THINKING 'BOUT YOU

Valentinna’s pov It was a normal morning but my head was a hurting mess, I don't know what I did yesterday all I remember is that I went to a party and then is all black... Ignoring the obvious headache, I slowly get up from the bed and open the curtains, the light’s blinding me slightly but I feel like I should open the window anyway. The silence fills the room as I look at the window seeing the sun up and soft colors in the sky… What time is it? I walk to the nightstand and pick my phone which surprisingly is with battery, checking the time and taking in that is almost 3 pm, I then notice that is Saturday. Oh, okay I'm good. If it was a weekday I would be screwed, on weekdays I usually do something and I'm very productive. Since I've broken up with him, I've been trying to change my life, I glowed up and realized how much it is true what they say. When you broke up with a boy you realize you never loved, glow-ups happen and you can make that boy question his whole life. Now, I even got my dream job as a model but I didn't really get over the relationship part. No, I didn't love him, but he made me feel loved and I liked it and now I don't have anyone. To be honest, I'm good with it, it was harder in the beginning but now I'm getting used to it Being alone in an apartment in New York is not as hard as it sounds, actually, it is peaceful and I feel… Free? The fact that I can put music on my collum in the mornings and just vibe around the apartment, is wonderful. Some girl that I know wanted to move to New York with their best friends and live together, but well… All of my best friends’ left me, so as my dear boyfriend, and that left me here In an apartment in New York, don’t regret it. Now that I’m alone, I can do whatever I want in this apartment, and this time I’m not talking about the music. Leaving my room and walking to the bathroom right next to it, letting the cold water hit my skin as I get in the shower. It makes me shiver because of the sudden temperature difference but I don’t care. I like the feeling of the cold water touching my skin in a soft pattern, some people hate cold showers but to be honest, I love them. It makes me wake up in the morning so I’m never sleepy when I’m doing basic stuff throughout the day, it actually has a lot of good parts. But ignoring that, and getting out of the shower because I have some things to do. I wrap the towel that I had warmed up around my body and walk to the room, opening my closet I look at the clothes, trying to decide what I’m going to wear today. I go for some black leather pants with combat boots and a simple black top with long sleeves and simply to complete the look I grab a white purse to make the contrast. The look is done and now all I need are some accessories and to take care of my hair so I walk again to the bathroom and decide to simply straught my hair. Making my long black hair hit my lower back, opening the drawer, and looking at all of the rings and necklaces that I have, I simply take off some rings and put them on. I don’t want to wear too much today, going to be simple but pretty. Grabbing all of the makeup and skincare products that I need, which are not a lot because my skin is almost perfect, I start making magic on my face and when I’m done I smile a little. Enjoying the image that I have in front of me now. Self-love is something that I’m still struggling with but it’s getting better every day. Looking the way I want to and being the person I dreamed of when I was a kid, is helping because I feel like my 5th-grade self would be so proud of me now. Everything that I’ve done and every adventure that I got myself into was just something unrealistic to me when I was a child, I thought that I would be stuck with my parents my whole life but guess that didn’t happen. When I turned 18, I’ve traveled to New York so that I started college, and that did happen and it was a real dream. But now I need to go, putting my phone in my purse and walking out of my room, I also pick my car keys on the way to the car, the car that I was able to pay for, with the money I made. Being the owner of a successful brand at such young age does make you famous and most of all, rich. The decision of living in an apartment in New York was a simple choice, the apartment is not really small but it could be bigger if I wanted it to. Big places don’t usually feel home, even if I’ve never called this place a home one day I will. My home has a heartbeat, and now, the person that made the heartbeat is not here… And now is just a simple house once again. Opening my door’s car and letting myself rest there for a little bit, I’m not ready for today, this photoshoot is really important and I feel like I haven’t slept in ages, usually, models go to their photoshoots without makeup but at this point, they got used to me doing my own makeup there so now I leave home with my makeup on. I start the car and drive to the place where the photoshoot is going to happen, usually, I would