Chapter 18
Bridget
It had sounded so simple when Sam had said it. Respecting the other person to make the choice they needed to make, respecting yourself enough to not be strung along. But it was easy for him to say it when he was getting everything he wanted.
I guess maybe I’d asked for too much. Victoria was perfect, and I just hated all the people who had made her feel like she wasn’t. Either way, she wouldn’t give me an answer, and that had to be that.
“You did what you could,” Nikki said, and I groaned, slumping back in the chair.
I wasn’t normally one to go call and chat with my friends out of the house, but with how things had gone down with me and Victoria, I was finding all kinds of reasons not to be in the apartment.
Guess there was a reason people didn’t date their roommates.
And with everything being miserable and cold and ugly and gray, the best I could do was a cozy coffee shop with a big hot drink.
“It was really stupid of me,” I said. “She was basically telling me from the beginning hey, I’m emotionally unavailable, don’t catch feelings. And what do you know! Here I am, catching feelings.”
“Shame you’re in public. I know a quick masturbation session always helps with feelings.”
“Ugh. Even doing that wouldn’t help. I don’t think I’ll be able to have company for that for a long time. This sucks. I can’t even pay attention to stuff from, like, Tessa or Gina or anyone. Do you know how bad I have to be that none of that can help?”
She sighed. “You know, I don’t think you did anything wrong. You saw what you wanted, you went for it… sometimes things don’t turn out the way you want.”
I stared down at my sugary latte drink that my stomach was going to be mad about later but that I needed right now.
“She told me this would happen. I told her I’d be trying to change her mind.
And I swear it’s like… the way she looked at me, it was like she was praying I would pull it off.
Didn’t, though,” I sighed. “Maybe it should have been you instead. I’m not a psychologist.”
“Don’t have to be to know what’s the matter. She’d already been waiting for somebody to change her mind, to convince her it’s okay. But hey. Family trauma runs deep.”
And speaking of family, that was the magic invocation that got family involved—a movement pulled my gaze out of misery land, and I looked up at where Kevin waved, a soft and concerned smile my way.
He mouthed hey and then signaled to my headphones, asking me for a second, and I stared blankly at him.
“I guess,” I said. “Sorry, one sec. I know you’d never have dreamed of the day I’d interrupt you to talk to a man, but Victoria’s brother is here.”
“Damn, I’ve seen it all.”
I slid my headphones off one ear, looking up at Kevin. “Hey,” I said. “What’s up? Tracking me down?”
“Not intentionally. Sam wanted me to pick up a drink ‘big enough to drown in with enough caffeine that I’ll regret it’ for when he got off work, so I came in here and got concerned when I saw you without Vicky.”
“Oh, yeah, that…”
“Well, I’m not trying to rub it in. She told me what happened. Just wondering if there’s anything I can do. Sam and I are your friends too now, even if Vicky’s confused.” He gestured to his ear, signaling my headphones again. “Unless you’re on a work call?”
I sighed, taking the headphones off. “No, just talking to this whore I know. I’ll put her on speaker.”
He paused. “That’s, er. That seems a bit harsh.”
“Nah, we’re all whores here. I mean, literally, anyway.
I’m actually a full-time lesbian smut creator.
Your mom doesn’t know that about me, though, or she’d probably be less of a fan.
But at this point I’m kinda like, well, let’s just burn bridges and call it a day.
Nikki, this is Victoria’s brother Kevin. Kevin, this is Nikki.”
“Hey, Kevin,” Nikki said, piling onto the stunned silence Kevin was in. “Has Victoria always been like this?”
“She’s a psychologist,” I explained.
“I see,” Kevin said, still visibly processing.
“I’m a sex worker,” Nikki said. “I just got my degree in psychology. Big difference.”
“I… see,” Kevin said.
“You can sit down if you want,” I said.
“Think I might need to.” He sat down, slowly, still staring straight ahead.
“So, answer the question,” Nikki said. “Was she always like this?”
“Always like what?” he said, still not with it, and Nikki snorted.
“You know what I mean. Don’t we all know what she’s like at the moment?”
He folded his hands on the table. “I think… I was always like that, too, so I guess it stands to reason Vicky was too.”
“Oh, yeah?” Her voice brightened. “See, I told you, Bridget, it’s just too much loaded family bullshit for her to keep up with.”
Kevin paused. “Vicky, uh, she knows you’re…”
“Oh, yeah, for sure,” I said, and Kevin cringed.
