Valorie

Chapter One

  "Val, I've come to a conclusion." Janis said, her words accompanied by a shaky sigh. Valorie looked up from her phone and looked over at her best friend. She noticed her troubled expression and her eyes wandering ahead at the sidewalk.
  "What?" She asked in her signature soft and timid tone.
  "I think I'm gonna ask Sylvester to the dance." She huffed before biting her bottom lip. Valorie was quite surprised. Janis had various opportunities in the past to ask boys out, but was prone to chickening out. It had been a long time since she even tried to date someone, but she did have a huge new crush on Sylvester.
  "Wow. Really?" She finally answered after processing her proposal.
  "Yeah! Well, okay, it's hard to explain. I know he's pretty stand-offish with me at school, but we started following each other on PicChat a few weeks ago, and he's been really sweet to me over text... I think if I do something bold, he might really consider it." She smiled nervously at her tiny friend with the long, jet black hair.
  "Bold as in... asking him to the dance at school?" Valorie looked at her with her eyebrow cocked.
  "What? Are you crazy? No, I'm gonna ask him on PicChat." Janis scoffed, then anxiously fumbled for her phone in her sweater pocket, "He hasn't opened and of my pics all day..."
  "Are you sure he'd want to go out with someone like us? People are embarrassed to be around us, Janis." Valorie sighed, kicking the pebbles they passed into the bustling town road.
  "Ugh! Just shut up, you're just trying to make me feel worse!" Janis grumbled, stuffing her phone back into her pocket. Valorie looked at her best friend with discontent.
  The two of them had been together for a long time. They had fairly similar interests and personality traits, but completely opposite body structures. Valorie was a small girl, only one-hundred and forty-nine centimeters tall, and didn't weigh much more than a stray dog. She had a very fair complexion, and always had her greasy, black hair covering her dark brown, exhausted eyes. She could usually be caught wearing baggy sweaters and black leggings, with old, beaten up white-toed sneakers that she'd had worn for years.
  Janis, on the other hand, was a heftier girl. She towered over Valorie at a height of one-hundred seventy-three centimeters, and had a tangled mess of fading, shoulder-length, dyed-blue hair. She had acne all over her hyper-pigmented cheeks, however, the most complex shade of brown and green eyes, which were actually quite captivating when you were standing up close to her. She was definitely on the chubby side, but she always bragged and teased her flat-chested friend about how big her boobs were, which annoyed Valorie to the bitter end. Janis liked wearing jeans, but usually only black ones, and sometimes sweatpants or pajama pants when she felt extra tired. She, too, wore many sweaters and rarely wore deodorant. She wasn't exactly a pleasant sight. Valorie, of course, didn't mind.
           An awkward silence passed between them as they continued their walk towards their favorite lunch spot. It was a quiet, vacant little shop at the corner of the road, just a few blocks from their school. Nobody really went there because the shop owner freaked people out. He was a lot like Valorie and Janis; Outcasted from society because of his weird endowment. He was eccentric, ugly, and seemed to be a little on the insane side. The only difference was the old guy had an endowment.
           Janis opened the glass door and the little bell jingled like always. They walked in to the smell of fresh pastries, brownies, cakes, and other confections. The place was nicely decorated with red and pink trimmings on the lining of the roof, cute, dessert-themed art pieces on the walls, and quaint little red-top tables to match the aesthetic. You could see a huge glass display from across the room, lined with candies, cake-pops, and little sample-slices of pie and beautifully decorated cake.
           "Ah! Girls! You return!" A man at the front counter yelled over the loud hum of the mixer he was attending. He was a short, fat guy with half a head of greying red hair. He had a big, arched nose, and freckles all over his greasy, red face. He had on a dirty apron and the same random extra-extra-large T-shirt and saggy jeans. He turned off his utensil and laughed as he made his way to the front.
           "Hey, Mr. Panchak." The two of them greeted in unison as they stopped in front of the counter.
           "What'll it be? The usual?" He asked, slamming his hands down in front of them.
           "Yeah, and can we get a couple of hot chocolates to go?" Janis added.
           "Of course! I'll get that right up. Hey, you girls don't mind watching a guy using his special endowment, do you?" He cracked a crooked smile at them, showing of his yellow, rotting teeth. Janis and Valorie exchanged a concerned look.
           "Nope." Valorie shook her head with her eyebrows knitted.
           "You know we don't mind your... special ability, Mr. Panchak." Janis sighed.
           "Aha! That's what I love about you girls, so accepting and open-minded!" He laughed with a jolly smile before cupping his hand and bringing it up to his mouth. Valorie and Janis froze and stared as the middle-aged man began to gag, before regurgitating a fully-developed chicken egg from his mouth. He chuckled a bit, holding the saliva-coated shell next to his atrocious smile. Janis smiled back nervously, but Valorie couldn't hold back the disgust behind her her forced smirk.
           "Ha! Saves so much money!" He told them, turning around to rinse the fresh produce in his sink.
           "I wish he'd stop doing that right in front of us..." Valorie whispered to her friend.
           "Get used to it, Val. Without endowments, this is the kind of lowlife we associate with. The people who's endowments are so freaky, even people like us seem more appealing." Janis told her in a quiet, sinister tone, making Valorie stare at her feet with embarrassment and annoyance.
           "So, Valorie, I heard around the street that your Dad's moving you to the city." Panchak spoke as he cracked his home-made egg into a bowl.
           "Yeah..." Valorie sighed, feeling resentful of her father at the mention of it. The thought panicked her. She was leaving her best and only friend, the only other person who was as shunned and outcasted as her. She had no idea what the city was like, either, and she certainly didn't want to find out on her own.
