Confessions of a Matchmaker

f o u r

h a l l e

v a l e n t i n e

Home sweet home.

It was once again time to start searching for matches for Dylan, after spending so much time with him I had realised he was too good for just any girl—that certainly ruled out a lot of people. Butterflies erupted in my stomach from excitement, it was going to be so good to see him happy with mystery girl. What did dampen my mood however was Carmen entering my room with a tub of ice cream and also the town's directory didn't have any worthy girl.

"Hey," she murmured guiltily, "Okay, look, I know that you're upset and you have every reason to be. I took you to a party then I ditched you for the alcohol and my friends leaving you without a ride. Halle, I'm so sorry," she pulled her cutest face, holding out the ice cream as I sighed, I forgive people easily and Carmen knew that.

"I've got a peace offering too," she placed the ice cream in my hands, "Now, I hereby invite myself to a chocolate ice cream slumber party held in your room!"

The corners of my lips slowly pulled up, these slumber parties were the highlight of my childhood, I could never forget the countless sister bonding time that we'd had through them. Carmen had gone to place the ice cream in the freezer in preparation for tonight while I tidied up my research books; no doubt, Dylan Morgan was going to be my hardest client yet.

She reappeared, "Oh and mom said I should tell you that you're grounded three weeks now for going out for breakfast when you're supposed to be grounded."

Oh, great!

° ° ° ° °

Despite the fact that I was indeed grounded for three weeks now, I was happy and surprisingly so was Carmen. It was half past two and we weren't even cranky yet. We'd painted our nails, done magazine quizzes, given each other crazy makeovers and thanks to Carmen, my hair was now in a scary 60s style which was hardened by a frightening amount of hairspray. She was now sprawled on my rug in her bunny print pajamas.

"So, my sources told me that last night Liam may or may not have kissed you. . ." she awaited a response and when I gave her none, she pushed impatiently, "Halle! Is it true? I knew taking you out for a party would be good for you. You're finally starting to take after the legends that are Maia and Carmen Valentine Garcia."

I raised my eyebrows cynically, "And that's supposed to be a good thing?"

She gave me a light shove, "Shut up. I have to make your junior year memorable because I will have graduated by the time you're a senior. I actually want you to have the full highschool experience because you're my sister and I love you."

"How sweet," I mocked as she hit me again, making me reconsider, "Right, sorry. I love you too," we lay in silence for awhile before I piped up again, "Carmen, you never did tell me what happened with Vaughn, I really thought he was the one. I mean—I'm sorry, I'm probably not helping by saying he was perfect. But really what happened."

A sad look glazed over her eyes before she sighed, "Vaughn really was perfect wasn't he? He was rich, had a good job, he was twenty seven—therefore nine years older than me granted but I loved him. He was sweet and he used to send me those little chocolates that I loved and ramble away in Russian—I didn't even know what the hell he was saying but it sounded amazing."

Where is the catch?

". . . And he's married already with three little Russian babies," her voice cracked into a higher note at the end, if there was one thing that I knew about Carmen was that she never cried, not even when she broke her leg in fifth grade so it wasn't that much of a surprise when she changed the subject abruptly, "Anyways, enough about me. Once were off our grounding, I'm setting up a blind date for you and you have no say in this."