Page 10 of The Rebel (Covington Prep: The Girls We Love #7)

Gabby’s face fell in genuine disappointment. “Awww, I really wanted you to come. It feels like ages since we’ve been together.”

“Yeah, but you’ve got Scooooott to entertain you,” I teased, but instead of sounding cute, an edge of bitterness tainted my voice causing Gabby to suck in her lips, blink and bunch her eyebrows. Told you I was a bad actor.

I couldn’t face her and quickly picked up my backpack and muttered, “Stupid family stuff. Plus I have to get started on my art portfolio. I hardly did any during winter break. I need to get onto it. It’s a huge assignment.”

Gabby quietly followed me out the cafe and we walked down the street. Only then did she speak, her words stilted and awkward, “Hey, Valencia, you’re okay with everything? You know, with me and Scott dating?”

“Of course,” I chirped like I was hyped up on sugar. “It’s awesome. You two are great together!”

She had to know I was trying way too hard, but I was spiraling, manic in my desperation to convince her I was happy for her. “It’s so great, so awesome! And you know we’re still besties, right?”

“Absolutely,” Gabby said, clumsily taking hold of my hand and wrapping her pinky finger around mine.

“Besties for life,” we affirmed, squeezing our little bones tightly. But the mantra felt hollow and my heart clenched as I continued on with my rants about being on top of the world, on cloud nine and over the moon for her.

Yep, this is what my life had come to. I’d become a big, complete and utter fraud, and now I’d have to play the game.

––––––––

Mom was surprised when I walked in, so I had to lie and tell her the Pelzers were going out to dinner.

I went straight to my room and read through my art assignment.

At least that hadn’t been a lie. We had to compile a portfolio and our teacher, Mr. Moreno had high hopes that some pieces would be accepted into Covington Heights’ spring art exhibition.

Volley came and curled up next to me, but I didn’t draw a thing. My inspiration had all but vanished.

Visions of Gabby and Scott haunted me, how comfortable they were around one another, how sweet he treated her, how she looked at him so adoringly.

My lungs seemed to be incapable of taking in oxygen and my chest hurt with every breath.

Was this sadness, depression, jealousy? A mix of everything? Whatever it was, it sucked. And bad.

I had to find a way to move on, deal with it.

I’d discovered art was the best way of expressing myself, of losing myself.

Being forced to watch hours and hours of Paris playing tennis, my art pad had become my savior, my comfort, drawing or sketching while sitting in the stands.

I’d usually draw what I was seeing, which was the crowd sitting on the opposite side of the court.

Faces, people, bodies, expressions, those were the things I liked to capture.

But more recently, because we’d been watching Paris training, I’d been forced to draw action shots, his body extended in a serve, or stretching out for a forehand, or lunging for a drop shot.

Some had turned out pretty good, but not good enough to show anyone.

I ate dinner in my room while Dad ate in front of the television watching the news.

Mom was too busy making phone calls and would eat later.

Dad had gotten rid of the Christmas tree and left all the decorations on the floor in the living room.

It was my job to pack them away. Volley swirled around me, getting in my way as he sniffed at the boxes and sat in the one that stored the baubles.

I grabbed my phone and sent a photo of him to Paris.

I’d nearly finished boxing up everything, when Paris messaged me back: It’s going to be epic. He had sent five pictures of flags, but the only ones I could identify were the Spanish one because of Spanish class, and the British Union Jack. Jade had a sticker of it on the back window of his truck.

I texted back: What is?

Even though it had taken me less than ten seconds to reply, it was like Paris had suddenly abandoned his phone. I had visions of him in the middle of hitting a hundred ball rally—that could be the only reason he didn’t answer me.

I called out to Dad for help with the boxes and together we carried them out to the garage.

“Is Paris going to Spain?” I asked as he climbed the ladder to store them up in the rafters.

“Who said that?” Dad questioned.

I shrugged. “He sent an emoji of the Spanish flag. Does it mean he’s going to Spain?”

“He’s looking at some tournaments,” Dad said vaguely, as if for once he didn’t want to talk about Paris. “How was school?”

“Fine.”

“Algebra?”

“Hate it.”

Dad laughed. “Any new teachers?”

“No. But Miss Simpkins had her hair cut. Like it had been down to the middle of her back and now it’s short. Apparently she donated it to a cancer cause.”

“Okay,” Dad said, “that’s admirable.”

“Her cousin has cancer.”

