That age difference thing is not that important tbh, they had their kids at 18 mostly so they are between 36 and 40, it's not that old. If we say Gabi is early 30s and Ximena 36, their friendship is not unlikely one. Let's create a scenario that works for them. Let say Ximena Val's mother and she had her at 18, like Emily did she give a break to university for 2 years. One is for the pregnancy and another one for taking care of Val. Then returned back to university. If Ximena and Gabi went to same university, Gabi in her freshmen year and Ximena on her senior year, match the 6 years difference. They could be university friends and that makes them friends over 10 years. If after graduation Ximena left for bigger city for her acting career, that makes Val 4 years old which is also fitting when she left Madison Spring. There could be a lot more different scenarios to their friendship and age difference work. I definitely don't think Val's father Santiago though.
