3. Victoria
— ? —
Victoria
The handle stopped halfway.
I held my breath, watching it hover there in the darkness, suspended between opening and staying closed. An eternity passed in those few seconds. My heart slammed against my ribs so hard I was certain he could hear it through the door.
Then his footsteps retreated back down the hall.
The master bedroom door closed.
He never asked why I was in the guest room.
He never asked anything at all.
***
My mother insisted on throwing us an anniversary party.
“Five years deserves a celebration,” she’d said on the phone, her voice warm and insistent. “Let me do this for you.”
I couldn’t say there was nothing to celebrate. Couldn’t say my husband had already forgotten what day it was. Couldn’t explain that I’d been sleeping in the guest room for weeks and he hadn’t noticed or hadn’t cared.
So I put on the dress. Put on the ring. Put on the smile.
Everyone was here to toast a marriage that had been dead for years.
***
The party was everything my mother did best.
String lights in the garden. A live band playing songs from our wedding. Every member of my family gathered to celebrate the fairy tale they still believed in.
Timothy’s hand found my back as we made our entrance, warm and steady.
“Ready?” he murmured.
For what? To pretend we’re in love for a garden full of people?
“Of course.”
We worked the room together for exactly fifteen minutes before he spotted someone from the Henderson Group and disappeared.
I let him go.
***
I needed a moment.
Just one moment away from the performance, the smiles, the endless congratulations for a marriage that existed only in photographs.
The library was my mother’s favorite quiet room. Dim and peaceful, lined with books that smelled like childhood. I slipped away from the party, heading down the hallway toward the one place I might be able to breathe.
The door was ajar.
I heard Michelle’s voice first, and everything in me went still.
“Timothy, I just - I need you to know-”
Through the crack in the door, I could see them. Michelle in her red dress, standing close to my husband near the window. Too close. Her hands pressed flat against his chest.
She was rising onto her toes.
She was leaning in.
My whole world narrowed to that moment. The angle of her body. The closeness of her mouth to his. The way her fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt.
I couldn’t watch.
I turned and walked away.
***
The toast came after.
Someone handed me a microphone. My mother. My sister. I couldn’t focus enough to know who.
I stood at the front of the room, a sea of faces turned toward me, and I felt the ring slip from my finger into my closed fist.
“To five years of marriage.” My voice came out steady. I made it steady. “To the man who taught me what love looks like.”
The room cheered. Glasses raised. My family smiled and cried and toasted to a future that didn’t exist.
Timothy was somewhere in the crowd. I could feel his eyes on me, confused and searching, but I didn’t look. Couldn’t look. If I looked at him, I’d shatter.
I got through the rest.
The hugs. The photographs. The endless congratulations.
And then I went upstairs and packed my closet.
The ring went on his desk.
No note. No explanation.
I was gone before he came up.
***
Timothy
The library door clicked shut behind Michelle.
She’d cornered me near the window, appeared out of nowhere with that particular expression on her face, the one I’d been ignoring for months. I’d hoped she’d take the hint. I’d hoped being professional would be enough.
It wasn’t.
“Timothy, I just - I need you to know how I feel about you.” Her voice dropped, intimate and insistent. “I’ve tried to ignore it, but I can’t anymore.”
She rose onto her toes. Her hands found my chest, fingers spreading against my shirt.
I shoved her back so fast she stumbled.
“I have a wife.”
The words came out ice-cold. Absolute. My heart was pounding with fury, with disgust, with the sick realization that I’d let this go on far too long.
“Michelle, whatever you think this is - it isn’t.” I stepped back, putting distance between us. “It will never be. You’re fired. Effective immediately. Get out of this house.”
Her face crumpled. Tears spilled down her cheeks, ruining her makeup.
“Timothy, please-”
“Now.”
She left.
I stood there for a long moment, listening to her heels click away down the hall.
The old library door hadn’t latched properly in years - I’d heard Michelle pull it shut when she cornered me, heard the click of the handle, but the lock mechanism was broken.
By the time she left, the door had drifted open again, a few inches of gap where anyone walking past could have seen.
But I’d told myself it stayed shut for the moment that mattered.
I checked the hallway before going back to the party. Empty.
I went back to the ballroom just in time to see Victoria giving the toast. She was smiling, standing at the microphone, but something in her eyes-
I told myself she was tired. Told myself I’d talk to her tomorrow.
I revoked Michelle’s access to my calendar within the hour. Had security escort her off the property.
And then I went upstairs to tell my wife what happened, to hold her and explain that nothing happened, that I handled it-
The closet was empty.
I stood in the doorway, staring at the bare hangers, and the world tilted beneath me. Her side of the bathroom - cleared out. Her books from the nightstand - gone. Her jewelry case - missing.
The ring sat on my desk.
Catching the light.
No note. No explanation.
She’s gone.
I replayed the night a hundred times. The toast. The smile. The way she’d been standing at the microphone when I came back from the library.
If she’d seen Michelle lean in, she would have seen me push her away.
Wouldn’t she?
The door had clicked shut - I’d heard it. The hallway was empty. Victoria was mid-toast.
Whatever made her leave, it couldn’t be the library. The timing didn’t work.
So what the hell happened?