The Woman With An Ice Heart

Chapter Eighteen

Valerie's POV (EdItEd)

As I remembered what happened that night, I couldn't help but smile. I was standing in front of his room, after saying yes to his asking me to be his girlfriend. His face broke into a huge grin and he pulled me to him and kissed me senseless. When he let me go, I was a heady mess.

He took me out on a date Friday night. He had planned it by the waterfall that was close to his house, and by close, I mean an hour's drive away. I wondered how he'd planned all this, but then when we had returned, Claire came to my room and began to ask me about the date. After using the Sherlock Holmes skills I had under my sleeve, she caved and told me that he'd come to her and asked for help.

Claire's shaking brought me back to present life. We had just gotten into church, and were waiting for the service to start.

"You alright there?"

I quickly looked down and played with my fingernails.

"Yeah, I'm good. Why do you ask?"

"Oh, you know, you're zoning out with that glossy look in your eyes. You're thinking about my brother, aren't you?"

I laughed, trying to make it seem like she was wrong, but it appeared that she didn't buy it because of her sly grin on her face.

"What!!!??? Psshht......."

She laughed slightly and looked around. Greg and his family were sitting a lane behind us, and they were having an animated conversation with their daughter about Noah and the ark. Some people were standing outside chatting.

"Why didn't you invite Max to come with us today?"

I sighed.

"I wanted to, but when I went to his room and knocked, he didn't answer. I got in and saw that he had already left."

She sighed too.

"Too bad."

People began to get in, signalling that the service was to begin. When everyone had settled, we began to sing our hymns and then had the main service in the mid morning. The topic was forgiveness. The story was of when Jesus said that men should forgive seventy times seven times. He also told us that we should learn to forgive those who do bad to us, so that God also forgives us for our sins as well.

What he said reminded me of when I was angry at my biological parents for leaving me at the orphanage. I wondered why they saw that the orphanage was the best place for me to live. As I got older, I realized that maybe they were too young to have a family, or they did not have a home to keep me in, or weren't financially able to take care of me.

I forgave them for that. Maybe, the orphanage was the best thing that happened to me. I could've been at a bad place.

After the service, as we were going home, I ended up thinking of Max and his mom's situation. I didn't think that they were in good terms, but I didn't want to talk about it with him. When he was ready to talk about it, then we'd discuss it.

The week that proceeded to go by was pure bliss. Max would come to my room in the morning at half five. I, not being a morning person, didn't like this one bit. He had an indoor gym where he did his exercises, where he wanted me to go with. See, I didn't say yes so that I could exercise with him. I said so that I could see him exercise. He was very well built and healthy, having a Greek like body that was just beyond beautiful. I couldn't help but stare at him.

I'd help him out with some of his exercises. This always ended up in him not exercising, wanting to kiss me every chance he got, doing sit ups and press ups mostly. At first I obliged to his silly antics, but then I ended up telling him that I'd no longer come with him if he wasn't going to concentrate on his exercises.