.: Valentine [Preview] :.

        Sometimes it's hard to accept that your kindness is the thing that pushes someone over the edge they've been balancing on.

        His favorite thing to eat are french fries, with lots and lots of ketchup and extra salt, and warm milk shakes. I always order them before he even reaches the diner. He doesn't like the fries hot, so ordering them ahead of time saves energy, because otherwise he'd make me sit and wait for them to cool. He's always had to have things a certain way.
        So when I order them and the fries arrive, not too long after and fresh, I push them off to the side to cool.
        Today somebody asked me why I hang out with Valentine Ramsey. I guess this question spawned after Valentine came barging into my Calculus class with a bloody nose and dinged up face—he'd come from beating the crap out of a jock. When a dean finally came and dragged him out, the question popped up and I had to wonder myself.
        Why was I friends with Valentine Ramsey?
        I guess it had to do with the fact that he's been my shadow since we were kids. A dark child who disturbed his teachers and classmates from the start. I'd been the only kid to try to be his friend. At first he stuffed bugs and fake snakes into my cubbyhole, but when he realized that that wasn't going to scare me off, he'd attached himself to me. Since then, we've been almost inseparable.
        But now, when Valentine comes in through the door, it's hard to think of him as the kid who used to cling to my side day after day. Where there once was a small boy with big eyes and sticks for arms and legs there is now a tall, dark, and gangly teen with sharp eyes and an even sharper tongue. At least his style hasn't changed, I think, raising an eyebrow at the new leather jacket he's wearing. Black leather jacket. From day one, Valentine's wardrobe has always been monochromatic. Of course there are always those moments when he adds a color, but it's never more than one, and nothing too obnoxious or bright. Usually it's dark shades of red, blue, purple, green. No yellows, no orange. Absolutely no neon colors, except if it belongs to a logo he has an attachment to.
        While my more socially dependent friends would yell 'Hey Dev!' or just “Devin!”, Valentine walks over, plops himself into the booth across from me, and tests the heat of the fries by hovering his hand over them. They haven't cooled long enough, so he makes a face and rolls his eyes. He sighs, drums his fingers on the table, counts to thirty. Then he re-arranges the silverware; knife on the right, fork and spoon on the left (Valentine is left-handed). After that's done, he crosses his arms, leans them on the table, and looks up at me. His ritual is complete—I have his permission to speak.
        “You're weird.” A part of his routine; our code for Are ya done yet?
        “I'm eccentric,” he says, correcting me. Extending his arms, he thrums his knuckles on the table to whatever song is playing in his head. This strange boy from my childhood has gigantic palms with skeleton fingers, which make the table wobble when he hits it. “If I was weird, they'd put me in a mental hospital.”
        I shrug. “You're right.”
        “I am.”
        Pulling the fries in front of him, he grabs the salt and ketchup and begins to dose the fries with both. When it's the way he likes, he pushes the condiments away and picks up his fork, spearing a couple of the processed potatoes and shoveling them into his mouth.
        “You're still the only one I know that does that.”
        He spears some more and points the monstrosity at me, a faint smirk on his lips. “Of course I am—only the intelligent do this. It's simply unique to you because most people you hang out with have the IQ of acorns,” He explains  and looks down at his food, chewing, before looking up at me from under his thick array of lashes. “—which I don't understand. How can someone of your intelligence—with the ability to produce thought and stimulating conversation—hang around with a bunch of thick-and-empty headed jocks and twigs? You're better than that.”
        I give him a look and shake my head. “Not all of them are 'thick-and-empty headed'. I know a lot of jocks who have a good heart, and a lot of girls who do their best in school. Besides, at least they're not the only group of people I hang with.”
        “Because nerds and junkies are so much better.”
        “They can be way better than jocks,” I amend, knowing he's trying to get on my nerves. “Hell, what d'you have to complain about? I'm your only friend.”
        Lifting his head to look at me evenly, he raises both of his eyebrows incredulously. “Complain? Never. Just observing.” He grins, a snide, mean grin that always makes me a little worried. “My only friend. And you know why that is?”
        “Why?”
        “Because no one can accept brilliance but a brilliant person. Admit it, Devin; Life without me would leave you clawing at your face. You'd be bored to tears.” He chuckles and goes back to eating his fries.
        I wish more people got to see this part of my friend. Valentine only acts so carefree with me. Besides his parents and me, Valentine doesn't doesn't talk to people. Most times, he doesn't talk at all. Or if he does, it's never nice, never polite, and usually gets him in trouble. I don't know why he acts like that, because if he got over it, I know that he could find his own group to belong to, one that would accept his narcissism, ego, sarcasm, and dark humor.