be happy for a photoshoot but today I don’t feel like going anymore. But I don’t want to let them down… So I go even if I know that I’ll see someone that I don’t want to and all of the memories will start coming at once, it sounds like hell just the thought of that happening. Just the thought of seeing him again gives me shivers, and I didn’t want this reencounter to happen so soon, but it’s not like we have a choice. When I reach the place, my friend comes and starts talking to me, Dami is here since the beginning she was the one who supported me since the beginning, I didn’t want to start modeling and follow my dreams because I thought I wasn’t enough She was the one who gave me enough motivation to keep going, I would say that she’s the reason for me to being here. “ Hey,” she greets, I smile at her, it’s been a while since we’ve last talked but our connection is still the same. “ Hola,” I greet back, and she smiles while walking to hug me, I have missed her and there is so much that I have to tell her. “ I missed you, Val.” She smiles and hugs me once more, I missed her too, she doesn’t even know it and I can’t express it through words but I did miss her. “ I missed you too, dummy,” I say, twisting the way I say her name on purpose, she doesn’t really like it when I call her that but it is what it is. We walk to where the team is and I hope that the photographer is not the same as it was last time. But unfortunately, it was him, the guy I once loved now is the one that I never want to see in front of me again. The universe made him be the most well know photographer and now I can’t get rid of him, but we can make it work, all I need to do is make this photoshoot work and then simply ignore him. And get the hell out of her as soon as I can because I don’t think that I’ll be able to stay here with him for long without losing my mind. “ Hola, everyone!” I say loudly, this place is huge and has a lot of eco so I didn’t even need to try to make people hear me. Their heads turn to us and they all smile, it had been a while since I’ve come here because I didn’t want to see him, and now there is nothing I can do, but we’ve already talked about that. One of the women tells me to follow her and that is what I do, today’s photoshoot is just casual so I don’t need to change clothes, in fact, she told me that the ones that I was wearing were already perfect. Walking to the place where the photos are being shot I see him for the first time in months, his black hair was bigger just like I had asked him so many times and that is all I could see. A part of me is glad that I can’t see his face, I’m scared of falling for him again because I know that I’ll end up hurting myself badly. But the other part of me wanted to see his face, see if he had changed for someone or is the same boy that I met so many years ago because I’m not the same he met and he knows that. He destroys everything he touches and sometimes is like his mother already knew how he would be when he was born because even his name says what he does. “ Apollo, are you ready to shoot?” Someone asks. “ I’m always ready,” He smiles a little bit and then his attention goes back to the camera that he is setting for a while now. His voice is a dangerous sound, something that I’ve missed hearing, the one thing that he used to whisper in my ear is what I want to hear now but I0m not breaking that easily, I can’t break that easily. His name, Apollo... Means ‘ to destroy’ And that is what he does, he knows he does that and he warned me about it, in the begging he was excitant about me being with him, he said he didn’t want to break an innocent soul but he ended up giving up on it after a long time. We’ve first met when we were kids and our friendship went on and on but we both knew it would end up as something else. The night I told him that I had feelings for him, he tried to back away because he said that I was too good for him and he was scared he would lose me when he broke me. He was scared that I would change and I would turn into someone else, I promised him that, it would never happen and we would be okay. But it looks like I can’t keep my promises, I’ve changed a lot, and he did lose me, not entirely. He just needs to see that even though he broke me, I’ll always be here for him because wanting or not, I still love him. Sometimes I regret dating him because we could be okay now, befriends that hang out together and ended up working together as well but now there is nothing anymore. We dated for two years and we were happy, but now we’re just two strangers who have knows each other their entire lives. “ Valentinna!” Someone yelled, bringing me out of my thoughts. “ Are you ready?” I turn to the person who was yelling, it is Katerina, my manager, and friend, we’ve first met when I started my career and now we’ve been together since then. “ Yeah,” I simply reply, not wanting to talk too much. “ Go to your place and wait for a second because we will start shooting soon.” I nod and walk