“I could really use a hug. I just… really want it from Victoria.”
She sighed. “I’m sorry about how things have been going…”
“It’s… it’s fine. Really. I’ve got no one to blame for it but myself.” I shrugged. “Maybe I should get into casual sex or something. All that… oxytocin release of actually having sex with someone, I’m not used to it. I need to build up better senses around these things for if it happens again.”
“You could come visit me and Evie and Cara!”
“I’m sure a foursome with you all would be super fun and all that, but right now the thought just feels sad.”
“Okay, yeah, that’s fair. I would feel that way too. Have you considered, like, a really big cup of hot chocolate? With saltine crackers? Dipped in? I like it like that.”
Thank god I had friends to keep me grounded. Even if they were a little more unhinged than most. “Maybe I’ll go try that,” I said. “Hot chocolate with saltines. Yeah. Why not?”
“Yay, I hope it’s delicious! Just…” Her tone got more serious. “Just sit with yourself and give yourself time, okay?We’re all here for you. And just for the record… I don’t think it’s a lost cause. Maybe Victoria just needs some time.”
“Don’t give me false hope. Go tell your girlfriend I said hi and have her sit on your face and stuff.”
“Okay. But I’ll be thinking of you.”
“While you’re doing that, best to just be thinking of her.” I hung up, setting the phone down with a weary sensation that made my face ache.
I wasn’t thinking things likeVictoria just needs time.If I let myself go down that rabbit hole, I’d never make it back out. But Gina was right that all I could do was take it one day at a time, one… one hour at a time. That was closer to how it felt right now.
And right now, hot chocolate sounded good. Probably without saltines. I stopped to give Mary a hug, burying my face against her briefly so I didn’t cry, and I headed out of the room, just pausing long enough to pull on a skirt so I looked decent. I mean, it was a slutty little miniskirt, sodecentwas a stretch, but whatever, the hope was to not run into Victoria in the middle of the night anyway.
And in so thinking, I doomed myself to the exact fate I’d been trying to avoid, because I slipped into the bathroom, washed my hands, and I nipped into the hallway and felt my heart stop at the sight of Victoria, standing in the living room with her back to me, lit only by the streetlights from the window, looking up at the painting on the wall.
Well,paintingwas generous. I’d only gotten it up on the wall because Victoria liked it and I was a sucker for her. Despite her best efforts, she’d never won me over on the weird rectangles that made a classic Rothko painting. Hard to believe somewhere out there was an original version of that painting that was worth a million dollars or something.
We’d always snuck past each other with glassy half-acknowledgements ever since we’d ended whatever we weredoing. But now, like this, I found I couldn’t take my eyes off her—something so small and vulnerable about the woman looking up at the painting. Probably wondering if she was supposed to subtly throw it out as part of her move-out, since she knew I’d never liked it. But knowing what she’d said about those paintings before… maybe I assigned more meaning to it than it really was. Which felt appropriate for a Rothko.
I moved carefully, my heart beating fast, as I sidled up next to her. “Not to offend,” I said, and she didn’t react—knew I’d been there, knew I’d been coming. Had been hoping I would? “But it’s just squares.”
“You know,” she said quietly, “he was a remarkably tortured soul.”
“Well, yeah. Modern artist and all that.”
“He died under tragic circumstances while still bemoaning that he was misunderstood…”
I shrugged. “He could have painted something other than vaguely menacing squares if he wanted to be understood.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a smile flicker over her features. “Maybe that’s why he always spoke to me. Maybe there was always something in those paintings that was just… screaming, waiting for someone to look and see something that had always been waiting to be seen.”
I looked at her, and I looked back at the painting, staring for a long minute before I looked back at her. “No, I think they’re just squares.”
“They’re rectangles.”
“Okay, I take it back. High art indeed.”
She laughed—a soft, barely-there thing, but I felt like I hadn’t heard her laughter in years, and I ached, wanting to wrap myself up in it. “You talked to my mother,” she said quietly, and I scratched my head.
“Oh, yeah. Um… I was moody and I was going around burning bridges.”
“Not the best arsonist,” she said with a wistful smile back at the painting. “She still told me she wished I would get together with you. Said you were… intelligent, creative, hardworking, dedicated…”
I blinked fast. “She… said that? She wants you dating a girl whose job is to get fucked on camera moaning like a slut?”
“She didn’t quite use those words.”
