Loving Valentine: A Novella Read online

  LOVING VALENTINE

  A NOVELLA

  Samantha Young

  Loving Valentine

  A Novella

  By Samantha Young

  Copyright © 2021 Samantha Young

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without prior written permission of the above author of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  This work is registered with and protected by Copyright House.

  Contents

  1. Micah

  2. Valentine

  3. Micah

  4. Micah

  5. Micah

  6. Valentine

  7. Micah

  8. Valentine

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  1

  Micah

  AGE 16

  I was heating soup on the electric hob when the electricity went out.

  Dread filled me because I knew it wasn’t a power cut.

  My mom hadn’t paid the bill.

  Cursing under my breath, I waited for my eyes to adjust to the dark before moving through the room toward the window. Peeking out, sure enough, I saw lights on in the apartments on the opposite side of the building.

  Feeling resentment and aggravation build up inside of me, I forced it back down and found the camping lantern I had buried in the back of my closet. Once it was on, I poured my lukewarm soup into a bowl and tried not to hate my mom.

  Two weeks ago, she’d taken off with some guy she met online. Some shithead that didn’t care my mom was an alcoholic addicted to painkillers so long as she gave him what he wanted. Mom said he was taking her to Florida to the beach, and they’d be back in three days.

  She hadn’t returned.

  And she wasn’t picking up her phone.

  My job at Billy’s Burgers would barely pay even half the bills now, never mind when school started in two weeks and I returned to part time. I was determined not to quit school.

  But if Mom didn’t come back soon, I might not have a choice.

  A knock at the door made my stomach lurch. If it was our landlord, I was screwed. Another knock followed it. Harder this time.

  Then, “Molly? Micah?” a familiar voice called.

  It was Mrs. Fairchild. Relief and embarrassment filled me in equal measure. Getting up off the couch, I wavered over answering the door.

  “Micah?” she sounded really worried.

  Mrs. Fairchild was Mom’s childhood best friend. They grew up in South Glastonbury together. Both their parents had money, so Mom and Mrs. Fairchild went to a private school. But when my grandfather died, it turned out he was hiding he was in debt up to his eyeballs. They took everything. My grandmother couldn’t handle it. Turned to drink. While Mrs. Fairchild went off to college, Mom moved into her own place and worked in a fast-food joint just like I was now. I never met my grandmother and I didn’t even know if she was alive or dead. All I knew was that not long after the sperm donor responsible for impregnating my mom took off, I was born. Mom’s dependency on alcohol was a gradual thing. I’d been dealing with the worst of it since I was ten.

  Last year, Mom hurt her back on a cleaning job and got addicted to the painkillers her doc gave her.

  Things had gone downhill between us.

  Then three months ago, Mrs. Fairchild moved back to South Glastonbury with her husband and daughter. The Fairchilds were lawyers. She wanted to check on Mom. Our situation shocked her. She’d been coming around a lot and even gave Mom money.

  Little did she know Mom would use it to take off on me.

  Humiliated that Mom didn’t love me enough to stick around, it took Mrs. Fairchild calling my name in rising concern for me to open the door to her.

  Relief flooded her pretty face. “Micah. Thank God. Are you okay? I’ve been calling your mom…” her voice trailed off as she looked beyond me into a dark apartment lit only by my camping lantern. She pushed into the apartment. She was nosy like that. “What is going on here?” her voice was tight. Concerned. Annoyed.

  I shrugged.

  Mrs. Fairchild’s eyes narrowed. “Micah, where is your mother?”

  Unable to meet her gaze, I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “How long has she been gone?”

  “A few weeks, I guess. She said her and some guy were going to Florida for the weekend but… she never came back.”

  Mrs. Fairchild let out a stream of curses that surprised me. She was always so proper and ladylike.

  “I’m sorry. Forgive me. But this is unacceptable.” She gestured around the apartment. “You have no electricity.” Suddenly she marched across the kitchen and pulled open the refrigerator. It was empty. “Oh, for goodness’ sake, Molly, what are you thinking?” Mrs. Fairchild slammed the door shut and strode past me toward the apartment door. When she turned to me, the light from the hallway shone in her blue eyes. They were bright with unshed tears. “She has a good kid… and she leaves him all alone.” She shook her head and I flinched in embarrassment. “Oh no, no… don’t you take this on yourself. This is on Molly. Not you. Now.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Go grab your things. Pack everything that matters to you.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m not leaving you here, Micah. You’re coming home with me. You can stay with us until we can reach your mother.”

  My voice was hoarse with emotion that pissed me off. “What if you can’t reach her?”

  “We’ll figure that out later. For now, let’s just go home.”

  It was about a twenty-minute drive in Mrs. Fairchild’s gold Lexus SUV from South Green to her house in South Glastonbury. The Lexus had white leather seats. I’d never been inside a vehicle so fancy in my life. It still had that new car smell.

