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Kate Argent sweeps into Victoria's life with all the noise and commotion of a thunderstorm.
It's a sticky night in late July. The air is completely stagnant, heavy as a blanket over the entire town. Victoria can hear an air conditioner chugging away downstairs but none of its relief reaches Chris' bedroom. Even with the window open, there's sweat coursing down her neck and curving around the back of her knees. Really, it's too warm and too late in the night to do much of anything but try to sleep, but Victoria has no interest in sleeping.
Not so long as Chris Argent remains between her legs.
His stubble has scraped her throat nearly raw and his hand is heavy at her waist, thick fingers tucked just underneath the hem of her shirt. The skin on his back is taut and flame-hot underneath her palms and she can only guess how many paths her sharp fingernails have traced down his spine.
But still, no matter how much she's enjoying his company, if he doesn't soon figure out her not so subtle hints and slide his hands under her skirt (or even up her shirt), she might just get up and leave.
Of course, just at the moment where his fingers begin to brush lower along the line of her hipbone, a resounding crash comes from outside the window.
Chris is up and off her in what seems like a split second, and if it weren't for her frustration, Victoria would take a moment to admire his speed. As is, she sits up and leans back against the headboard while he yanks a sharp hunting knife from his bedside table and stares at the window. It's impossible to see anything moving in the darkness beyond the wire screen, but something is definitely scuffling around out there.
Chris takes a single, purposeful step towards the window but before he can move any closer, the screen shoots up and a whirlwind somersaults in.
It takes a few moments for Victoria to reconcile what she sees as an actual person. For a few moments, it’s just details; a teased snarl of dark blonde hair, a pair of heeled boots dangling from thin fingers, an orange bra strap peeking out from underneath a tank top. Finally, everything comes together to form the image of a woman, who bears just enough resemblance to Chris for Victoria to make a conclusion.
"Kate, what the hell are you doing?" Chris hisses, lowering the knife an inch.
"The door was locked," she says with a slight frown, lips reflective with gloss. "And I didn't want to wake up Dad."
"Especially not when you smell like that," Chris mutters, mouth curling sharply. "How much did you drink?"
"Enough for it to be none of your business," Kate retorts with a haughty toss of her tangled mane of hair. With that, she turns to Victoria and flashes what is probably meant to be a grin, but twists more into a smirk that looks almost feral on Kate's sharp face.
"You must be Victoria," she says, raising a hand tipped with fingernails the same shade as her bra. "Kate. I'm glad to finally meet you."
"Me too," Victoria says, trying not to notice that there's a ragged tear near the hem of Kate's thin tank top, exposing a tan strip of skin that makes the back of Victoria's neck flush with heat.
She blames it on the temperature.
Chris essentially throws Kate out of the room moments after. She vanishes in a haze of perfume and lingering booze and, maybe just to spite Chris, she leaves her boots sitting right by the door. He mutters something under his breath before collapsing back on the bed, taking up so much space that Victoria finds herself pressed against the wall.
"Sorry about her," he says, wincing slightly as a door down the hall slams.
"Don't worry about it," Victoria replies, taking a single breath before she slides on top of him and kisses him until there isn’t a single thought remaining in her head.
Two hours later, she leaves Chris sleeping in his bed and silently closes his door behind her. She takes a single step towards the stairs when someone clears their throat behind her.
When she glances back over her shoulder, she has to use all of her effort to maintain a poker face.
Kate is leaning casually against the wall, party clothes swapped out for pajama shorts and another tank top, just as ragged as the last one. Her feet are bare and her hair is still a disaster, draping down over her tan shoulders and the jut of her collarbone.
"Watch the third step," she says. "It squeaks. I'll lock the door behind you."
"Thanks," Victoria says with a nod. It comes out curtly, but Kate doesn't seem bothered; if anything, she looks almost amused, eyes glinting slightly under heavily mascaraed eyelashes.
"Maybe you'll stick around longer than the other ones," she says thoughtfully before simply smirking and disappearing back into the darkened doorway that leads to her bedroom.
&.
Victoria sticks around.
A month turns into six, six turns into twelve, and living apart turns into living together. It’s an apartment on the fringes of Beacon Hills, barely big enough for the two of them, but they make do. More often than not, they’re on the road, bouncing between hotel rooms, carrying a crate of weapons in the back of their trunk, closing deals on behalf of Chris’ father.
It’s not a bad life. Victoria never got a chance to travel much as a child. Sure, there were occasional trips to the bigger cities; San Diego, Las Vegas, even New York once. But she’s never actually just driven across the country, spent hours on blacktop after anonymous blacktop, watched as motels and gas stations flashed by the window. It’s new and exciting, causes just the perfect amount of danger to tingle at the base of her spine.
The only complication is Kate.
She makes a habit out of showing up without announcement or warning. She breezes into their motel rooms wearing leather jackets, carrying a different suitcase each time. When they come back from Nevada, or Utah, or Colorado, they find her on their couch, watching a black and white movie with her boots on the coffee table. More often than not, her and Chris end up fighting within an hour. Sometimes Kate storms out, sometimes Chris does, disappearing out the door with a muttered aside that they need milk or he has a meeting.
She’s a walking storm, both impulsive and incredibly calculating. She can stumble into their motel room reeking of whiskey one hour and yet close a deal with brutal efficiency the next. When she’s not tearing into Chris about something or another, they strategize like hardened veterans, scoping out new markets and figuring out new directions better than their father ever could.
Despite the arguments and screaming matches, Kate has a loyalty to her family unlike anything Victoria has ever seen.
But there’s no mistaking the intent lingering in her eyes every time Chris leaves them alone in the apartment or a motel room. Victoria has seen the signs from the beginning, seen the way Kate blatantly eyes her up, follows her around the room without moving from the sofa, makes comments that would make Victoria fume if they came from anyone else.
When they come from Kate, they end up lingering in her mind for hours, days, weeks, adding up, causing their next interactions to feel increasingly suffocating in the most pleasurable way possible.
Victoria has no intentions of leaving Chris any time soon.
But she’s not sure how much longer she can suffocate without needing to breathe.
&.
After a year and a half, Chris proposes.
Victoria says yes.
She knows that it’s a hopeful thought, but maybe having a ring on her finger will be enough to deter Kate.
Maybe it will be enough to deter herself.
&.
If Kate is a thunderstorm, Kali is an unexpected supercell.
Victoria first meets her three months before the wedding. Kate hasn’t answered her phone in days and Victoria is sick of holding onto her bridesmaid dress. It’s a soft peach color, floor length and strapless, frothy around the bottom, like the foam from an ocean wave breaking against the shore.
Frankly, Victoria isn’t sure if she likes the dresses. It’s too late to change them now, but she thinks that peach was a mistake. She’s also not sure if she really wants Kate to be standing mere inches away from her at the wedding. She can already feel Kate’s eyes burning into her back as she stands at the altar.
Really, all that she is sure of is that she’s sick of seeing the dress hanging from their closet door every morning when she wakes up.
One morning, while Chris is still sleeping off a cross-country drive, she grabs the dress and takes his key ring, which has a key to Kate’s apartment on it. Regardless of whether or not Kate’s home, Victoria is getting rid of the damn dress.
She knocks twice on Kate’s door, knuckles connecting firmly with the thick wood. She can hear muffled voices on the other side, but it’s probably just the television; Kate isn’t exactly known for being environmentally conscious. She waits a few more moments and when no one comes, she drapes the dress over her arm and unlocks the door.
As it turns out, she wasn’t entirely wrong about the voices. Kate’s front door opens onto a tiny hallway, more of an alcove really, that leads directly into the living room. The first thing Victoria sees is that the television is on, playing what looks like a daytime soap opera.
The second thing she sees is Kate’s long, tousled hair dangling over the arm of the couch.
The third thing she sees is the person kneeling between Kate’s bare, spread legs.
The door swings closed behind her and Kate jumps slightly. After a moment, she arches her head back until it’s completely hanging over the arm of the sofa and she’s glancing backwards, upside down, face red and split in half by a wild grin.
She’s not wearing a shirt and Victoria can see a semi-circle of dusky pink skin peeking out from the top of her bra.
“Hi Vicki!” Kate says, like Victoria has interrupted nothing more serious than an afternoon movie marathon. “Is that my dress?”
“Yes,” Victoria says through gritted teeth, forcing herself to look at the television instead of the person between Kate’s legs (who hasn’t stopped moving their head). “I’m going to leave it in the kitchen.”
“That’s fine,” Kate says breezily. “Oh! This is Kali! Kali, say hi to my future sister-in-law.”
Kate makes the phrase sound like a curse.
Not for the first time, Victoria wonders if she should entirely ban Kate from the wedding.