           "What city are ya' headed to? I heard a couple of different things, but I supposed it'd be better to get it straight from the horse's mouth." He asked, pouring some flour into his mix of wet ingredients. Valorie was getting more annoyed by this man. She eyed her friend, who understood her feelings and was grimacing towards him as well.
  "Nison. It's for this art thing he's doing. Some rich guy wants to put some of his stuff into his museum." Valorie shrugged, looking back at her feet. Her hair kept her eyes hidden from his line of sight.
  "Nison! That's great! You know, I have family in Nison. Oh yeah, beautiful place, as far as I remember. Although, I haven't been there in a little over a decade. I heard it's changed quite a bit. A lot more erh... technologically advanced, you could say. I don't know much about that fancy stuff, I'm kinda old-school, myself. My Ma's too old to travel now, so we kinda just hang around here, ya' know?" He rambled on about his family as he mixed together Valorie and Janis' lunch. They glanced at each other again, only half listening to his stories.
  "Anyway, pretty sad you guys gotta split, huh? You guys are pretty good friends, two peas in a pod, you guys." He pointed his whisk, full of batter, in their direction. The two of them had a depressing expression cross over them. They didn't say anything. "Yeah. That's real tough... it's apart of life, you know. Losing good friends." He nodded, looking down at his mixture with nostalgia. The girls locked eyes for a long moment. Valorie almost felt like crying again, when she thought about it. She was about to leave everything she'd ever known. She was about to leave the only person who truly understood her. She was the only person she trusted with her past, her secrets, and her darkest thoughts. She would be nothing without Janis by her side.
  "You know, I had this best friend once when I was a kid. An annoying little fella, he was. Always got on my damn nerves. But he had this cool endowment that let him change the floaty-ness of different objects when they were in the water. Some sciency stuff, the kid was kind of a nerd. Anyway, we used to pull off so many pranks, me and him." The man laughed at the memories and continued his tales while the girls quietly waited for their food.
           The man carefully placed the freshly-cooked waffles into a little paper bag after slipping it off the waffle baker. He poured the chocolate drinks and the syrup into tiny paper and plastic cups, and then he slid them over the counter. The girls handed him their money and waved their good byes as he hurriedly gave them tips on where to find the cheapest disposable coffee cups. The two of them sighed as they escaped.
           "Jeez, can we go five minutes without another reminder that you're leaving in two months?" Janis grumbled, shoving her waffle into her mouth after dipping it into her syrup cup, balancing her drink in the pit of her elbow.
  "Actually... month and a half." Valorie said sadly, nibbling on her waffle as well.
  "Seriously, Val, stop with your, trying to make everything worse, shit." Janis glared at her.
  "It's not like we can just pretend it's not happening! It was easy to ignore it six months ago, but the day just keeps getting closer and closer, and honestly I can't stop thing about it, and you're making me feel worse because you keep pretending it's not happening when it is happening!" Valorie's voice got more rapid as she got worked up, Janis could see the tears welling up in her neurotic friend's eyes as she paused on the pavement.
  "Okay, okay, don't start crying before we get back to class... I'm only ignoring it because every time we talk about it you get like this!" She spat.
  "It's not my fault!" Valorie cried, wiping her damp eyes. Janis groaned.
  "Look, it's fine. Just eat your dang waffle and stop worrying so much. Forget Panchak, he's stupid for bringing it up, it's none of his business! God, I'm so tired of people being so nosey about us..." Janis grunted, angrily continuing forward. Valorie followed.
  "If people would mind their own damn business, I could probably get a stupid date to the dance! At least Sylvester wouldn't ask me such weird, cliche questions..." She complained, completely changing the topic. Valorie sighed, wondering if she should even go to the dance. It would be a week before they were scheduled to leave. It would be nice to make one last good memory, but that memory wouldn't be good for long anyway. Soon, all of her memories with Janis would be hopelessly sad.
  "What's your endowment? Hey, you wanna know what I did with my endowment today? Why do people keep saying you don't have an endowment? God! Endowment, endowment, endowment! That's all anyone talks about! That's all he cares about. What about my personality? What about my character values?" Janis half-yelled with her mouth full. Valorie wondered why Janis was so hooked on this boy all of a sudden. She was desperate to win him over, and being a powerless-weirdo wasn't helping her case. But the behavior was so abrupt. For the past year, Janis preached about how all guys were trash, and she was going to either grow old without ever marrying or learn to become lesbian. Now she was always talking about how nice and different this Sylvester guy was.
  "Are you doing this whole... Sylvester-obsession thing because I'm leaving?" Valorie shyly asked.
  "Ugh. What does that even mean, Val?" She asked, seemingly more invested in inspecting her half-eaten waffle.
  "Just 'cause, like... you know... you're sad that I'm leaving so you're trying to get a boyfriend before I go so you're not completely alone?" She asked. Janis gave her a weird look.
  "That has nothing to do with anything. Will you stop making up wild ideas? Or are you just trying to find a reason why I shouldn't get a boyfriend?" She asked her.
  "Huh? N-no, I just meant... it just seems kinda sudden that you changed your mind about boys." Valorie said.
           "So, what? Are you the police of how I feel about people? I've changed! I know now that... maybe some guys aren't so bad." She explained, eyeing the screen of her phone again. Valorie stared at the ground and felt it was useless to argue. Janis had a bad habit of avoiding heavy topics that she didn't want to deal with.
           "N-nevermind. Just forget it."
  "Already did." Janis sighed as she pulled out her phone completely, checking to see if her crush had checked her messages. The two of them finished their way back to school, just in time for the bell to ring, signaling the end of lunch. They parted ways for a while, and met up again in their final class of the day. Afterwards, they walked out of school together and made their way to Valorie's house.
           "Oh god... should I send it? Do you think it's good?" Janis stared nervously at her unsent message, waiting impatiently for Valories input. The text read: