Author: * starmindy *
Disclaimer: see first chapter. I borrowed the plot from from a book called Say Goodnight
Gracie. I don't know if anyone has
read it, but highly recommend you do.
Summary: Val tries to cope.
Author's Notes: I hope you like this chapter, because it
took me so long to find the perfect angle! Also I finally decided that this story place in the following school
year, after the season finale.
Val slowly emerged from her family's car and looked up at the church where Tyler's funeral was going to be held. Her mind began to reel and she knew she couldn't go in there, she couldn't say goodbye, not yet, it was too soon.
"Mom," Val said, trying to keep her composure from falling apart, "I'm going to walk home, I just can't go in there."
"Okay, we'll see you at home," Her mom said, not wanting to cause her already hurting daughter more pain.
As Val walked through the snow and tried not to slip on the ice her thoughts turned to Tyler and their relationship. She wanted him to be with her now, to comfort her. But he wasn't there and never would be because someone had had no place better to vent their anger than on their innocent classmates, who were too young to die, way too young.
Val suddenly found herself a cross the street from her school. She wanted to run away from the place that was the source of her nightmares and had taken Tyler away from her, but something made her walk across.
On the field at the back end of the school a memorial was forming. The memorial had been decided to be put there, because all of the eight victims were athletes and had been most of there free time in that area, Julia and Grace had been on cheerleading, Kimberly, Tracey, and Erin, had been on soccer, Justin and Gabby had been on Cross Country, and Tyler along with Chris had been on football.
There was only one other person at the memorial at that time and it was A.J. Val had seen him a few times after the shooting when they both happened to visiting Catie at the same time. She could tell from his red eyes that he was crying or recently had been; something that Val had been doing a lot lately. "They say that 'when the tears on the outside the inside is healing,' my inside sure has been doing a lot of healing lately." He said as she approached.
"I think we'll need a lot to get through this," Val said leaning down next to him.
"We'll need more than healing to get through this. She had such a great feature in front of her," he said gesturing at a picture of Gabby smiling, "She had a family I sometimes wished was my own, a nice boyfriend who treated her well," Val remembered when Hank first asked Gabby out she didn't know who was happier, Gabby or Hank, "And then that jerk had to go destroy all of that. What had Gabby ever done to him? Gabby never did anything to anyone!" A.J. said and then quickly added, "I'm sorry you had to hear that. It just makes me so upset!"
"I know how you feel, it just isn't fair," Val said, "None of this is fair, this shouldn't have even happened." Finally Val couldn't hold it in anymore and burst into tears. A.J. put a protective hand around Val and let her cry in his arms for the next half hour.
A/N: Hope you liked it!!! And when you review could you put a rating of 1 to 5 (5 being the best and 1 being the worst) because I'm using the data for a math project. Thanks!!!