Kate’s partner sits back on her knees and wipes off her lips with the back of her hand. Even then, her chin remains glistening and both her grin and the glint in her dark eyes matches Kate’s.
“Hi,” Kali says, tossing her long, pitch black hair over her shoulder. “Nice to meet you.”
“Indeed,” Victoria mutters before ducking into the kitchen and haphazardly draping the dress over a chair, leaving the bottom of it to puddle on the ground.
When she crosses back into the hallway, Kali is back in her former position. Kate’s fingers are tangled in her long hair and her nipples are even closer to popping out of her bra.
“Lock the door behind you!” she yells cheerily, voice trailing off into a delighted moan.
Victoria doesn’t lock it, but she pulls it shut hard enough for the doorknob to rattle between her fingers.
She takes a moment in the parking lot to gather herself. Her face still feels flushed, too full of blood, and she’s sure that a quick glimpse in the rear view mirror will reflect back red cheeks. Instead, she keeps her gaze fixed on where her knuckles are wrapped around the steering wheel, leaving grooves in the leather.
Her face isn’t the only part of her that feels flushed full of warmth.
She closes her eyes and breathes deeply. She can still see Kate and Kali, both of them grinning at her, totally and completely unashamed, displaying themselves so blatantly. It should make Victoria curl up her lip in a sneer, should make her be ashamed on their behalf.
She is ashamed, but only of herself, for wishing that she could have lingered in the hallway a little longer before Kate realized that she was there.
Once most of the heat has left her face, she starts the car and pulls out of the parking lot.
At the very least, she’s certain that she doesn’t have much to worry about on the Kali front. If she’s anything like the other people Kate has ‘dated’, she won’t be around for long. She’ll be in Kate’s life for a week, maybe three at the latest. As far as Victoria knows, none of Kate’s lovers have lasted longer than a month.
Victoria can manage for that long.
&.
Kali doesn’t leave.
When Victoria holds her bachelorette party three weeks before the wedding, Kate shows up forty-five minutes late to the bar, already well on the way to being inebriated. Kali is just behind her, wearing jeans and a crop top with a neckline that scoops down to the top of her bra, looking stone cold sober.
“Vicki!” Kate yells as she stumbles over their table. Victoria digs her nails into her palms.
(She’d never really cared one way or the other for the nickname before, but the more Kate says it, the more she grows to hate it.)
“You’re late,” Victoria says, taking a sip of her margarita, which is really more pure tequila than anything.
“It’s my fault,” Kali says, sliding onto the opposite bench beside one of Victoria’s high school friends and tugging Kate down with her. “I distracted her.”
“That’s one way to put it,” Kate says, wriggling until one of her legs is draped over Kali’s thigh. She drapes the rest of herself on the table, elbows somehow managing to avoid spilled drinks and crumbs from the appetizers that have already come and gone. “Are you ladies ready for shots? I’m buying.”
Before Victoria can say anything one way or another, Kate throws up her hand and grabs the attention of a passing server. She tugs him down to her ear by his arm and when she finishes whispering their order, he bustles away with a blush burning from the bottom of his neck to the tips of his ears.
Victoria automatically glances over at Kali, and finds the other woman already staring back at her. She doesn’t look the least bit bothered by Kate’s latest display. She simply raises an eyebrow and twitches the corner of her mouth before turning to Victoria’s friends.
“I’m Kali. It’s nice to meet you.” Her voice is smooth as glass and Victoria is sure that, under the right circumstances, it could be just as dangerous.
Just like that, burning heat flushes up the back of her neck.
&.
The alcohol continues flowing after Kate’s first round of shots and within an hour, Victoria knows two things.
She is almost certainly going to have a hangover come morning and Kali and Kate won’t stop staring at her.
As the night progresses, Kali’s eyes seem to turn darker and darker, until her irises are black as ink. She seems to be getting along well with Victoria’s friends, laughing and exchanging stories, but even when Victoria turns away, she can feel the exact moment that Kali’s eyes turn back to her. Kate’s do much the same, but Victoria memorized the feeling of that long ago.
She could handle them individually; she’s had to handle Kate on her own for far too long. But when combined, she can feel her resolve slipping away as heat builds in her face and her core.
Just before midnight, the party winds down. The bar is open for a few more hours, but two of Victoria’s friends have children to go home to and the others have work in the morning. They call cabs from the payphones in the lobby and after saying her goodbyes, Victoria slips into the last cab in line.
