed a decade worth of friendship. She could read me like a book, and automatically knew something had happened.
YOU ARE READING
𝐋𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐭 |𝟏𝟖+|
General Fiction#𝟐 in the 𝐃𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐛𝐚𝐝 series Miguel Raffetò has spent his whole life being a big bundle of lovable energy who strives to makes his loved ones smile. But when he finds himself feeling lost in the world, a certain bookworm with a tendency to shy...
