THINKING 'BOUT YOU

T W O

Apollo’s POV

I heard her voice and my body shivered, she’s here again, after all, I have done to her she is back in this very place.

She knows that I’m the one who is going to shoot her, it is always me. They think we make magic together and they like it.

It is an infinite loop of us seeing each other.

The girl that I used to see in her, disappeared, now she is a whole new person.

Valentinna is what they call her but we had a name for each other, some people had heard it and said it was cute but they probably never knew what it meant.

What it meant to us nor what it meant as the true word because it is Italian, I called her Reginetta, which means little queen and she called me vita mia, which means my life.

Some would simply smile at the nicknames but they don’t even understand how much we meant it, how much the nicknames were real.

She was my little queen and had been for a long time. 

About me being her life, I’m not sure about it. I destroyed everything she had in hers leaving her broken, the only thing that I didn’t want to do to her is what ended up doing, and well…

I wished that I was good enough for her because she deserved so much better than me. We know each other since we’re kids and I have always loved her in a way that I didn’t understand at the time…

The feeling I felt was love, I always loved Val more than anything and I still do, when she texted me yesterday night, I felt everything coming back at once.

The love

The guilt

And all of the memories that we had made together, we’re floating through my mind. But well I knew she was drunk when she face-timed me.

She was on a couch, and there was music playing super loudly so I knew she was at a party, but I remembered how she hated parties because everyone was drinking and smoking something there.

Val used to hate drinking, she said that she didn’t like to forget things and now there she is, going to a party the day before being with me, that says something about how I made her feel.

From the beginning, I didn’t want to love her as I did because I’ve always known what happened to the people I loved…

I tried to love other girls so that I could forget about Val but that girl never left my head, not letting me find peace of mind before I was with her.

Valentinna is unforgettable, even if people are not like that, she does make it feel that way. Every day, since we’ve broken up my mind has been around her, and now that I’m going to see her and photograph her, trying to make the magic that we did together, but now I feel alone.

I was just making some things on the camera, setting it right, and making something wrong on purpose so that I had more time to finally mentally prepare myself to see the person that I’ve broken, in front of me again.

She yells a ‘hola, everyone'  and my heart skips a beat, her voice is still the same but it’s colder now like she had given up on all of her emotions and was now greeting everyone so that people don’t think she’s disrespectful.

Even if we all know that she isn’t.

Val changed, on the way she talks, on the way she walks, and on the way she gets dressed. 

Before everything happened, she used to use more colorful clothes and said that she expressed her feelings through her clothes but now that she’s wearing all black.

She walks to the place where we’re taking the pictures after Kat, told her to. 

Instead of sitting down with the rest of us she simply lay down on the floor and stared at the ceiling, like she was thinking about everything and nothing.

Like she was letting herself fall into the dark thoughts that had been created in her little head, the only thing I wished right now is that I could be there with her.

But I can not do anything, because this is all my fault…

Her friend Dami says something and everything I can hear is ‘ I’ve already given up on everything’ and those words came from my queen’s mouth.

And that broke my heart, a little bit more if that was even possible. The pieces that were already broken were now breaking once moring, being almost invisible.

She looks at me, her brown eyes look darker and she looks tired like she hasn’t had a good night of sleep in a couple of days…

Val had always had some insomnias and when her anxiety was bad, she couldn’t sleep, I would try to calm her down and talk with her until she fell asleep to the sound of my voice, and it worked so well.

I was glad that I was helping her but now it looks like it had come back to what it was once before.

Author’s POV

When Apollo heard about Valentinna’s brother coming he felt his blood rushing through his body, all of the things that he had done to his queen were now back to his mind, all at once.

Making him angrier than ever.

But he knew he had to control himself, for her, only for her.

Val knew that Apollo was mad, he was there for her when everything happened and now they would both see that guy again. But there is no way out now…

Lewis walked into the room, his dark brown hair was styled and he was wearing dark clothes just like his sister.

Even when they don’t plan, they’re matching.

This is what they used to call, twin union.

When they would randomly start talking at the same time and say the same things, or would match clothes without noticing what they were doing.

In the beginning, everyone thought it was planned because that was always happening and was too perfect to be true, but ends up that over the years that thing still happens, even when they’re mad at each other. 

“ And the Dior siblings are finally reunited,” Katerina whispered to herself as she watched the scene happen, she should have warned Val and she was aware of that.

But she knew the girl’s temper and she was afraid of Valentinna suddenly canceling everything just like she did last time when discovered that her brother would be here as well.

The Dior siblings were known for their beauty and how they looked so perfect together, but get it twisted, the brand Dior and the Dior siblings have nothing to do with each other. It is their family name and it just ended up happening.

They both stared at each other and if looks could kill, both of them would be in a dangerous battle to see who dies first.

Probably both of them would die.

Valentinna knew how to be professional when she needed to but seeing Apollo and Lewis in the same place made her feel triggered, and anxious.

A feeling that she had been struggling with for a while now.

One of the workers decided to get things started, taking the twins that wouldn’t even share a word with each other to the place they would be shooting as nothing had happened between them.

Like they were the perfect twins and were always happy, little do they know.

Valentinna and Lewis had heard about a lot of twins who wanted to be like them, beautiful and perfect, but those innocent souls don’t know what happens when no one is watching.

Lewis has some issues that he needs to take care of, on his own. And Valentinna just made some when she broke up with Apollo, letting herself fall and break because there was no safety net.

The shooting started and Valentinna was trying her best, to make sure that she didn’t look like she wanted to murder her brother and that she didn’t have a relationship with the photographer, even though the media knew they were together and knew part of their stories.

They have never figured out what went wrong between the couple.