Before she can tell the driver the address, the other passenger door opens.
“Hope you don’t mind,” Kate says (or, rather, slurs), sliding across the bench seat until she’s pressed against Victoria’s side. “We’re on the way, after all.” Kali pulls the door shut and simply grins, flashing her too-white, too-sharp teeth.
Victoria presses her sharp fingernails into the meat of her palm, spits out her address between gritted teeth, and moves as far towards the door as she can.
For a few moments, she fools herself into believing that things might just be bearable. Kali and Kate are remarkably quiet, especially considering Kate’s state of near inebriation. They talk to each other in near whispers, heads bowed together, occasionally laughing quietly.
Even Kali’s laugh sounds like glass.
Eventually, even those sounds trail off and Victoria wonders if Kate fell asleep or simply got bored.
The thought has barely crossed her mind when she hears a moan.
The sound is quiet, no louder than the whispers from before, but there’s no mistaking it for anything else. When it comes a second time, Victoria slowly lets her eyes drift to the side, until she can see Kate in her peripheral vision.
Perhaps more importantly. she can see what’s going on between Kate’s legs.
Her knees are spread slightly and her leather skirt is pushed halfway up her firm, tanned thighs. Kali’s hand has disappeared underneath the hem and as Victoria watches, the skirt slides up an inch further, revealing a sliver of Kali’s wrist.
If Kate is uncomfortable, there’s no sign of it on her face. Instead, as Victoria watches, she drops her head back against the seat, long hair draping loosely over her shoulders, lips parted, one hand resting against Kali’s leg.
The other hand wraps around Victoria’s.
Victoria freezes and lowers her gaze to their hands. Kate's fingers tighten, squeezing in time with another moan. Her skirt drifts up even higher, high enough for Victoria to see Kali’s fingers disappearing under the edge of Kate’s underwear.
When Kate tugs on her hand, Victoria doesn’t pull away. She’s watching from somewhere outside of her body, unable to do anything but let Kate move her hand until it’s resting on her thigh. Kate’s skin is incredibly warm underneath her palm and her muscles are active, twitching when Kali twists her wrist slightly. Victoria knows that if she took control of herself and moved her fingers only a few inches upwards, she’d find even warmer skin.
With that realization, she yanks her hand away like it’s been branded.
“Stop here,” she yells to the driver, already fumbling with her seat belt. The driver pulls over to the side of the road and Victoria yanks a twenty from her purse hard enough to tear it slightly. She tosses it into the front seat and shoves the door open.
She’s still twenty minutes from home and in the heels she’s wearing, she knows that she’s going to ache by the time she gets there, but that’s more than worth being able to see Kate’s face peering at her through the window as the cab pulls away from the curb.
She thinks it might be the first and only time she’s seen Kate look confused.
After ten minutes, she gives up on the shoes and continues the rest of the way home with them dangling from her fingers, a switchblade tucked into her other hand, one eye on the shadows, almost hoping that someone pops out to attack her.
It would certainly distract her from the warmth that simply won’t leave her body.
When she lets herself into their apartment, Chris is sitting in the recliner in the living room, television turned down low, flickering blue light playing off his lightly stubbled face. There’s a folding table set up in front of him, covered with the pieces of a disassembled gun. As she drops her shoes and purse on the floor, he looks up from the component that he’s cleaning.
“I didn’t think you’d be home so early,” he says, setting the piece down. “Was it a good night?”
Victoria doesn’t think she could lie with a straight face.
So instead, she pushes the table out of the way, drops into Chris’ lap and presses her mouth against his, fingers curved around his jaw.
They don’t make it any further than the living room couch. After, when sweat is drying along Victoria’s spine and their clothes are spread across the room in puddles, Chris presses his lips against her temple.
“Did Kate behave herself tonight?” he asks, calloused fingers slowly brushing along her hip.
Victoria simply nods.
&.
Her last days as a legally single woman dissolve in the blink of an eye.
She can hear the crowd, small as it is, murmuring a few rooms away. She’s alone in the dressing room, her mother having vanished a few moments ago in a whoosh of perfume and a swish of her pastel skirt. Since then, Victoria has simply been staring at herself in the mirror, at the flush in her cheeks, the cinched waist of her dress, the swoop of her bare shoulders.
She looks uncomfortable at best, but when she plasters on a grin, she only looks worse.