  A twenty-minute drive and it was like driving into a different world entirely. It was greener around here for a start. The houses were nicer, with more land around each of them; the buildings and gardens well maintained.

  I couldn't believe my mom grew up in this neighborhood.

  We’d passed a lot of houses that were average-sized. But the street we’d pulled up to stood out from the rest. It was a quiet court, surrounded on three sides with large New England Style houses and lots of trees. The drive we’d drove onto belonged to the biggest house of them all. While the other homes were clad in painted wood siding, this house was a red brick with varying triangular rooflines, a circular drive, and a three-court garage.

  “Holy shit,” I muttered under my breath, looking up at it.

  Mrs. Fairchild’s lips twitched. “Micah.”

  “Sorry. I just…”

  “I know it feels worlds away from what you’re used to. But I promise, we’re just like any other family.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  Mrs. Fairchild chuckled. “Okay, as a family we’re like any other family. As people… we’re financially blessed compared to many others. But we don’t take it for granted.”

  “You don’t have to apologize or explain it to me. You work hard for what you have.” Even if they only had it in the first place because they had a step up in life to begin with. But I didn’t say that out loud. My mom was proof that a step up in life at the beginning didn’t mean a damn thing if you didn’t take a hold of the opportunities offered to you.

  “We do. Come on in. Jim was ordering take out when I
left and he always orders way too much so there will be plenty of food.”

  My stomach grumbled at the thought.

  Striding through the double door entrance after her, I drew to a stop, taking in the spacious hallway, the wide staircase that led upstairs, and the warmly furnished rooms on either side of me.

  “We’re home!” Mrs. Fairchild called as I followed her through a family room, a library room, and a dining room to get to the kitchen. The kitchen stretched along the entire back of the house and there were sliding doors that led out into a backyard with a pool. They covered the pool for winter.

  “We’re?” A tall man stood at an island opening take out cartons. His eyes widened at the sight of me and then drifted to my duffle bag.

  I braced myself, feeling like an intruder.

  “Jim, this is Micah, Molly’s son. Micah, my husband Jim.”

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Fairchild,” I said.

  Jim chuckled as he rounded the island. His dark eyes glittered warmly as he reached for my hand. “Please, Mr. Fairchild’s my father. Call me Jim.”

  I nodded, but I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do that. It would be like calling Mrs. Fairchild Caroline. Too weird.

  “We’ll be back in a minute.” Mrs. Fairchild took her husband’s hand and led him out of the room. Presumably to fill him in on my situation.

  My pride stung.

  It was fucking humiliating taking her charity, but I didn’t know what else I could do about it. I didn’t want my future to fall to shit because my mom took off, and I didn’t want her life for myself. With a 3.9 GPA and as captain of the swim team, I was on course to receive a scholarship, preferably to Boston University. All of this with a part-time job. I couldn’t screw it up.

  If that meant accepting Mrs. Fairchild’s help, then I guess that’s what it meant.

  “And who are you?”

  The girl’s voice had me whipping around.

  I’d remember the sight of her always because it was like someone had punched me in the gut. All the air went out of the room.

  The girl was bout my age, I’d guess. She had long, thick dark hair that spilled around her shoulders in shiny waves. The prettiest dark brown eyes I’d ever seen filled with humor and curiosity. Her lush lips quirked upward at the corners. Suddenly she grinned and killed me with her dimples. Dressed like one of those hippy girl images from the seventies, she wore a thin gold circlet around on the top of her head like a crown. Her dress was long, fitted at her tiny waist, then flowed to her feet. It was a light pink color and had oversized sleeves that fit at her wrists.

  I’d never seen anything like her before.

  It wasn’t just her sense of style… it was the way happiness and warmth seemed to radiate from her.

  I didn’t even know her and yet I sensed she was just good.

  Beautiful all the way through.

  “Do you talk?” she teased.

  I cleared my throat, my heart hammering in my chest. “Uh. Yeah. I’m uh—”

  “Oh good,” Mrs. Fairchild strode back into the kitchen with her husband at her side. “You’ve already met Valentine. Our daughter.”

  Even though it should have occurred to me that’s who she was, disappointed flooded me.

  Valentine Fairchild was most definitely off limits.

  2

  Valentine

  AGE 15

  Five months.

  That’s how long Micah Green and I had been dancing around our chemistry. And we definitely had it. According to my friend Kim who had been dating older guys since she was thirteen, when two people were truly attracted to one another there was this electric tension between them. The plethora of romance novels I devoured every month, that my mother didn’t know about, verified Kim’s claim.