I guess he didn’t want to think about his sister watching porn of the girl sitting in front of him right now.
If I’d been of more sound mind, I’d probably have figured that beforehand, but did I look like I was of sound mind right now?
“She’s really cool,” I sighed. “Sucks with the whole… everything.”
Kevin looked down. “I don’t know… it seems like it can’t be true that you two just won’t work. She already felt so different than before.”
“Sure,” I said, voice a little too brusque, a little too clipped, “maybe, but she still made her choice once the chips were down. It was Sam who told me how I needed to just… face it and make it into a decision. Said that was what he did with you.”
He smiled sadly. “Oh, yeah… well, not that it’s any consolation, but it didn’t go any better at first for Sam.”
I scowled. “You ran away?”
“Whole family’s fucked up,” Nikki said.
“We are. Guess I’ve been realizing that.
Sam’s helped me see it. Watching Vicky with Bridget really helped make it…
clear, I guess,” he said. “I did the same thing it sounds like Vicky did. Sam came to me and laid out exactly what we’d been doing and said we needed to stop dancing around it and actually decide what we wanted, and I told him I wasn’t ready for a relationship.
He asked me when I would be ready, if I needed another thirty-three years, and I got defensive.
We stopped talking for a week. I realized I was being stupid, and I apologized.
He made me grovel,” he laughed. “Fair enough. I don’t think it really set in for me that it was…
real people with real feelings and real stakes, until I saw how badly he was hurt.
I took the time to wait for him to come back around, and I’m lucky he did.
I think Vicky’s always been running away…
maybe I’m just holding out hope she does the same thing. ”
I shook my head, looking down at the table, a heavy weight in my chest. “I think I’m done with holding out hope. I’ve been trying to change her mind for so long, I guess at some point I just have to respect the choice she’s made.”
“I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t want to be a part of it anymore,” he sighed. “She’s a little rough around the edges, but I love her.”
“Have you told her that, or just me?”
He frowned. I stood up with a sigh, picking up my drink and my phone.
“You and your mother both. I’m sure all the rest of them too. You’ll say you love her to other people, but never to her face. No wonder everyone’s so repressed all the time. I’m going to go home and brood into my drink. I’ll… I’ll see you later.”
He looked at me like he wanted to stop me, but he didn’t—objections dying on his lips, a hand half-raised, but in the end, he just watched me go, taking the phone with Nikki on call and walking out until I was out in the car slumped back against the seat, watching snowflakes stir, drift down from a thick gray sky.
“Maybe I need to be like Victoria,” I said, mounting the phone up on the dashboard. “Maybe having feelings for people is stupid and I don’t want to do it ever again.”
“Can’t choose not to have feelings any more than you can choose not to want something,” Nikki said. “Not any more than you can choose not to be hungry, or to be tired at nights, or to be turned on when you see a hot girl.”
“Jeez, hitting me where it hurts.”
“Can promise you that one day you’ll be longing for someone all over again.
But right now, I’ll bet the only thing you want is to get away from all of that.
Let’s do some collabs or something like that.
I’ll write up a script and you can narrate it together with Gina.
Just focus on getting stuff done. It’ll be good for you. ”
“Yeah, maybe.” I looked at the passenger seat, and I wondered how long it would take before it stopped feeling like it should have had Victoria in it. “I’m gonna drive now. I’ll talk later. If you have an idea for the script, you can start writing it up, I’m looking forward to it.”
∞∞∞
Of all places, I didn’t think I’d end up here when I started driving, but I guess it felt like the right thing to do.
I knocked on the front door of the house, and even though she was the one I was looking for, it still made my stomach turn that it was Miranda Jameson who answered it, standing in the immaculate foyer of the Jameson family house.
She went through a whole series of emotions at the sight of me before settling on something cautious, opening the door a little wider.
“Bridget, you’re going to freeze in that daft little coat,” she said. “Come inside.”
Nan’s voice floated out from somewhere inside. “Oh, did you say Bridget? Ask her does she want any eggnog!”
“It’s Bridget,” Miss Jameson called back, and blessedly, she did not ask me if I wanted any eggnog. I walked inside, and she shut the door behind me.
“Thanks,” I said, stripping my gloves off and then my coat after, hanging it up by the door and shivering a little against the cold that clung to me like wet clothes. “Sorry about dropping by without a word.”
“It’s quite all right. Is something the matter?”