Rod - The Weapon

Chapter 15: Valerie Who?

I get myself together and say to myself out loud, "You got this, try to be normal." I wipe my face with a tissue and roll down the window again to see the four of them just standing outside the car. Valerie looks at me, silently. Her stares, I feel them pierce my heart. I look away quickly and ask them to get in the car.

They do so, with a silence all around us. Guy gets in and sits next to the driver's seat. Henry, Ginny and Valerie sit in the back.

I'll try to avoid talking to Valerie as much as possible. I ask Guy, "Can you turn on the maps?" He silently nods and I look at it on his phone. I get a quick glance of the entire route and then hand it over to him.

He asks me, "You want me to help navigate right?" I nod and say, "I just wanted to get a quick view on where we're going."

I look back and ask, "You guys got everything you need right?" They all nod affirmatively. I start the engine and begin driving. The drive is going to be hectic but beautiful. It is through the countryside.

To break the silence, I ask them, "So, you guys had breakfast?"
All of a sudden Valerie replies, "No, uhm, Aiden what about you?" Her calling me by my name sends shivers down my spine. I don't even look back and just say, "No."

I could feel Guy's gaze on me as I tried so much so as to not converse with Valerie. It just hurt too much. Henry then speaks up and says, "We'll stop by a burrito place in five minutes. It is along the route."

We all agree and I continue with my driving. Valerie again breaks the silence and asks me, out of everyone else, she asks me, "So, Aiden, don't mind me asking but how old are you? You look like you don't belong in college." I know that her comment was slightly sarcastic.

This girl never gets a break from speaking. I reply, "Ouch." She chuckles and says, "Well, how old are you?"
I reply, "Old enough to be your father. I'm 39."
She just goes along with the conversation and says, "Well are you married?" Damn, she hit the spot where she wasn't supposed to hit.
I laugh off her question and ask, "Didn't these two knuckleheads tell you anything about me?"

She says, "No, they didn't get into the details. All they did was stand awkwardly when I met them, just like you did." I could sense some hurt in her voice. I mean, I'm pretty sure she is sugarcoating how they reacted. It would have been similar to the way I did. I could see the sadness in her eyes through the mirror, not able to understand what is going on. 

I don't look at her, not because I don't want to, more like I have to keep my eyes on the road. I hesitate for a moment and then I say, "No Valerie, I didn't mean to, no, we didn't want to make you feel awkward. Its just that you remind us of someone I used to know."

She just nods, hopefully she doesn't ask follow up questions but guess what? She does. She asks, "Who? Who do I resemble that makes you sad?"

She says that pointing to my face, my cheek where dried tear marks were there. All I can think off is the fact that her habits are like Rachel's.

She iss also quite observant like Rach, and is quite straightforward. I'm glad she didn't just ask me, 'Why did you cry when you saw my face?'
Because that would have been embarrassing.

I don't answer her question. I avoid it. Valerie is about to speak when Ginny interrupts her, reading the situation and understanding that I feet uncomfortable. Bless her heart.

She says, "Hey, we haven't officially met but I'm pretty sure both Henry and Guy would have mentioned about me sometime. I am Ginny, Henry's girlfriend and Guy's sister."

I look at her bright eyes, even though I physically can't as I'm driving the car, I can feel their presence. I just smile and say, "Oh, pleasure to meet you Ginny. I'm Aiden Quinnell, you can call me Aiden."

She says, "Oh yes it is a pleasure to meet you too." Guy interrupts our conversation and says, "Its time for brekkie people, Aiden take a small left here and we'll reach the restaurant."
I do as he says and we find the restaurant to our immediate left. It doesn't have a drive-through, so I park the car and we all get down from it and walk towards the door of the restaurant, more like fast food place.

I go in and and before placing an order, I ask them all for any dietary restrictions. They say nothing and I ask if they all eat meat, to which they said that they did.

So I place an order for 4 breakfast burritos with bacon, and 1 without meat and just egg as a take away. I didn't feel like eating meat today.

We wait for a while and they call our order number. I go and pick up our food and thank them before leaving the place with my group. I go to the car and say, "You guys are comfortable with eating in the car right? Because we kind of are running a little behind schedule." They don't seem to have a problem so I unlock the car and let them in.

I take off from the place and everyone starts unwrapping their burritos. Guy has both, mine and his. He takes one of them and unwraps it to hand it over to me. He just smiles to which I can't help but smile. I take it from him, mouthing a 'Thank you'.

Everyone starts to munch on their food in silence. Guy and I are talking something related to the route, while Henry, Valerie and Ginny are speaking about something. I can't help but overhear Valerie comment, "What is that guy's deal? Like what is up?"

Ginny says a little sternly, "Aiden will tell you when he is ready Valerie. I don't know it myself, but if I were you, I'd give the man sometime to open up. Because you're a stranger, no one is like you Valerie, just because you're able to tell anyone anything it doesn't mean that everyone is the same. Try not to come off rude. You have no clue what people go through in their lives and you cannot under any circumstance disrespect them like that."

I can feel Henry's proud gaze from the backseat. I don't even have to look back. Guy is just beside me, smirking the whole time. Valerie just becomes silent after a quiet, "Sorry."

She has the personality of Rachel, like they're really similar but at the same time they're characters are quite far. Rachel was always the one who set boundaries and sometimes might make people regret their existence but she never tried to be impolite to strangers or people normally.

I feel absolutely proud of Ginny, as if I was her father. She was raised to respect people. Valerie's behavior threw me off a little since it was like a mixture of Rachel's and someone else's. She had too much sass and confronting habits.

I slightly feel bad and ask, "Do you guys want to play some music?"
Valerie jumps in and says, "Yeah sure, we'll all take turns playing something we like. Aiden, uhm would you like to go first?"
I know that she feels bad and is trying to make it up in some way. I say, "Its alright, my taste in music isn't that good anyways. You should go on."

She happily plays a song which, I obviously don't know. All of them are vibing to it, I mean it does have a nice tune.

All of them can see me visibly bored because I wasn't too into their taste for music. Guy turns down the music a bit to speak. He says, "We'll play something. How about we just tell a little something about ourselves and each other?"

The very idea of talking about myself doesn't please me, because I will have to mention Rachel. To be honest, it is better that Valerie knows than die of curiosity. I'm pretty sure Guy's motive is that, so I agree to play.

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