It’s not that she regrets making it to this day. She wants to marry Chris. She doesn’t feel cold feet. She doesn’t have to stifle the urge to simply bolt from the building.
But she can’t help but wonder how Kate is going to look at her. Kate, who is going to be mere feet away from her, standing in a line with Victoria’s other bridesmaids. Kate, whose gaze usually feels like coals smoldering on the back of her neck.
Kate, who has been ruining her life from the day she first fell into it.
A knock at the door makes her tear her gaze away. She reaches for the organza of her veil, but decides to leave it pinned up for a moment longer.
As soon as she opens the door, she tries to slam it closed.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work; Kali grabs it in one strong hand, her fingernails painted bright red. Both of her thumbnails are too long, sharpened to near points, and Victoria yanks her eyes away from them before her mind wanders to how they would feel gently dragging down her spine or along her wrists.
“What are you doing here?” she asks, reluctantly stepping aside before Kali simply bowls her over. She’s in a sleek black suit and stiletto heels, which tap gratingly against the tiles as she strides in.
“We need to talk about Kate,” Kali says sharply, spinning around once she’s in front of the mirror. Victoria takes one quick glance out into the hallway before closing the door. Her father should be coming by any moment now, to let her know that they’re ready to walk down the aisle.
“What about Kate?” she asks, crossing her arms over her chest, biting her lip against the other words that want to pour from her mouth like knives.
Kali stays silent for a moment, but she doesn’t break eye contact with Victoria. She just stares at her, eyes unnervingly dark, mouth quirked up into what might be a pitying smirk.
“You do know she’s in love with you, right?” It sounds like how she'd speak to a five year old, so condescending that it makes Victoria’s teeth grind together. She wants to grab Kali by the lapels of her jacket and toss her out the door, out of the church entirely.
Instead, she settles for spitting, “Kate doesn’t know what that word means.”
“You’d be surprised,” Kali says with a shrug. “At the very least, she thinks it’s love. I’m not going to bother correcting her. I don’t care enough.”
“You don’t care?” Victoria hates how confused she sounds, but there’s no skirting around it. Kali seems completely nonplussed by the fact that her girlfriend is in love with someone else. Hell, she’s acting as the goddamn messenger.
“Why should I? It’s just sex,” Kali replies with a raised eyebrow. “I don’t love her and she doesn’t love me. But you…” She trails off but before Victoria can respond, another knock comes at the door.
“Victoria? It’s time.”
“One moment!” she calls to her father before twisting back around. Kali simply gazes at her, dark eyes sweeping from her head to her toes.
No matter how many layers her wedding dress is composed of, Victoria feels like she’s just been stripped naked.
“As soon as we’re done here,” Victoria says, digging her fingernails into her palms, “you and Kate leave. Don’t come to the reception, don’t try to corner me. Leave.”
“Fine by me,” Kali says, shrugging her shoulders again. She crosses the room but before she reaches the door, she stops and lays one hand on Victoria’s shoulder, sharpened nail scratching against her skin.
“You look beautiful, by the way.”
With that, she sweeps out the door with a quick murmured word to Victoria’s father. Victoria stays stock still until she hears her father step in behind her, forcing herself to breathe even though all she really wants to do is swipe everything off the small vanity in front of her, smash every piece of glass in the mirror and maybe hold a shard to Kate’s throat.
“Are you ready?”
She nods and slowly uncurls her fingers from her palms, clammy with either sweat or blood.
“Yes.”
&.
When she walks down the aisle, Victoria keeps her gaze straight ahead, ignoring the flashes and whirs coming from the cameras around her. She’s aware of the bridesmaids and groomsmen flanking the pulpit on either side, but she has eyes only for the man standing between them.
Chris doesn’t cry, but she can see his jaw trembling before she even reaches the end of the aisle.
She speaks her vows to him in her steadiest voice and means every word of them.
By the time the priest speaks the final words of the ceremony, she’s slicked with sweat and exuberant in a wholly foreign way.
She also feels like a hole has been bored in the back of her neck by the sharpest eyes she’s ever encountered.
&.
After their first dance, she excuses herself to a back room of the reception hall to change out of her wedding dress. It’s really a two-person operation, but she needs the time alone.
She isn’t surprised when the door of her changing room bursts open without so much as a knock.
Kate’s bridesmaid gown is long gone; Victoria can’t help but entertain the thought that it’s in a dumpster somewhere, covered in trash. She’s back in the jeans and boots she adores so much and Kali is only two steps behind her, still wearing her suit.