        I also wish that someone would see his talent. Valentine can sing like no one's business, and he paints. His paintings tell more about him that his actions ever could. I have three of them in my room: The first picture has two upside down, entirely black figures—supposedly us—and they have giant smiles painted on their faces, but the smiles themselves are different for his shadow and mine. His is malicious. Mine is kind. The bottom of the picture, where our heads are, is pooling with water. The second picture is like a tribal painting, and is a cannibalistic dog with a rotted apple in its mouth. I'd ask to keep this picture, because every time I look at it, I go cold and it baffles me. The last picture is a portrait of me. It's not abstract or dark like the other ones, either. It's a normal picture of me, except it looks much prettier and calmer than I think I am. The picture does me more flattery than I deserve.
        “Yo, Fish, you in there?”
        “What?” I ask, startled as I blink and focusing on him again. Glaring, I roll my eyes at his nickname for me. “Will you stop calling me that? It's annoying.”
        He sets his head in his palm and stares at me, his black eyes endless. Those eyes make most people nervous—not me. “I'll stop calling you Fish when you stop swimming.” He knows I won't, so I flip him off before calling the waitress over and asking for a burger. “Another thing I enjoy about our friendship—as I've seen multiple times, most girls would order a salad to look thin in front of any guy. You just ordered a burger without a second thought.”
        “'Cause I'm hungry?” I say, taking a sip of my soda, which has more melted ice in it than soft drink. “I don't really care about being thin. Some fat is healthy, ya know. I like to be fit. Fit wins competitions.” I reach over and grab one of the rare fries that hasn't been touch by all the ketchup. It's way too salty though. “How do you not drop over dead? This'll kill you eventually.” I take another sip and grin. “Though, I'll make sure to bring some when you drop dead of a heart attack.”
        “Ha-Ha,” he fakes, though I know my attempt at his sense of dark humor has won me some points. But then he looks up, serious. “Hey—speaking of, ya know—are you gonna go visit on Saturday?”
        “Maybe.”
        He looks at me for the longest time, stabbing his fork into the now-empty plastic tray over and over, his eyes thoughtful. “Maybe?”
        “Yeah. Maybe.” I swallow drily, thanking the waitress politely as she sets my burger down in front of me. I'm not hungry anymore. “It's only been a year. I don't think I can—“
        “Even if I go with you?” Valentine asks, leaning forward, dark hair splaying over his eyes as if to hide them or extenuate them.
        I look down at my hands, which curl into fists as I watch, not really sure if I'm even voluntarily doing it. “Even if you're with me,” I whisper, the corner of my mouth twitching upwards in a sad arc. I'm getting real tired of being sad, I think.
        “Are you sure? Maybe I can make it easier, maybe I can help; I'm your friend—“
        “You're more than that, idiot. Try best friend, truest friend, longest friend, most trustworthy friend—c'mon, I thought you were the genius here.”
        He smiles, a keen smile that bears his teeth and makes his lip ring shimmer in the fluorescent diner lights. Reaching over, he curls his hands over my fists. “Then I won't pressure you into going—To be truthful though, even if your mom doesn't like my style or me in general, she asked me to ask. I suppose it's because you had another fight?”
        I shrug. “She's trying to get me to work at the firm again—she even got Rhett to side with her!  Wants me to quit at the Rec. But—I can't do that. I can't sit around in an office and waste my life. I need to be active. I need to be able to swim.” I pull my hands away and look out the window, shrugging again. “It's like—If I'm not in the water, or at least doing something that I feel like I can truly do myself, then I'm drowning.” Looking down at the slightly opened window, I watch as a firefly climbs along the metal frame,  beginning to climb out through the window. “She's so afraid that I'm going to drown in water, but that's the only place where I feel like I'm trying, where I'm swimming—where I'm surviving.”
        He nods, leaning back and brushing his hair behind his ears, following my gaze and spying the bug. From the corner of my eye, I swear I see him glare, but then it's gone. He gets up, and just as the firefly almost reaches the outside, he slams the window shut on it, crushing the poor thing.
        I wonder if it's because I've seen him ruthlessly kill bugs all the time that I lose the meaning behind the force he puts into crushing the firefly.
        “Can't say I blame her. They can't be losing both your dad and you to water, while she and Rhett have to sit waiting for you on land.” Pulling out his wallet, he glances down at me. “I'll go pay and get you a box for that,” he says, pointing at my untouched burger as he slides out from the seat and heads to the front.
        “Okay.” My head hurts. I know that both Valentine and Mom are worried about me because of swimming. But it's the one most important thing that I've gotten from Dad. They're only afraid because dad drowned.
        They don't know that it's my fault.