12
Huxley
“How is all this here?”
I look down at Valentina as she stares wide-eyed at everything in front of her.
My worries about bringing her here have disappeared with the way her eyes shine as they jump from one vintage guitar to the next.
This place lets me open up to her without even speaking.
She gets to see the side of me that, even though most people think they understand, I’ve never really shown.
“Some of it’s donated. Others, the owner bought himself.”
Her gaze scans the room again, shaking her head in disbelief. “This place is amazing.”
If I wasn’t waiting to kiss her, I would do it right now. She’s absorbing my sanctuary with a smile on her face that could light this place for the rest of eternity.
She tilts her head. “This place has to be worth millions of dollars. How has no one stolen anything?”
I shrug and look over at a guitar signed by Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath. “It’s free to come here,” I say as I pull Val over to the display. “So I guess people know it’s safer here, and they can come look at it every day. Pretend it’s theirs.”
She nods, and her eyes move to the other side of the room.
I drag her that way and start showing her everything in here, listing off facts from every group we come across.
Val listens to every word with wonder in her eyes as she stares at the memorabilia.
But the further we move through the museum, the wonder starts to fade, and she almost looks upset.
I glance back at the past few exhibits we were at, but nothing about them should have upset her. Val’s eyes meet mine as I look back down at her. She smiles weakly before looking back at the album in front of us.
What happened in the last few minutes for her to shut down like this?
I continue to stare at her—and I have been all night, but she doesn’t need to know that—rather than looking at the piece I’m talking about.
I want to ask her what’s wrong, but I know better. Maybe someday I’ll learn more about her to make this moment make sense, but for now, I’m just going to enjoy my time with her while I can.
A man behind me taps on my shoulder, asking me about the album I was telling Val about. I glance at her, and she nods at me to go ahead.
While I talk to the man, Val’s hand slips from mine. Out of the corner of my eye, I watch her make her way through the crowd to the other side of the room.
I put my attention on the man for a few seconds to answer his question, but when I look back, I’ve lost sight of Val. She isn’t short, but she’s always been able to slip through crowds.
Back during Freshman year, I nearly lost her when she left the classroom. She ran out of there so fast and blended into everyone that I thought I’d have to wait for our next class together to get to talk to her.
But I found her then, and I’ll find her now.
“I’m sorry for keeping you from your girlfriend.” I look back at the man I was talking to as he tilts his head in her direction. “I’d go before she gets to the Bon Jovi exhibit. My wife spent three hours just staring at the man.”
I smile because he has no idea that I would only want Val even more if that were the case. “At least your wife has good taste.”
He nods and pats my shoulder, sending me away from him and in search of my girl. I push through a group of teenagers who don’t look like they’ve heard a single song by these artists when I finally spot Val. I slip behind another group of people and reach out for her.
My hand gently presses against her back, making her jump. She looks up at me with wide eyes until she realizes it’s me. And I can’t lie, it makes me feel pretty damn good knowing she relaxed when she saw me.
“Trying to run from me, Valentine.”
She pulls in a deep breath as I slide my hand around her waist, pulling her closer to me.
“You want to hear something ironic?” she asks softly.
I move my thumb back and forth, and she swallows. My god, this girl has never been touched before. “Of course.”
She points at whatever she was looking at when I found her. “I bought my brother this album for Christmas one year. Back when he was still trying to convince me he was straight.” She softly laughs. “Back when it wasn’t so ironic, too.”
I finally lift my gaze from her to look at the album, and my heart stops.
Literally, I feel like I just took my last breath. Because this album is the last one I thought she would point out. It’s the last one I thought I would ever see again.
Like A Virgin by Madonna.
I feel sick, but I can’t look away.
“You want to hear something crazy?” My voice doesn’t sound like it’s coming from me, and Val looks up like she can hear it too.
“Sure,” she almost whispers. I grip her dress tightly, trying to ground myself in something good while I stare at the album in front of us.
“This was the first album I got as a gift back when I was about 15.”
“You were a Madonna fan?”
I can hear the lightness in her voice, but I don’t feel it. “No,” I barely whisper.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see her frown and look back at the album. I want to look at her, but all I see is someone else staring at me through this album.
“Was it supposed to be a joke or something?” Val asks.
For a second, I think she understands. I think I spilled my guts out in front of her, and she’s going to run away. But she doesn’t know the full story, and I’ll never tell her—just like I’ve never told anyone else.
“Yeah,” I grit out, my jaw hurting from how hard I’m clenching it. “A sick joke.”
Then all the pain eases as she gently touches my jaw. I still can’t move until her hand softly lands on my cheek, pulling me to look at her instead of the album in front of us.
A small smile pulls on her lips, but a layer of sadness fills her eyes as she looks up at me. But it’s that smile, the one I dream about every day, that finally pulls me out of my trance.