to the place she was talking about, right in front of Apollo because wanting or not, he is going to be the one who is going to shoot. I go there and lay down on the floor, opening my arms and legs a little bit and staying there. “ Are you really doing that?” Dami asks, and I lift my head, slightly enough to see her upside down behind me. “ What? Doing what?” It’s hard to speak like this, so my voice cracked slightly. “ Laying on the floor like you just died and gave up on everything,” She states and crosses her arms in front of her chest. “ Yes, of course, I’m doing this,” I smiled at her and she rolled her eyes. “ I did give up on everything,” I whisper and I didn’t think anyone heard but when I looked at Apollo to simply see what he was doing, he was looking at me. With a look on his eyes like he felt like it was his fault, like the fact that I gave up on everything was his fault… It wasn’t… It’s hard to believe but I gave up because I didn’t have reasons to go on with what I was doing, he was the one who kept me doing everything. I remember saying this morning that he was the boy I have never loved but actually, I’ve always loved him and always will. His blue eyes stare into my dark brown ones deeply, I feel the butterflies floating on my stomach. I missed the moments where we would simply look at each other under the sunset, while the sky was changing colors creating such patterns that are somehow unforgettable. “ Stand up, Valentinna,” Katerina said, she is the only one who calls me for my full name even when she’s not mad at me. “ You know that,” I make a pause while I’m standing up. “ You’re the only one who calls me that,” I say and she nods with a small smile on her face. “ I know, and I like being unique.” She tossed her hair behind her shoulder making me giggle slightly. She looked at me up and down for a second and then walked closer to me. “ You look different,” She states and her eyes fly all over my body once again. I do a little spin for her and then make a pose just for her. “ I like it,” She speaks and I giggle when she kisses me on the cheek. She started walking somewhere but turned back before totally disappearing. “ By the way,” She starts talking once again, catching my attention once more. “ You’re also the only one who calls me Katerina.” She smirks and I blow her a kiss. Making her giggle as she walks away. “ Let’s start this,” Someone said but another person interrupted. “ Wait, her brother is coming as well,” I turned to whoever spoke with confusion covered in my face. “ What?-” “ Nobody told you?” I shook my head negatively, so slowly that would make some scared. “ Katerina!” I yell and she appears again from wherever she went. “ Yes? What happened?” She asks as she looks around trying to find something out of normal. “ Don’t you think it would be a good idea to tell me that my dear brother would come today,” I say as I walk to her, one hand on my waist and the other one making gestures as I walk to her. “ I forgot sorry,” She shrugged like it was nothing special and walked away again, I was going to walk after her but someone grabbed my arm. “ Don’t kill her, come on, calm down,” Dami says and I turn to her, accidentally giving her a b***h look, but then turning it into a normal look again. “ He’s your brother after all.” I sigh, not wanting to discuss anything about the human that I call brother. We haven’t seen each other in forever and the last time we saw each other things didn’t go well. It looks like today isn’t going to be one of the best days, seeing my brother and a person who I still love in the same place is not a good feeling, but okay I guess I’ll have to deal with it. Looking at Apollo one more time before trying to avoid it as much as I can, I see that he has pity in his eyes, maybe because he knows that I’ve changed quite a lot since I’ve last seen him and thinks it was his fault. Or maybe because he still remembers all of the fights that I had with my brother, he was there while they were happening, he protected me every time my brother was about to do something he could regret. Apollo was always there, in the good and bad moments. In the moments we would want to forget forever and in the moments we would want to relive once more. In the moments that we wanted to end everything and in the moments we just wanted to start something new. But now, that I’m on my own because something changed between me and Apollo, he was too afraid of breaking me that ended up doing it anyway without even noticing it. I don’t blame him, to be honest. Now that I don’t have anyone to protect me from my dear brother, I have no idea about how this is going to happen… Maybe I’ll finally learn how to deal with him, or maybe things will go so badly, so badly that I’ll never speak to my brother again, even if we want to make peace again. My brother had broken me and then built me up just to destroy everything once more, it’s like every man in my life is going to destroy me and well. They’re now all in the same room.