  For five months Micah had been living with my family. His mom Molly took off, left him, and when my mother finally tracked her down, Molly refused to come home. So Mom and Dad, being lawyers and all that, sorted things so that Micah could stay with us for the rest of his high school career. And they went even further by pulling strings at the private academy I attend so he could start his junior year there. My parents even gave him his own car because he also made the swim team and so left school later than I did.

  You would think Micah would have problems fitting in at my school coming from such a different background.

  But no! He fitted in better than even me.

  Whereas most kids there were ambitious and academic, I’d much prefer to be in my room sewing myself a wardrobe no one else at school had. That was if we were allowed to wear our own clothes and not the mandatory black and red plaid uniform.

  Although I did cover the left lapel of my blazer in cute brooches I’d created and the teachers had finally given up telling me to remove them.

  But I digressed.

  My palms were sweaty.

  I’d just lied to my English teacher that I needed to use the restroom. The truth was, I knew this was the period Micah used the darkroom for his photography class. Although he was super smart and academic, he was also artsy. Like me. Micah wanted to be an architect, which I thought was impressive.

  He thought my clothes designing was amazing.

  “You’re so talented, Val,” Micah had said when I showed him my clothes and the Singer sewing machine I’d begged my parents to buy me when I was twelve.

  Sometimes Dad would tell me I was clever and talented when I walked downstairs in one of my new creations. But Mom would just give me that look, because she knew I’d spent all my time sewing instead of studying.

  It was appalling to my parents that their child was a B student instead of the A student she could be if she only applied herself.

  I shook off those thoughts as I tried to act casual, walking through the halls of the school. Sometimes I let myself get too worked up about Mom and Dad. Today wasn’t about my parents. It was about Micah. The one person who made me feel good about myself. Who told me it was okay that I couldn’t envision myself at college. That it didn’t make me a bum because I wanted to get out in the world and get a job and start living my own life, rather than spend another four to seven years in the land of academia.

  There were moments when I caught Micah looking at me in a way that made me sure he too got butterflies in his stomach like I did whenever he was near me. I could still remember the first day we met, when I found him in the kitchen. He’d looked so sad and hurt. Those gorgeous gray eyes of his full of pride and anger and gratitude all at once. Then he’d seen me and he looked at me like no one had ever before.

  He stared at me like he thought I was beautiful.

  I grinned, my heart racing just thinking about it.

  So okay, it was weird that we lived together, but maybe we didn’t have to tell Mom and Dad right away. In fact, that’s why I’d put off approaching Micah about our feelings because I thought it would go down better with our parents if I was sixteen. And I was sixteen in January. Next month.

  Yet I found I couldn’t wait past Christmas.

  I wanted to go to bed on Christmas Eve knowing that Micah was mine. Best Christmas present ever!

  Holy crap, it felt like my heart was going to explode out of my chest as I approached the darkroom. The light was on outside, which meant someone was in there processing. Which also meant I had to slip in really fast and close the door so I didn’t mess up Micah’s photos. His photos were pretty good. Mostly of buildings and architecture. I didn’t personally get his fascination with them but I loved his passion. So few boys our age had genuine passion beyond the instant gratification of gaming, sports and sex.

  “Okay, here we go,” I whispered to myself before taking a deep breath.

  I gently pushed open the door.

  I’d barely gotten it wide enough to slip through when my heart plummeted into my stomach.

  A guy, who looked awfully like Micah from behind, had a girl pressed up against the counter at the back of the room, kissing her hungrily as his hand worked beneath her skir
t.

  “Micah, oh my God, don’t stop,” a familiar breathy female voice filled the darkroom.

  I knew the perfect profile of the girl who threw her head back in pleasure.

  Christy McAlister. Senior. Blond. Five foot ten.

  Student body president.

  Cheerleader.

  My exact opposite.

  I quickly pulled the door closed before either of them caught sight of me.

  Tears burned in my throat and eyes.

  This whole time Micah was screwing around with Christy?

  Christy only dated older guys. Not younger ones!

  Of course, she’d break her rules for Micah.

  And he’d been in there… touching her!

  Oh my God, I was such an idiot.

  I’d look back on this moment as an adult and cringe but when you’re fifteen, in love with a boy, and you find out that you’re the exact opposite of the kind of girl he likes to be with… well, let’s just say it feels like the world is ending.

  Tears streaming down my face, I hurried back to my class; I explained to my teacher I wasn’t feeling well and she took me to the office. They thankfully let me go home.

  As soon as I got in the car, my tears got out of control.

  I tried to calm down long enough to drive home without crashing the car.

  Mom calling my cell was the splash of cold reality I needed. I knew I had to answer or she’d come home. “Mom,” my voice broke on the word.

  I wanted to tell her the truth. That I loved Micah and he liked someone else.

  But I could never tell her that stuff. She always made everything I felt seem small and childish.

  “Valentine, are you okay?” she sounded concerned, making me feel terrible for thinking badly of her. “The school just called.”