I stared at her not sure how to respond. The news was sudden. Actually, I vaguely remembered an assembly last year held for a male student who had committed suicide. I skipped it. Perhaps, I should've attended...
"I'm going home," Valentina mumbled. Her warm brown eyes seemed like they'd frozen over.
"Can I come with you?"
Her eyes remained fixed on the floor. "Cleo will be mad if you don't show up at the meeting today. My house is kind of far from here too. I don't want to make you keep walking. And my dad is pretty loud..."
Her excuses continued, but I just stared at her. "I want to go to your house," I said, ignoring everything she said. I hadn't seen Valentina sad before, and it almost made me feel something... My apathy was almost dissolving?
I approached her and shook a kind of nervously. I wanted to take her hand because I knew she'd take mine if I was sad and give her reassuring words. But, I just stared at her silently waiting for her to give me permission to walk her home.
"Let's go," she said. Her hands wrapped around mine. Was my hand sweating? I could feel myself shaking. Did she notice?
We walked out of the school together holding hands. We didn't see Cleo, but I wondered if she saw us.
+++
We walked past my house, and I really wondered how far away Valentina's house was. I'm pretty sure she walked everyday. Did she walk when the weather was below freezing or in the sizzling weather of the summer?
"You've been quiet." Her voice surprised me. We'd been walking in silence for so long.
I smiled a little. Her husky voice and her strong accent was melodic. I wanted her to narrate a podcast, so I could listen to her talk for hours.
"So, Valentina, umm. . . Where are you from?"
She smiled."Hm," she looked at me, "where do you think I'm from?"
I laughed and didn't answer. I kinda wish I payed attention in social studies class now. I was happy to her the corners up her mouth turned up at least.
We walked into a very nice cul de sac. A lot of the houses were very large, and there was a long lake stretching behind the houses. Did she live here?
"Can I depressing for a second?" She asked.
"Yeah, haha, uh, of course. I mean, like, I'm edgy all the time so you shouldn't worry about it,"
She chuckled a bit. Her eyes twinkled as she began to speak. "His birthday is today. . . My brother I mean," she stared at her hands. "He would've been 19. I think he said he'd get a tattoo. It would've been related to an Animal Crossing character. He loved games. He stopped playing them while dating Cleo though," she sighed." He stopped doing a lot of things when they were together."
"What do you-"
"There's my house."
My eyes widened. We had reached the end of the cul de sac and stood in front of a mansion. Was it a mansion? I wasn't very good at differentiating house types. But it was very big, and that's the most important thing. It was a red brick house with a very large garage. A dog was on a leash, asleep by the bushes near her door.
I was nervous now.