“I hope so.” What was she thinking? Why would she say that, knowing Brooke wasnear?
“Holy shit,” Alejandra gasps from across the room, eyes wide, before she bursts into delighted laughter. She doubles slightly at the waist, one hand flying out to steady herself against Clara’s arm right as Clara loses it alongside her.
Valeria looks up, confused, but after a second, she hears it, drifting down from the second floor: a moan. It only lasts a second, but there’s no mistaking it. She tries to keep her expression neutral for Brooke’s sake, but her heart hammers with a wild, disbelieving thrill, and excitement bubbles up for her friends. She wants to scream and celebrate along with Clara and Alejandra, but the tension rolling off Brooke keeps her rooted.
“We’re leaving,” Brooke says, her voice clipped as she stands, marching toward their bedroom. She doesn’t look back. She doesn’t need to. She knows Valeria will follow.
“What? Why?” Valeria asks, though she already knows, but the question escapes her anyway.
“Because I don’t want to be here anymore.” Brooke yanks her jewelry, makeup, and perfume from the dresser, tossing them onto the bed in a scattered pile before reaching for her duffel bag.
“Just wait until the morning. We can go super early, I promise.” Valeria steps closer, gently catching Brooke’s hand to slow her down, trying to anchor her back from the edge of whatever’s taken hold.
Brooke’s gaze drops to Valeria’s hand on her like it’s something foreign. For a second, Valeria thinks she might let herself lean into it. Instead, Brooke pulls away.
“No,” she says. “Now.”
“How can I fix this?” Valeria’s stomach tightens.
She lifts a hand to Brooke’s cheek, brushing her thumb gently across her skin, needing the touch to ease the anxietytaking over her body. Even in their worst moments, Brooke is the only one who can give her that.
“You can’t. I want to go home, so please let’s go.” Brooke says it with an almost pleading tone that cracks Valeria’s heart.
“Babe, it’s late, and the roads out of here are windy. It’s not safe.” Valeria doesn’t say this to cause an argument; it’s just that she knows that when Brooke gets like this, she needs to be walked back a little.
Brooke rolls her eyes, and that’s when Valeria realizes there’s no reasoning with her right now.
“You want to stay here so you can keep getting drunk with your friends, acting like you’re all still teenagers. I don’t like who you are around them lately.” She pushes Valeria’s hand away, but the sting of her words burns far more.
Valeria loves who she is around the girls, loves the lightness, the ease, the sense of returning to herself she feels around them.
With Brooke, Valeria wears so many masks that she sometimes loses track of which one is closest to the truth. She relies on the girls to ground her—because with them, she doesn’t have to be anyone but herself. And it feels so damn good to put all her different masks down here and there.
She doesn’t say any of that thought; she doesn’t want to keep arguing. All Valeria wants isoneeasy and fun night at the cabin with her favorite people.
She exhales slowly, and Brooke steps closer, slipping her hand beneath Valeria’s chin, tilting her face upward until her brown eyes lock with Brooke’s deep blues. This move almost always makes Valeria melt, usually sending a warm, dizzying softness through herchest—but right now it feels wrong, misplaced, and unease coils low in her stomach, sharp enough to make her slightly nauseous.
“You know I’m right,” Brooke murmurs, nudging her nose against Valeria’s. “No one knows you the way I do, and I’m telling you, you’re not yourself around them. They make you act like someone you’re not. Why do you think I came? It sure as hell wasn’t to see them. It was foryou. To make sure they didn’t fill your head with their dumb ass plan to force Isabella and Lily into fixing their friendship.” Brooke shakes her head and scoffs. “And now they want them to start dating? Give me a break.”
Valeria’s gaze drops.
Brooke inhales, slow and sharp, letting her hand fall away before adding, “Clara and Alejandra are childish. I’ve always thought that, but with everything they’ve been doing lately, I think you’re better off never talking to them again. All of them, if I’m being honest. I think we both know you’ve outgrown them.”
Brooke reaches to cradle Valeria’s face again, but Valeria turns away, refusing the touch. The words hit like a slap she can’t pretend not to feel.
Brooke has criticized the girls before—expressed her intense disapproval of Valeria’s friendship with them so many times Valeria has lost count—but never like this. Brooke has never said that she’d be better off without them. That crosses a line she hadn’t realized Brooke was capable of approaching. The girls are her family. Anger flares in her chest. Not only at Brooke’s tone, but at the implication that the girls are anything less than the fiercely loyal—sure, sometimes a little out there—but overall extraordinary women Valeria knows them to be. Are Clara and Alejandra being a little silly around this entire thingwith Isabella and Lily? Sure, but so what? Everyone is allowed a little nonsense among friends.
Valeria knows Brooke is projecting, unraveling old wounds she refuses to examine, but the understanding doesn’t mute the anger or the hurt.
“You go,” Valeria says, the words slipping out before she can stop them. The moment they’re spoken, she feels the ground shift beneath her. She wants to snatch them back, swallow them, rewind time, but they’re out. They exist, and a chill runs up her spine at the realization that she has just made everything so much worse.
“Go? You think you’re staying?” Brooke huffs.
Valeria remains silent, terrified of stoking the fire she didn’t intend to set.
“See, this is exactly what I’m talking about.Mysweet girl wouldneversay this.”
Valeria’s gaze falls to the floor. Brooke steps closer, leaning in to press a light kiss against Valeria’s lips. She wants to turn away, wipe the kiss off, but things will only escalate if she does. So she lets it be.
