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Scrolling is mind numbing, post after post of soft launches, hard launches, baby showers, pilates studios, someone running a marathon for no reason. A feed full of people she had gone to school with, just long enough to exchange handles with before she had disappeared into college courses and medical school. A feed full of people reaching milestones she had yet to even be close to approaching.
It’s depressing.
Victoria is supposed to be studying, going over her notes of the cases she had seen that day. But this is her way of decompressing, of letting the day melt away from her body. She opens Instagram only to close it and open Twitter before closing that too and starting all over. She has a rhythm, a masochist way of staying in the loop and feeling bad for herself at the same time.
She pushes her notebook further away, flashcards fluttering down to the floor along with her highlights as she hugs a pillow into her chest. She likes a few posts, from Emma, Trinity and Dennis before she refreshes her feed and starts again.
There at the top is a recent post. m.diaz. They must not be busy, she thinks, an inkling of jealousy over Mateo having a smooth night when hers had been the longest of her life, aside from Pitt Fest.
It’s a dump post, like always, captured: friends. Victoria feels herself smile, recognizing the first person on her screen. Logan. Victoria had met him once, along with some of Mateo’s college friends when he had invited her to a bar shortly after she had turned twenty one. It had been nice, fine, really. They had all been friendly, welcoming her into their fold like she was one of them.
Still, she felt awkward. Younger than she had felt in quite a while. They were grownups she had realized, with jobs and partners and kids. Victoria had looked at pictures of twin toddlers and new born babies for the better part of twenty minutes. Mateo was a grown up too, but he didn’t have any children and for the most part, didn’t make her feel like a child.
Her smile slips as she swipes to the next photo. This one features Mateo, laughing, a girl by his side, her arm around his shoulder. She’s pretty, Victoria notes, smooth skin, silky brown hair, a fresh manicure. She couldn’t remember the last time her nails had been coated in anything but a light clear coat.
It’s her fault really, for lasting all of five minutes studying before grabbing her phone and diving back into instagram. It’s her stupid fault that her stomach has dropped and that her heart beats in that way it did when she was nervous and on the edge of something. It’s dread and disappointment all at once.
She feels dumb, as tears gather at her bottom lashline. Mateo has friends, of course he does, he was likeable. Girl friends were inevitable. Victoria was one of them after all. Still, jealousy curls in her stomach. An ugly green thing that settles there even as she swipes again and again, the next few pictures are of Garrett? Graham? Victoria can’t really remember. Before she comes to the last picture, Mateo and someone she’s never met before.
Victoria scrolls back, finger lingering on that picture again, because she hates herself. Because she needs the reminder that while they had gotten over the awkwardness of her propositioning him in a patients room after knowing him a total of four hours and are friends now, his rule was still firmly in place.
Victoria locks her phone without double tapping her screen, leaving his post unliked before tossing it towards the end of her bed and dragging her little notebook towards her. Her screentime was insane anyway, she needed time away from her phone.
She's done with more than half of her notes before she gravitates towards her phone again. Swiping up and ignoring the text from her mom, she opens the app again. Her feed has refreshed, thankfully, and she likes an ad before she realizes what it is.
Teeth sink into her bottom lip, finger hovering over the post button. It’s stupid, childish and it’s not like he will notice. Mateo is annoyingly offline. She taps on the camera roll and picks a few recent pictures, two selfies and two miscellaneous shots. Med student year 4 loading, she types before posting.
The selfies are nice, one of her in an off the shoulder purple shirt, the other of her in bed wearing a cute blue sports bra. A little different than her usual selfies but not different enough to seem strange. The other two pictures are her usual aesthetic, an iced matcha and hastily written notes.
holytrinity: hottie 🔥🔥🔥
deeremma: they call her pretty face
Victoria grins to herself, plugging her phone into her charger before returning to her notes. Her phone is silent for a while, before buzzing a few times. Victoria knows it’s ten pm before looking at her screen. She knows what the text reads before she looks at it.
utah: goodnight victoria :)
She thinks about answering it for a moment before placing her phone face down on her bedside table, but only after turning on her DND.
Her eyes droop as she continues with her notes, words blurring on the page in front of her. Victoria goes through her night routine silently, dropping into her bed once she’s finished. Asleep before her head hits the pillow.
Victoria wakes up bright and early, despite the fact that it’s her day off. She likes it this way, an empty house while her parents are at work, no rules or responsibilities to fulfill under their watchful eyes.
She scrolls on her phone as she goes through her morning routine, clearing notifications and liking comments under her IG post before moving onto her calendar. It’s neatly color coded, from school work to her tiktok posting schedule. There at the top is a purple block.
Breakfast w/ Mateo <3.
