Entry #23: Written August 7th
Dear Diary,
I don't feel like starting off with any type of happy note, so I'm just going to tell about the terrible day I had. This day tops when I first met Fletcher.
There are rare occasions when I cry in front of someone, and I can only recall twice when I cried in front of Skulduggery. This day, however, I didn't care at all. Alaire's death still had hit me hard, and Aya had told me it wasn't my fault, but I couldn't take it. Today, I was curled up in the chair in the study Gordon used to use when he'd come here, and I had a huge wad of tissues in my hand. A few of Gordon's books were scattered near me, begging me to read them, but I knew I'd end up soaking the pages from my tears. I wiped my eyes slightly. There was a knock at the door, and before I could tell whoever it was to go away, Skulduggery pushed open the door and sighed sympathetically.
"Oh, Valkyrie," he said quietly, coming around to the side of the chair by the desk I was at. I avoided looking at him, so he grabbed my chin and pulled it to him.
"Get off," I said weakly and slapped his hand away. "Get off and go away."
"Come on, Val," he said. "Don't be like that. I didn't know him that well, but I don't think that Monsieur Rhett would want you to be like this."
I let out a quiet sob and instantly felt myself being pulled off the chair. Skulduggery placed me in his lap like a child. He took the tissues from my hands and pulled some more out of the box on the desk and wiped my eyes gently.
"Valkyrie, promise me that you'll get over this eventually. It's so terrible when you're like this. I hate it."
I shrugged and sniffed. "No telling when though. I just can't…I can't fathom that he's dead."
Skulduggery nodded. "As long as you'll be you at some point. No one is happy, and it'll all take us a while to get over it, but you must promise me you won't do something stupid and reckless when I'm not around. That tends to happen a lot."
I sighed and tried to get up, but Skulduggery held me closer. "Just sit for a while," he said in my ear, sending chills up my spine. "I want you to know that it's not your fault this happened."
I cuddled (oh geez, I seriously just said that) up closer to him, but stopped suddenly. "What did you just say? When did I say that is wasn't my fault?"
ANYONE KNOW WHERE THIS IS GOING?
"It's…" He paused, and released his hold on me. "It's not your fault that you're so upset."
"That is not what you said."
"I meant that, though."
"Doubt it. What did you say?"
He sighed and gripped my chin in his hands. "It's not your fault that he died."
And that is when it hit me. It hit me like a thousand bags of bricks. It hit me like the sidewalk below the Eiffel Tower would have if the Nottinghams hadn't caught me.
It hit me, and I couldn't believe it had.
I slapped away his hand. I stood up slowly, keeping a harsh gaze on him. Skulduggery staggered up, a pleading look in his eye sockets, if that was possible.
"You…" I couldn't think of what to say. This was the only thing that came out. "You…How dare you…" My brain worked wildly, trying to come up with a good enough come back to throw at the traitor.
I may not always be incredibly smart, and we've all been known to shoot some pretty stupid remarks and scenarios out, but I was able to work out what had happened.
"I-I didn't know what it was…" Skulduggery stammered quietly. "I didn't know that…you even had one. I found it, and now that you're so depressed, I just wanted to make sure you weren't thinking…bad things about your…life. I didn't know you had one…"
"Yeah, that was the point," I growled.
"Can you just be calm about this? Maybe it's the already over-hyped emotions-"
"You probably know all about them!" I shouted and cut him off. "Since you freaking read my diary!"
Glad I actually said it. Phew.
"Valkyrie, please. Can I just explain myself for a minute?"
"No." I crossed my arms and glared at him, grabbed my tissue box, then marched out of the study. I passed by China, who grabbed my arm and stopped me.
"What's going on?"
"Skulduggery's being a dick, that's what's going on," I replied and yanked myself from her grasp. China stared at me, then turned to Skulduggery and tilted her head.
"What did you do?" she asked him.
Skulduggery looked at me, then at her, and then at the floor. "Nothing," he mumbled.
"NOTHING?" I shouted, whirling around to stare down at him. "You think that was nothing? For God's sake, what in your opinion would be doing something mean and/or terrible? Clearly this doesn't count for anything at all! Were you playing a game? See how much you can eff up my relationship with you? You've been doing well so far you insensitive prick!" I fumed at him, threw the tissue box at his skull, and I ran. I jumped down the stairs a few steps at a time, pushing Fletcher out of my way and ran from the house.
I don't know how long I ran, but I do know that I ran at least four miles. There was something inside of me that just didn't want me to stop running, and I only returned back to the villa after a few hours.
The very last person I wanted to see was sitting on the front steps. No matter which way I went, he'd hear or see me. I tried thinking of a strategy to get around him, but I just gave up and stalked up to the front door.
Skulduggery looked up at me when I approached. He stood up frantically and ran over to me. He began to say something, but something suddenly took over me, and I punched him. He stumbled back from the force of my blow, and I thought he was going to retaliate, but instead he just stood there, clutching his jaw bone.
"I'm sorry," he merely said.
"What?" I snapped. "Do you think that's going to fix everything?"
"No," he said, "I just wanted to say that as a start."
