“I know. But I was living proof.”
“What about King? You said you were nine. He’s twenty years older, right? He surely wouldn’t have blamed a kid for his dad’s infidelity.”
“I wasn’t brave enough to watch him walk past.”
Wasn’t brave enough. It’s like every sentence she speaks rips another piece of my soul.
I focus on her hands around mine. “What happened after? How’d you end up becoming close with them?”
“I’m not,” she whispers as her fingers tighten their grip on mine. “After the funeral, my mom got worse. She was a user. Different drugs. Different people. Whatever she could use to pretend life wasn’t real. We moved apartments a lot, but when I turned fifteen, King showed up at our front door.”
“Was that the first time you’d seen him since the funeral?”
“Yeah,” Val confirms. “And he was there to tell me that my dad had left me in his will. And that I’d be attending a private high school and that it was all paid for.”
“Those aren’t the actions of a man who doesn’t care,” I tell her quietly, hating that she thinks neither of her parents loved her.
“You’re probably right,” she concedes without conviction, and I have to wonder how intimidating a thirty-five-year-old King Vass would have been to a fifteen-year-old Valentine. “But it just made my life worse. Because my mom resented me even more.”
“How?” I seriously can’t understand this bitch.
“Because my mom got herself pregnant with me thinking she’d be set for life. And she kinda was. He paid her rent and gave her an allowance for food and stuff my whole life. Until he died and the money dried up, and my mom was still stuck feeding another greedy mouth.” The way she says the last line tells me she’s heard it said before. “So when King came to tell us about the tuition, my mom lost it. Demanding that she should get that money. And how come King couldn’t just write her a check for the total amount of the tuition and let me go to public school. He obviously didn’t do that. And even though he was nice to me, I could feel how much he hated my mom. He scared me.”
“Did you go to the school?”
“I did. And eventually, my mom just got used to it. Or forgot about it. But she mostly left me to my own devices. Until I turned eighteen.”
I almost don’t even want to ask. I know the answer isn’t going to be a birthday party. “What happened when you turned eighteen?”
“King came back and told me that my college was paid for, too.” My eyes have fully adjusted, so I watch as Val blinks toward the ceiling. “He also told me my dad had left me seventy-five thousand dollars in a trust. That I’d get twenty-five thousand when I turned nineteen, twenty-five thousand when I turned twenty-one, and twenty-five thousand when I turned twenty-five. I know that might not sound like a lot to you, but for me… it was life changing.”
“It is a lot. And smart of him to spread it out.”
Val huffs. “Funny, my mom didn’t agree. She wanted seventy-five in a check written to her, right then and there. King told her it didn’t work that way. And that the money belonged to me, not her, and she had no say or access to it. He told me that he set up an account for me at a bank my mom wasn’t a customer of, and since I was over eighteen, she couldn’t access it.”
“Smart man.”
“He was nice to me.” Sadness fills her voice. “He gave me his phone number and told me to tell him when I got into college and that he’d arrange the tuition payments, just like he’d done for high school. And he did.”
“You say that, but why does it feel like he wasn’t nice to you?”
Val shakes her head. “He was. I think he knew how shitty my mom was and felt bad for me. We weren’t, like, friends or anything, but he never seemed bothered by my existence.”
I grind my teeth. “Angel.”
“I just mean that he didn’t actively hate me. Like our moms did.”
I close my eyes. “Jesus.”
This poor fucking girl. Not being actively hated is her gauge for niceness.
Val had nothing to do with her shitty parents’ actions, and yet all the adults that should’ve been protecting her put the blame on her tiny shoulders.
“I got into a college in the Twin Cities and found an on-campus job for the summer that would allow me to move into a dorm early.”
I slide my eyes open to look at her profile. “My smart girl.”