“That’s not good,” Dad said, hurrying me along. “Hand me that smaller box,” he said, pointing at the one that Volley had been sitting in.

“How was your day?” I asked, passing it to him.

“Busy,” Dad said briskly. My parents owned a refrigerated trucking company and were contracted to Whittakers Ice Cream Company for transporting their ice cream all over the region. “Okay, last ones, Poppet. Good girl,” he said, keen to finish up.

With all the decorations stored, Dad put the ladder away and I went back to my room. I’d barely opened my art pad when a sharp knock on my door was followed by Mom bursting in with an armful of folded laundry.

I immediately sat up on my bed. “Sorry, I meant to bring that up,” I said before she yelled at me for not doing my chores. But Mom didn’t tell me off, instead sitting on the end of my bed, scowling as she brushed at the dark canopy like it still disgusted her.

“I’ve got some news,” she said, peering across at my pad which I quickly closed.

I’d only sketched an outline of a head—possibly Gabby’s—just to test my new charcoal pencil.

She clasped her hands together nervously, and as Dad and I had spoken about Miss Simpkins and cancer only a few minutes earlier, an unshakable premonition came over me—Mom had some bad news for me.

That headache she’d gotten when she’d forgotten her hat while watching tennis was actually a tumor.

In the space of two seconds, I had her needing chemo treatments, having brain surgery and dying.

“Yes,” Mom said as fear raced through me like a rampant forest fire, already scarring and burning and leaving me in ruins, my whole life transforming before my eyes in a matter of moments, envisioning the worst, when she said softly, “I have something to tell you.”

My eyes widened and my body froze as I pictured life without my mother.

Yes, she could be a pain, she was strict and controlling and demanding and critical, but she was my Mom and I loved her to death.

Uhhh, death...no, she couldn’t die on me.

Not like Jade and Ollie’s father, who had died from some sort of cancer.

I reached out and grabbed hold of Mom’s twitchy hands, already reimagining my life taking a twisted and tumultuous turn.

“Have you got cancer?” I blurted, needing the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, as brutal as it might be.

Mom’s brow furrowed first, then her eyes narrowed in suspicion and her lips pursed in irritation. “What are you on about?”

I stiffened and pulled back. That wasn’t the tone of a woman with a terrible illness. And neither was her next retort, jumping down my throat with, “What on earth are you talking about, Vali?”

I blinked back my watering eyes, realizing I’d gotten it wrong. Mom clearly wasn’t on her death bed. “Nothing,” I mumbled, manifesting a cough like I was in the throes of dying myself.

“Valencia?” Mom suddenly had the nurturing concern of a protective mother elephant. “Why would you say that?”

I shrugged and sniffed and swiped at my eyes. “I don’t know, you’re scaring me.”

“Scaring you? I’ve just come to tell you something.”

“Well,” I screeched in my defense, “the way you’re being nice and talking soft, then serious, I don’t know what’s going on!”

“Well, rest assured, I do not have cancer and I have no idea where that’s come from,” Mom said, bringing out a gentle caring voice for the second time. One Paris got to hear a lot more than me.

I sniffed again, embarrassed by my crazy thinking, my burst of emotion.

I was a ticking time bomb, volatile and fragile, turbulent and tense, still trying to comprehend the momental shift in my world.

Oh yes, you might think I was overreacting and being a drama queen over Gabby and Scott, but my heartache was real. And excuse me for feeling!

I truly needed time to wrap my head around everything.

Mom caressed my shoulder but she’d reverted back into her officious, no-nonsense self again. “Your father and I are going to join Paris in Europe,” she said. “We’ve been able to organize some tournaments for him, starting in France.”

I suddenly recognized that the blue, white and red vertical bands on one of Paris’s emoji flags was that of France.

“Oh wow. He’s going to France?” I asked.

“France, Germany, England,” Mom said, “and all going well, Portugal and Spain.”

I started to say, “How long?" at the same time that she said, “We’re going to be away for at least four weeks, maybe six.”

My first thought was that I was going to miss school, so much school. I couldn’t catch up a whole month. It was too much...but at the same time, France, Germany, England...how awesome was that?

“I’ve asked Dani if you can stay with her, and she thinks it’s a wonderful idea.”

I blinked, then stared, my heart rate speeding up. “Wait. What?”

“It’s a long time,” Mom’s voice sounded like she was shrouded in a mist, somewhere in the fog, a blur. “Too long for you to miss school, so just Dad and I will go. Dani’s happy to have you stay.”