Victoria contemplates canceling for a few seconds but she’s a glutton for punishment so she starts getting ready instead. If she takes a few more minutes than usual to carefully apply her makeup and straighten her hair to perfection, that’s really her business.
She’s still deciding on her outfit when her phone buzzes. She knows if she looks out her window, Mateo's car will be idling in her driveway. Victoria rushes to pull her favorite pair of jeans over her hips, followed by one of the shirts she had discarded on her bed a few minutes before. The red shirt looks nice against her skin, showing just an inch of skin above her jeans. She decides it’s good enough as she shoves her feet into her flats.
Her phone buzzes again and she grabs it along with her purse and the hoodie that rests on at the end of her bed.
utah: here.
utah: did you forget about me?
Victoria reads through his messages as she hurries through her hours, rolling her eyes. Like she could forget him. Like she hadn’t tried in the months between her first and second rotation at the Pitt. Sometimes she closed her eyes and saw his dimpled smile. It was pathetic.
“Sorry,” she throws over her shoulder as she locks the front door. Rushing down the steps to meet him.
Mateo leans against his car, opening the passenger door for her like it’s second nature. Victoria gives him a small smile, sliding into the seat. It’s all an easy exchange, something they’d done many times before. The way he slowly backs out of her driveway and hands her his phone. Victoria taps in his password, opens spotify and picks Olivia’s new album.
Victoria smiles a little at the faint groan she hears from him but he doesn’t say anything about her sad girl music. They’ve done this a dozen times before, the music, the drive, the small diner they had found after beer in the park one night.
Their usual booth is taken so they slide into two seats at the bar. Victoria doesn’t bother looking at the menu and neither does Mateo. Instead they settled into an easy back and forth, Mateo filling her in on his night as they wait for their order to be taken.
Victoria thinks it's unfair that he looks like this, white shirt stretched across his shoulders, hair up in a bun. Refreshed in a way Victoria never managed to look after a twelve hour shift. She knew that if she were to let herself sit closer to him she would be able to smell his clean fresh detergent, cut by antiseptic and something else that was uniquely him.
“Victoria?”
Victoria blinks, heat crawling into her cheeks as he watches her. “Sorry,” she clears her throat, glancing over at their waitress with a small smile and orders her usual.
She fiddles with her phone, answering a text in her pittlings group chat before placing it back on her lap. She feels awkward, in a way she hadn’t since she'd learned how to be a normal person around him.
Victoria squeaks, the chair moving beneath her as Mateo hooks his foot around the leg of it and pulls her towards him.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, fingers curl around her knee.
Embarrassment floods through her and she wants so badly to sink into the stool beneath and disappear. “Nothing,” she mumbles, avoiding his gaze.
“Baby,” he prods again, his hand squeezes gently around her knee.
Victoria squirms in her seat, shaking her head. “It’s stupid.”
“Tell me anyway,” he leans in closer, eyes finding hers again. Victoria is sure he knows what he’s doing when he looks at her like this. The words are stuck in her throat and she pushes them down further. It would be too embarrassing to tell him she’s jealous of a stupid picture.
“No,” she pouts, trying to turn so she isn’t facing him anyway. His hand falls away from her knee and she instantly misses the weight of it. Why can’t he just read her mind?
Thankfully their food is placed in front of them before he can look at her with those pretty brown eyes and she spills all her secrets.
It’s weird though, silently eating beside one another, arms brushing. Neither of them talk but Victoria can feel the weight of his stare on the side of her face. She knows he’s waiting for her to tell him what's wrong. It’s one of the things she likes the most about him. Having someone that doesn’t expect everything from her, who will stand by her side while she figures things out.
Mateo’s hand hovers over the small of her back as he ushers her out the front door thirty minutes later. Victoria wants to lean back into it but forces herself to walk towards his car instead.
Mateo follows her to the passenger side like always but he doesn’t make any moves to open it for her. Instead he leans against the door, arms crossed over his chest. Victoria’s eyes linger on his forearms before moving towards his biceps.
“Tell me,” his voice interrupts her staring and she forces herself to look away from his arms and towards something over his shoulder.
“No,” she pouts, she wants to stop her feet but that’s too childish. “It’s embarrassing.”
“I love embarrassing,” he smirks playfully, nudging one of her flats with the toe of his boots. “Hit me with it.”
Victoria looks down, teeth worrying at her bottom lip. She can feel tears sting at her eyes because this is embarrassing. It made her feel younger than she was and that was already too young. “It’s nothing really,” she doesn't look up, hoping that he can’t hear the tears in her voice. “It’s stupid.” If she could disappear, she would. “Can we just go?”
She hopes he says yes and she can crawl into bed when he drops her off. Of course he doesn’t. Instead he uncrosses his arms, reaching towards her, fingers nudging at her chin until she has to look at him.
“Did I do something?” He asks.