“Come on.” She takes my hand in hers and gently pulls me away from the album while also pulling me away from the horrors of my memories.
I’m in love with this girl. She doesn’t know the truth, but she knows I’m hurting. And she doesn’t ask about it either. She’s just here, and really, that’s all I need.
I grip her hand tighter as we move on through the museum, never wanting to let her go.
We slow down as we reach a more crowded area, and Val pulls me over to the wall full of artwork. Portraits created by famous artists line the wall, and if I didn’t know any better, I would think these were photographs. But the closer you look, the more you can see the faint lines of a paintbrush.
I look down at Val as she studies the artwork. Her eyes trace the lines of color as if she can see the exact map of how the painting was created.
I lean closer into her, bringing my mouth down to her ear to whisper, “What does your Art major tell you this means?”
She turns to me quickly. “How did you know I was an Art Major?”
How do I answer that without sounding like a stalker? I mean, I’m not, but she’s never told me that she’s an Art Major before. And just by looking at her, you’d never tell what major she was in.
You’d think pre-med or pre-law from her more business casual attire, not Art Major.
“I’ve seen some of your paintings around campus,” I finally say, and she groans, which is not the response I was expecting from her.
“I can’t believe they made me put those up,” she mumbles. Her eyes move back to take in the art in front of her. “They aren’t even good.”
Wow. This girl doesn’t even understand her own abilities. If she did, she’d never say that about her work.
“You’re so hard on yourself.” She looks up at me, and I realize I said that out loud.
“What do you mean?”
“Do you know how hard it is for the school to hang a student's work?”
She frowns. “How would you know? You aren’t even in an art program.”
I shrug. “I asked around.”
Her eyes widen, and her lips slightly part. I stare at her, capturing this look in my mind. Her shock and confusion mixing with her racing heartbeat.
“You what?” she whispers.
I turn my body, and she turns with me, like a magnet is pulling us to face each other. “Do you remember Freshman year? When I told you that your name was one I’d never heard before?”
She nods, eyes still wide while she waits.
“Well, it stuck in my head. And every time I saw a picture with your name on it or beside it, I’d stare at it.
Then one day, I started looking at the other pictures and saw they were pretty good too.
So I found a professor and asked how they chose the pieces they would hang.
And she said that only the best after a selection committee made it up on the walls. And yours was there. Every time.”
I saw her name on those walls so many times, I’m fairly certain they don’t even think about it anymore. When one of her paintings comes into consideration, they automatically add it to the list, which is why the surprise on her face makes my chest ache.
She really doesn’t see how talented she is.
She doesn’t realize she can make people feel something without speaking.
I try to convey feelings through my performances by showing my emotions and changing my voice.
But all she has to do is put a paintbrush to a canvas, and her emotions spill out of her.
I know why I have my doubts, and it kills me to think that she’s felt those experiences too.
To not feel good enough, someone had to have told you you weren’t at some point.
But she is enough. She’s more than enough.
And all I want is to be the person who finally shows her that she deserves the sun, the moon, and all of the stars.
She deserves the world. She deserves to be seen.
I take her hand, pulling her from her trance, and tug her behind me.
“When did you decide to go into art? Because, if memory serves me right, that first semester you didn’t know what to go into.” I rub my thumb over her hand, hoping this is an okay topic to talk about since she seems so unsure of herself.
“Second semester.” We stop at another exhibit, and she shrugs. “At first, I thought I was going to go into Psychology. But that was a bust.”
“How come?”
Her hand grips mine tighter, but she quickly releases the pressure, keeping her hand in mine. “I guess because I was trying to figure out what was wrong with me. But I learned early on that I was right, so I didn’t need it anymore.”
My body turns to her quickly, almost in anger. “There’s nothing wrong with you, Valentina.” God, I want to punch whoever made her feel this way.
Her smile is weak as she turns to face me, also. “Here’s some advice. For your real girlfriend, don’t tell her there’s nothing wrong with her because there’s something wrong with all of us. Nobody’s perfect, and giving the idea that someone is, just makes it hurt worse when you realize you’re not.”
I know I should think about her words. Think about how she said that nobody’s perfect and that you shouldn’t tell someone there’s nothing wrong with them. But that’s not what I hear.
For your real girlfriend.
Real girlfriend.
I already forgot this was a deal. I already forgot that I didn’t muster up the courage to ask her out like a normal person would. And now she’s looking up at me with soft eyes and an even softer smile while telling me that one day I’ll have a real girlfriend who isn’t her.
But that will never happen because I know that I’ll never find someone that I want outside of Valentina Demarco. Even if she walks away after graduation, my heart will go with her.
But I hold all that in because I’d scare her away if I say any of that. So I nod like I understand, even though it kills me inside to do so.