Hello, Valentine (Holiday Love)

Prologue

May

Ugh. Why can’t I do this? Why is it so hard to just turn in the damn acceptance letter and move on? I mean, I have waited for the past six months for things to change, and nothing has. So what am I waiting for? This is what my brain turns over all day. See, I have been accepted to my first choice University, and I still haven’t said yes. Why, you ask? Simple. I am in love with my stepbrother Andrew, and I can’t fathom being that far away from him. I would miss his beautiful warm, sexy smile. I would miss the way he says my name when he is teasing me. Well, when he speaks to me. I would simply miss him. Nine years ago, when my mom married his dad, he was sixteen, and I was ten. He walked into the house for the first time, and he was larger than life. I remember looking up at him in awe. He was tall and already muscular for a teenager. But more than that, when he smiled at me and introduced himself, I remember immediately feeling safe. Of course, back then, it was a little sister type of safe, though our parents weren’t yet married, but nonetheless.

From that moment on, any chance I got, I followed him around, and he let me. He never complained and never pushed me away. He even began driving my sister and me to school and picking us up. As I got older, my feelings began to change, but so did our relationship. Not only did he start pushing me away, but our parents began making a big deal of the time we spent together. Then, he left and went to college, and I was left with this big hole in my heart. He came home less and less, and when he did, he all but ignored me. Now here I am, in my bedroom, pacing, undecided about my future because I am holding out on the hope that Andrew will finally see me as something more than his stepsister. I have already put it off for a year, convincing my parents I wasn’t ready to leave home yet. To make my reason more real, I enrolled in community college, and I can’t say I regret it. It has been great. But now, I am at a crossroads. My parents seem to be anxious for me to go away to school to ‘experience’ life out of the bubble, and I am trying to hang on to the flimsy life raft of hope, that is losing air as we speak.

Now, I have noticed lately since he has moved back to town, that his gazes have lingered, and the few times we have hugged in greeting, I swear he sniffed me and groaned before removing me from his embrace quickly and walking away. The first time I thought it was just me projecting my wants. However, when it happened a second time, I knew he felt something too. I found myself getting happy and excited, my heart believing he would put us both out of misery when I graduated. I made plans in my head—checklists for things I wanted to experience, you know, the usual fairytale stuff. But now, here I am, unsure of my future. “May. May honey, can you come downstairs?” crap. My mom.

“Coming.” Reluctantly I get up and walk downstairs, knowing whatever she wants, I am not going to want to do. “What’s up, mom?” I round the corner to the kitchen and note how frantic she is. Immediately I feel my stomach begin to tighten. Something is either wrong with my older sister or with Andrew. I know it isn’t my stepfather since I can hear him in the other room on the phone.

“Oh. Your brother has been hurt at work. He is in the hospital.” Oh, God. My entire body depletes as I try to weave through the barrage of emotions. He has to be ok. He has to.

“Is he ok?” I ask, fighting to keep the emotions from squeaking out. Lately, I believe our parents have begun to get suspicious about my real reason for staying home, and I am not ready to deal with that.

“I don’t know. Gerald is on the phone with Aiden now.” Please let him be ok. As part of a construction crew, he lifts a lot of heavy things and climbs on high beams. He is always in jeopardy of being hurt. Oh crap. Don’t cry, May. Don’t cry. I chant to myself quietly. My foot is lightly tapping under the counter as I wait for Gerald to come back into the room. Everything in me is hyper-aware right now. That’s what his name, in general, does to me. It lights me up not only in my heart, but all over my body.