Old Friend | Valerie Tulle

Chapter Six

 "Valerie!"

 The shouting was accompanied by the loud knocking on her door.

 "Valerie, it's Arthur! Look, I still don't really understand what happened, and I just want to see you."

 Valerie didn't move to answer the door. She wasn't sure if she wanted to see him, or what she wanted at all.

 "Valerie!" More knocking. "Please let me in. If you don't want to see me, just say so. I'll understand. But, Valerie, please say something, anything." And then, in a softer voice, "I just want to know that you hear me."

 Arthur waited faithfully outside the door. She was there. He knew she was. He had to wait for her to respond.

 He continued to wait, until he heard the sound of the door being unlocked, and opened to reveal Valerie on the other side.

 "I've been waiting for you," he said.

 She nodded. "I know." She stepped to her right. "You can come in."

 "Thank you." He stepped over the threshold into her little flat. "Valerie, I know I must have said something that upset you last night. Can you please tell me what it was so I can apologize?"

 "No matter what it is?" Valerie asked. "Even if it were something you were right about?"

 "I would apologize if it hurt you."

 Valerie looked away from him, staring absently out the window. "Have I ever told you about myself?"

 "Well, you did tell me some of it last night," Arthur said. "Are the others really all dead? All of them except you?"

 She nodded. "Every one. Sit down, Arthur. You should hear the truth, and do not interrupt me until I'm done.

 "You know Lily took me in, that she loved me like her own. Once, in 1864, she sent me to check up on her real son, a boy my age named Stefan. He was wonderful, and I fell in love. I became pregnant with his child, and we were going to run away together. But Julian discovered I was pregnant, and he made sure I miscarried. I lost my child that night.

 "We were desiccated for a century, trapped in a place called the Prison World, because of what we were. Heretics, I mean. When we were awakened in the twenty-first century, we were in Mystic Falls, Virginia, Lily's old home. I was reunited with Stefan, but he was in love with someone else. He had never known about the child I lost; I had never told anyone, in fact.
 
 "Lily died trying to stop Julian, and I mourned her. But she was avenged; Stefan and I took care of Julian later. And, one by one, my fellow heretics died. Stefan was marked by Rayna Cruz, a vampire huntress. He and I spent three years travelling the world together, and it felt like we were falling in love all over again.

 "But, of course, that had to end. Rayna Cruz was eventually killed, and we returned to Mystic Falls. Even though I thought that perhaps Stefan still loved me, it was rather obvious he continued to be in love with Caroline, the woman he was with before. I knew leaving him was the right thing to do, so that's what I did. And then I left Mystic Falls, and I'm never going back. I decided to leave the entire country, so I choose London."

 Valerie leaned back against the sofa. "That's it, Arthur. My whole, ugly story."

 A silence settled in. Valerie stared down at her hands, unable to look Arthur in the eye, while he sat staring at her, simply dumbfounded.

 "Valerie." Arthur moved closer and took her hands in his. "If I knew all of that, I wouldn't have tried to rush anything. I would have given you more space."

 She nodded. "I believe you would have. I'm sorry I didn't try to open up more. But I don't want you to think of me differently. I'm still the same old Valerie, really."

 "Valerie Tulle, I know exactly how I feel towards you." Arthur leaned in and kissed her again, and Valerie did nothing to stop him that time.