“I told you not to come here,” Victoria says, lowering her hand from the corseted back of her dress.
“You honestly thought that I’d listen?” Kate replies, turning just far enough to nod at Kali, who closes the door. Her face is clouded over, positively simmering with fury, but Victoria just holds her gaze.
“I hoped,” she answers. “I hoped that you’d stop.”
“Why would I do that?” Kate crosses the room in what seems like a flash, until she’s pressed flush against Victoria’s body, pinning her against the wall.
“Because he’s your brother,” Victoria hisses.
“And now he’s your husband,” Kate retorts, quick and sharp as a whip. “All because you can’t stop lying to yourself.”
“I’m not lying. I wanted to marry him. I want him.”
“But you want me more.” The words strike Victoria like a dagger slipping between her ribs. Kate’s face lights up in a vicious grin and she somehow steps even closer, one leg sliding between Victoria’s. “You want us more, don’t you?”
Just like that, Victoria feels something snap deep inside of her, snapped by the pure simplicity, the sheer rightness, of the statement. She doesn’t know who she hates more: Kate, for not being able to leave well enough alone, for always being so fucking pushy, or herself, for not being able to lie. Not about this.
“I hate you,” she mutters and before Kate can say anything else, Victoria grabs her by the back of the neck and yanks her towards her mouth. As first kisses go, it’s pretty damn terrible; their mouths collide hard enough to split the corner of Victoria’s lip open and it’s too aggressive, dissolves too quickly into teeth and tongues.
It’s exactly what Victoria had hoped it would be.
When Kate pulls back, hands wrapped tight around Victoria’s wrists, her lipstick is smeared around her lips and her smirk is a dangerous, blinding mess of sharp teeth.
“I hate this fucking dress,” she mutters, dropping her eyes to the mound of fabric still between them. “Kali?”
“I can take it or leave it,” Kali says, twisting the lock on the door before crossing the room as well. “Vicki?”
“Don’t call me that,” Victoria snaps, but she turns around to face the wall. “Help me get out of this thing.”
&.
Being with the two of them is like being caught in a storm.
Her dress is puddled on the floor but her slip stays on, albeit rucked up to her waist. Nails scratch down her arms, over her stomach, along the inside of her thighs. Teeth press into the base of her throat and at her hips. Neither of them seem to care about leaving marks on her.
Victoria doesn’t care either.
She comes for the first time around Kate’s relentless fingers, her own fingers locked around the back of Kali’s neck. Kate doesn’t let up; she circles her thumb against Victoria’s clit until she comes again, biting back a cry hard enough to make her lips bleed.
Just when Victoria thinks she’ll be able to breathe again, Kali slides to her knees and looks up at both of them, cocking an eyebrow as a question.
Victoria nods. Kate laughs breathlessly and presses her mouth underneath Victoria’s ear.
“You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting to see this.”
Victoria thinks that she might have an idea, but before she can pursue that line of thought any further, Kali’s mouth makes her disappear into another spiral of sensation.
After that, they vanish just as quickly as they appeared, leaving Victoria in a wrinkled shift, with sweat and come covering the inside of her thighs, marked by bruises and scratches. She quickly hangs up her wedding dress, pulls on the other outfit that’s waiting for her, and heads back out into the reception hall.
She waits for someone to notice the marks, to question her about them, but no one does. Not even Chris or her parents. They simply ask her where she was and she tells them she just needed some time.
It’s not a lie.
Kate and Kali are both gone.
&.
They stay gone.
As the months go by without a word from either of them, the familiar feeling of suffocation comes back to Victoria. She’d hoped, hoped with everything she had, that it would have stayed gone after the wedding, that one time was all she’d need to walk away.
But with time, the feeling only grows, until just hearing Kate’s name makes her reel.
One day, she can’t wait anymore. She needs to take a breath.
She wakes up early, while Chris is still sleeping, and pads into his office on bare feet. His Rolodex is sitting on the corner of his desk and she scrolls through it until she comes to the letter K.
Kate’s card is the first one and there’s two phone numbers written on it: one scratched out, one written in still fresh black ink.
Without hesitation, Victoria picks up the phone sitting on the opposite corner of Chris’ desk and dials.
While she waits for an answer, she runs a finger over the grain of the desk, over the scratch marks made by her husband.
She still wants him. She doesn’t regret marrying him in the least.
But Kate was right.
She wants them more.