Victoria shakes her head but he doesn’t seem convinced. Maybe she shouldn’t have left him on read the night before. She’s never left him on read before.
Mateo sighs, “I can’t read your mind, Victoria.”
“Good,” she mutters, though secretly she wishes he could read her mind. It would make her insecure moments easier to get through. She wouldn't have to go through the embarrassment of having to vocalize them.
“Baby,” she hates that the endearment makes her feel warm. “You gotta tell me if I did something so I can fix it.”
Victoria looks down again, weighing the pros and cons of possibly ruining their friendship by telling him she was jealous of some random girl on his instagram.
“I was doom scrolling and feeling sorry for myself,” she admits. “Everyones getting into relationships, getting married, having kids, going out, running marathons, going to pilates. It feels like I’m missing out.”
It’s a half truth. Yes, she felt left behind by people her age and yes she was jealous of someone she didn’t know and was too afraid to ask about.
“Okay,” he says slowly, reaching out tentatively to grab one of her hands.
Victoria looks down at them, at the way he plays with the ring on her pointer finger.
“One, you hate kids,” he snickers.
“No I don’t,” she protests. She likes Harrison, she loves Harrison.
“You were freaked when we had a baby come in during your first rotation.”
Victoria pouts, reaching out with her free hand to playfully push at his arm. “Babies are so small, so breakable. I like when they’re older and actually look like humans.”
Mateo laughs, tugging lightly at her hand to bring her closer to him. Victoria wants to lay her head on his shoulder more than she should.
“Two, you go out,” he continues, “Didn’t you just have a girls night with the girls and Dennis?”
Victoria nods slowly, because she had. Even if she had texted him all night and everyone had made fun of her very obvious crush.
“Three, we can train for a marathon—” he trails off in a laugh at the way she frantically shakes her head. “And if no one wants to go to pilates with you, I will go to pilates with you.”
Victoria feels all warm and gooey inside, fingers tightening around his for a second.
“You’re twenty one, baby,” his voice softens, “You have plenty of time for everything you want to do. You’re months away from being a fucking emergency doctor. Do you realize how insane that is?”
Her treacherous eyes fill with tears again and Mateo tugs lightly at their intertwined hands again. Victoria stumbles into his chest, her forehead resting against his shoulder. His arms tentatively slide around her, hugging her to him.
“Thank you,” she mumbles against his shirt.
“You’re welcome,” he says easily, fingers playing with the end of her hair. “Are you okay?”
She hears the unspoken, are we okay?
Victoria sighs and the words leave her mouth in a rush, “You posted a picture dump.”
The fingers in her hair pause, “And?”
“Mateo,” she whines, “Don’t make me say it.”
His chest shakes against hers in a laugh and she starts to pull away despite how much she wants to stay in his arms. Mateo tightens his arms around her, trapping her.
“Victoria Javadi,” he says slowly, “Are you jealous?”
Victoria closes her eyes, heat rushing into her cheeks. “Maybe?”
Mateo leans back to look down at her, arms still wrapped around her.
“I—” she hesitates, bottom lip trapped between her teeth. “I didn’t like it,” she admits in a whisper. “Like obviously you have friends but —” she shrugs her shoulders helplessly. “I really like being your friend Mateo. I don’t want to break your rule, but I can’t keep doing this. I guess seeing you with some random girl made me realize that.”
“Fuck my rule,” his voice is deeper, gruff. “It was stupid. I did date a few people on the floor and it didn’t end well. But rules can be broken.”
Victoria feels hope bloom in her chest as she glances up at him. “Yeah?”
“Yeah, baby,” he nods, “I like you so much Vic, it drives me crazy sometimes.”
Her eyes widened at the confession. A soft “Oh.” leaves her lips.
“Too much?” he asks.
Victoria’s eyes linger on his lips, “No, never. You kind of drive me crazy too.”
Mateo chuckles, “Yeah I know.”
Victoria rolls her eyes, a retort on her tongue. Mateo leans down, pressing his lips against hers before she can say anything. Victoria gaps in surprise before her eyes flutter to a close. His lips are soft, softer than she had imagined. And she had imagined it plenty.
Her lips part under his tentatively and his fingers slip into her hair again. Victoria whimpers quietly as his tongue slides against hers. He’s too good at this, she thinks as he tilts her head to kiss her deeper. Victoria eagerly kisses him back, breathlessly chasing his lips when he pulls away.
There’s a pink tint on his lips and his eyes are warm as he looks down at her. Victoria wants him to kiss her again.
“Is that why you posted those pictures?” he laughs, arms tightening around her waist.
“No,” she lies.
Mateo smirks, “You can send them to me next time, no need to post them baby.”
Victoria rolls her eyes but pushes up on her tiptoes to kiss him again.