"That doesn't even count as a start. That's just you being a coward because you don't want to admit what you did was terrible and wrong."
"Valkyrie Cain, what I did was terrible and wrong."
I glared and snarled and pushed past him and threw open the front door. Before I could it though, Skulduggery had slunk through, still holding his jaw.
"What's happening?" Tanith asked, coming from the kitchen, eating a cupcake she made out of boredom.
China suddenly appeared next to her and whispered something into her ear. A look of terrified realization glossed over Tanith's face, and she swallowed the rest of her cupcake and bypassed me and gripped Skulduggery's jacket. He shouted in shock as he dragged up the steps. We all heard a door slam a few seconds later, and silence settled around the house.
China disappeared again, and I stared blankly at the wall as Fletcher gingerly patted my shoulder as he passed me. Everyone cleared out of the first floor, and doors above slammed at different times.
I headed for the kitchen, and I instantly began getting out all the stuff to make bread with.
Why bread, you ask Diary?
Because whenever I'm made at Skulduggery, I make regular bread. When it's Fletcher, it's banana bread. Don't ask why, it just happens that way.
Anyway, after hours of just blindly throwing the ingredients together, I looked up to see Skulduggery creeping into the kitchen.
"Hello there," he began.
I didn't say anything.
"Making bread, I see."
I still didn't say anything.
"Valkyrie, please talk to me."
"Why don't you just read my diary, so you can see what I'm thinking right now?" I grumbled, ripping some dough up and hurling it at him. He avoided it, and we both watched it slam into the wall and stay there.
"I wouldn't do that…"
"What made you do it before, huh?"
"I didn't know what it was."
"So," I murmured, kneading the dough with everything in me, "seeing the words 'Dear Diary' at the top of the pages gave no indication that it was a diary?"
"I didn't ever see them…And by the time I realized what it was, I had already read some…"
"Are you blind?" I shrieked. "Or are you just really stupid?" I ripped off another piece of dough and threw it incredibly hard at him. It hit his suit coat and remained there. He yanked it off gently and set it on the counter. I still didn't stop my kneading.
"Don't over knead it now," he whispered.
"Shut up," I groaned.
"What can I do to make it better?" he finally muttered tiredly. "How am I supposed to make you forgive me?"
"By shutting up and leaving me alone!" I screamed, tearing open a drawer and picking up a sharp knife. I chucked it at Skulduggery, but it just hit the wall and lodged itself in there. Dang, I missed.
"Why are you overreacting like this?" he pleaded angrily.
"Overreacting?" I scoffed. "You read my diary. You read it while I was off, chained to a wall. Maybe I wouldn't be as mad if it was under slightly normal-er circumstances, but the fact that you went rooting through my stuff hurts. I really did trust you, you know."
"I wasn't rooting through your stuff! You left it on the floor, and I went to pick it up! And don't you remember how you said you'd never leave me, no matter what?" he suddenly said. "And we were going to be together forever? What happened to that?"
"It's your fault," I merely said. "You screwed up."
I stopped my kneading and went up to the wall with the knife. I yanked it out of the wall, and threw it in the sink.
"Will you just leave, for God's sake?" I grumbled angrily, turning back to the bread.
Skulduggery shook his head. "Can I please just give you my reasons for doing this?"
"You can talk," I replied, "but no guarantees that I'll listen."
"As long as you won't throw a knife at me, then," he said.
"Valkyrie, you know that I don't want to screw up our relationship," he continued. "I was never sure of your feelings entirely before I read your, uh, diary, since I could never tell if we were flirting or just playfully arguing. But when I found out about everything you've…felt over the time here, I thought that maybe we could do something about that."
He paused, like he wanted me to say something, but I never did.
"Anyway," he said, "the reason I cornered you on July 19th was because…well I'm actually not sure. But I had figured, that since you had felt that way for so long, that you would go along with it."
I snorted.
"It was a logical thought."
"Yeah, if I was an easy girl that'd make sense, Skulduggery," I mumbled. He sighed. It seemed like he was about to say something else, but he just turned around sadly and marched up the stairs. I could hear angry and flustered whispers coming from the stairs, but no one came down or anything.
Just as well, though.
Diary, the thing I feel the worst about is that during Skulduggery's little speech about how he thought he could seduce me since I had loved him for so long, is that he didn't say he felt the same for me.
That's what hurts the most, actually.
~Valkyrie
Does anyone hear that?
Oh, that's just my big, warm heart beating. See, from your reviews, I figured I could post this equally depressing chapter tonight. Yes, it's early, but I figured I could be nice and update again, since I had this one done too. But I really just wanted to post the previous chapter by itself. I dunno why, I just did.
Anyway...
Hey, Basic-Bookworm and Cernunnos Cain. Remember when you said in your reviews that it would be awesome if Skulduggery had read Valkyrie's diary? And then I replied to you two, saying that that would have been a really great idea, and I hadn't thought of it?
I LIIIIIIIIIIIIIED :DDDDDD
Well, I hope you don't hate me for this XD I do hope you liked it though, and thanks for reading! Sorry for mistakes! :D
