Worth Fighting For | Book #1

Chapter 8

My fingers couldn't have typed fast enough when I'd texted Valentina to come over, desperately.

When I woke up yesterday morning, I hadn't exactly cared about what happened at the party, but now I knew about Josh, I needed someone to talk to about it, and Valentina was one of the only people I knew I could confess everything to.

"Valentina! It's lovely to see you." My mother smiled kindly and pulled her in for a tight hug. "You look beautiful as always."

"Thank you, Diane. As do you." The both of them gushed with each other whilst I stood at the bottom of the stairs, rolling my eyes persistently until Valentina was finally ready to join me upstairs.

"Your mom is in a better mood." Valentina whispered as we walked up to my room, ensuring that she was unable to hear. "It's nice to see her like this." I looked back at my mother as she retreated back into the kitchen with a soft smile on her lips whilst my father stayed locked up inside his office.

I hated the way he had treated her. And I hated the fact that it was now a rarity to see my mother smile.

"Yeah, it is." I mumbled and closed the door to my room behind us, ensuring that my parents wouldn't hear us talking.

"So, what was the emergency?" She sat down on my bed and pulled out her phone, most likely scanning through Instagram. "And you still haven't told me what happened to you after the party, how did you even get home?" She questioned as I sat down on the seat at my desk, nervously playing with the ends of my hair.

"Josh took me home last night." I watched through the hood of my eyelashes as Valentina dropped her phone onto the bed, her mouth gaping open in shock. "It's not that big a deal, I just wanted to tell someone."

I bit down onto my nails, an awful habit I had planned on quitting. "Not that big a deal?" She sat forward, hanging her long legs off the end of the bed. "You've got to be kidding me. How did that even happen?"

I spent the next few minutes recalling all that I could remember from the night, ranging from playing beer pong with Tyler, to somehow ending up in the back of Josh's car and having him haul me up to my room, including the fact that my mother had somehow met him in the early hours of the morning.

"He must've left a good impression on Diane." Valentina winked, to which I threw a pillow towards her from the chair I was sat on. "Honestly, I just couldn't imagine him having a conversation with anyone other than Tyler and Harvey."

Valentina grimaced covertly when Harvey's name left her lips, but I knew it was better to have her tell me what was up between the both of them when she was ready. "I just don't think I can face him at school tomorrow." I leaned back in the chair, running a hand through my hair and sighing.

And although Valentina and I had spent the rest of our Sunday lounging around with her reassurance as often as she could provide, I still felt sick to my stomach at the thought of going into school and avoiding him as best as I could.

"Hold on Savannah, we need to speak with you." The all too familiar tone of my mother's voice sounded after I had closed the door on Valentina and made my way towards the stairs to retreat back into my bedroom.

When I sat down on the couch, I stared nervously into the eyes of my parents, expecting the conversation I had been dreading and anticipating for the past few months.

"Your father and I will be going away for a month." However, when those words had left my mother, I furrowed my eyebrows deeply and switched my gaze between the both of them. "We suggested that we needed a vacation away from all this. And since you're still in school, it will just be the two of us."