And they never plan on telling them what went wrong, because deep down they want people to still think that they’re together and they love all of the fanfictions that have been written about Valentinna and Apollo.

When they couldn’t sleep, that’s what they would read. Imagining everything that, that one writer wrote on a simple website just to have some fun, but ended up helping the main characters maintain their sanity, even without knowing it.

But that is just one of the reasons why they wouldn’t say anything, the second being because they didn’t know how to explain why they had broken up.

It was a feeling not really a reason, Apollo was scared of breaking the girl he loved and Valentinna felt like she was doing something wrong in the relationship because Apollo wouldn’t tell her how he felt.

Valentinna understood Apollo’s point, but she had grown up, she would never stay the same as she was a kid, things change and the way people act does too, it happens it’s a natural thing.

No one stays the same their entire life.

Some change because they feel like they’re living wrong if they won’t.

Some change because they read a book or see a movie and suddenly their point of view about life, changes making them change too.

And some simply change because of someone, because someone broke them so badly that they could not stay like that, being themselves made them think about the loved one that they had lost.

That broke them even more.

But none of these options were what happened to Valentinna, she had changed because she saw the world in a different way when she was with Apollo, every simple act that he did would make her happy and she was pleased with every little thing.

Valentinna didn’t change because she was broken, she changed because she was in love.

She never got the chance to tell that to him, but she will, maybe one day in the future she will be brave enough to go back and talk to him about what happened.

Now she wanted to focus on the present, which was being hard for her. 

Before everything she would simply be herself in the camera and somehow Apollo would make her look good, and when she was with her brother they would simply have fun and Apollo would again, make the look good.

But now that none of them will talk to each other, Val was having a hard time trying to contain her emotions and not break out in the middle of that room.

She couldn’t find comfort in her brother and neither in Apollo. Her friend Dami hasn’t been with her for a while so she wouldn’t understand what had happened, Val would have to explain and she really doesn’t want to do that.

As the photoshoot went on, they finally had a pause. Valentinna was the first one to leave, she needed some time alone to think.

Being with the two people that you’re not fine with is and pretend you’re totally fine with both of them, is not a good feeling.

Val is not a fan of lying she always like to tell the truth and what she thinks, but there are times where she can’t do everything she wants, for the sake of the people around her, she will have to stay quiet and don’t say anything about her feelings.

About how pressed she feels and how she just wanted to go to her apartment and be there on her own, relax and maybe read a book.

Don’t talk to anyone for a moment and just let the mess that is in her mind right now, calm down, and maybe become something that makes sense, it never does.

It’s like her mind is incomplete and needs someone to help her understand it, Valentinna always said that she’s not meant to understand herself because when she was with Apollo, he understood her more than she will ever understand herself.

And now here she is, instead of taking a break she is letting her mind fill-up with thoughts, and all of them are about him…

She knows she has to learn how to control her mind but until now it has been an impossible mission, it sounds easy doesn’t it?

All she has to do is forget him and move on, but when you love someone so deeply it gets hard to let them simply vanish and try to love another person, and hope that relationship will end better than the last one did.

When a tall woman arrived at the place, Valentinna didn’t even try to know who she was, she is trying to think and calm her nerves and no one is going to distract her now, not even if she was going to probably work with her in a couple of minutes.

Katerina came into the little space where Val was hidden, she was trying to breathe outside but everything she was doing was hiding, even more, letting it be almost impossible to breathe in that little corner.

“ You need to calm down, I can see right through your face that something is wrong,” she whispered, crouching down to the place where Val was. “ What happened?” She asked even if she knew that Val wouldn’t answer, she never does.

Every time something is wrong she keeps it to herself or would simply talk with Apollo, but now there is only one option.

“ Nothing.” She simply said, so that she wouldn’t leave her friend without any answer.

“ If you say so….” Katerine let her voice fade off, making Val look up to see what she was doing, she kept staring at a place where Valentinna could not see if she didn’t stand up, so she slowly did.

Slowly standing up so that Katerina won’t stop her from seeing whatever is happening.

And that’s when she saw that the tall girl that had come in a couple of minutes ago was now with Apollo, and she was pretty sure that it wasn’t anyone family related to him…

That broke her heart a little, she knew that they would have to move on eventually but not so fast?!

Now her head was even worse than it was when she came out, now the thought of him never loving her was the only thing that she could think of, but she would have to ignore it for more than an hour and a half or so.

Katerina looked behind her just to find her heartbroken friend a little more broken, so she hugged her, not even trying to talk to the girl that would never answer…

And that hug could look like a normal hug but to Val, it felt like she had someone to hold on to, someone that would help her not giving up on everything.

That is exactly what she needed at this moment.

Silently walking back to where the shoot was happening, the two girls sat down waiting for everyone to come back.

Lewis as the good brother that he tries to be was a little worried about his sister but could not bring himself to ask her what was going on or simply comfort her.

Even after all the fights that they had, they’re still twins, and that can not be changed.

He still loves her as his little sister and she loves him as the annoying brother that calls him little sister because was born 5 minutes before her.

The photoshoot would start soon and Lewis would take that as an opportunity to talk to his sister, it has been almost a year since they’ve talked and he missed her, so much that she could never even imagine it.

And somehow Lewis noticed that something wasn’t great between Apollo and Val, last time they had been all together their eyes sparkled like they were the only person in the room, random smiling when they looked at each other, you could notice they were in love from miles away.

Now there is no sparkle in their eyes, but pain, he could see it in them and the way they were trying not to make eye contact for too long gave it all out.

They broke up, but why? 

That is something for Lewis to discover later, for now, he’ll try to make peace with his sister.