"Friends"

"Friends" Chapter 23

VALERIE'S POV

"Mom, this is something we have to do. I'm sorry, but its time." I held her hand as we stood outside of their closet.

"Gosh, I knew this would be hard..." She looked down to the floor and took a deep breath. "He would have wanted this..." I nodded my head and watched her. "Okay, lets just get this over with." She took a step into her large closet and walked to the back. I followed her in and looked at all of my dad's shirts. I touched one of his sleeves to one of his plaid shirts and smiled.

She began taking out large portions of shirts on hangers and walked out of the closet to place them into boxes. This was one of the hardest things to do because we were basically getting rid of him...

I looked through some of his clothes and held up one of his jackets to my nose.

It still smelt like him.

I reached down and held a few pairs of his shoes in my hands and walked over to the box and carefully placed them in there.

It only took us about twenty minutes and before I knew it, half of my mom's closet was eerily empty.

I began to tape up some of the boxes and my mom turned off the light to the closet and closed the door.

"Well, we're done with that." She walked out of the room and left me in there alone. I knew this was really hard on her. He was the love of her life and he is gone. I finally finished up taping all of the boxes together and I decided to help clean up some things around the house. My mom has been in a daze for a few days, she will just sit on the couch and look at the TV and there's nothing on. I've tried getting her out of the house but its just no use. Nothing helps.

After I showed up a week ago, Dan had to go back to California for his job. His boss was understanding about the entire situation, but not understanding enough.

I began to clean up the dishes that were in the sink then I cleaned off the counters. I wandered into the living room and began to vacuum and pick up any garbage that was left over.

I finally finished making the house look semi decent when I heard my phone ring.

It was from a number that I didn't know.

"Hello..?"

"Um, Hi! Is this Valerie?"

"Yes, this is. Who is this?"

"This is the Fulton County police, do you know Gio Black?"

"Umm... Yeah. What is this about?"

I looked over to my mom who still stared blankly at the television.

"Ma'am, He got into a serious car accident and you were his emergency contact on his phone."

I didn't know how to respond as I stood there, shocked.

"Oh... ummm... How bad is the accident?" I rubbed my temple and tried to comprehend all that was happening.

"It was pretty bad, but your... friend is lucky. He is being transported to the hospital as we speak, its just protocol to call his listed emergency contact."

"No, I understand. I will be at the hospital in twenty minutes." I hung up the phone and ran upstairs to go and get ready.

Both of Gio's parents died when he was in college. His father passed of a heart attack and his mom followed a few years later due to breast cancer. He once asked me, when we were dating, if it was alright that I was his emergency contact and of course, I said yes. But I had no idea I still was...