Chapter 17
Vanessa
The world, I discovered, does not stop when your heart is ripped out of your chest.
It should. The sun should refuse to rise. The birds should choke on their songs. The coffee should taste like ash.
It was infuriating.
I was sitting in the back corner of the design studio, surrounded by a mountain of tulle and black neoprene. My collection, Modern Armor, was finished. It hung on the mannequins around me, a silent army of my own making.
"Vanessa?"
I didn't look up. I was busy hand-stitching a hem that was already perfect. If I kept my hands moving, I didn't have to think. If I didn't think, I didn't remember.
"Vanessa, seriously. You've been sewing that same inch of fabric for twenty minutes. You're going to create a wormhole."
Sloane pulled the needle out of my hand.
I looked up. Sloane looked worried. She had that pitying tilt to her eyebrows that made me want to scream.
"I'm fine," I said. My voice was raspy. I hadn't spoken much in the last fourteen days.
"You look like a Victorian ghost who died of consumption," Sloane countered. She pulled up a stool and sat in front of me. "You aren't eating. You aren't sleeping. You look... grey."
"I'm focusing," I said, reaching for another needle. "The show is tomorrow night."
"The show is finished," Sloane said. "Vance signed off on it yesterday. She said it was 'brutal and brilliant.' You're done."
Done.
The word echoed in my hollow chest.
I was done. I had done it. I had finished the collection. I had kept my scholarship. I had appeased my father.
I had won.
So why did I feel like I was bleeding to death?
"Have you heard from him?" Sloane asked softly.
I flinched. We didn't say his name. It was the Voldemort Rule.
"No," I said. "And I won't. He's gone, Sloane. He’s in... wherever. Russia? Canada? Who cares."
"He's in Vancouver," Sloane said. "Playing for the Giants. Junior league. Pre-draft showcase."
I closed my eyes. Vancouver. Three thousand miles away.
"Good for him," I whispered. "I hope he breaks a leg."
"You don't mean that," Sloane said.
"I do," I lied. "He used me, Sloane. He said it to my face. I was a distraction. A way to pass a class. He never loved me."
"Do you really believe that?" Sloane asked. "Because I saw the way he looked at you. That wasn't fake, V. That guy looked at you like you were the sun and he was photosynthesis."
"He’s a good actor," I said bitterly. "And a better liar."
I stood up. My legs felt shaky. I hadn't eaten anything but a granola bar in twenty-four hours.
"I have to go," I said. "Fitting with the models."
"V..."
"I'm fine, Sloane!" I snapped. The anger flared hot and fast, then died instantly, leaving me exhausted. "I'm fine. Just... let me work. Work is all I have left."
I walked away. I walked past the mannequin wearing the charcoal wool coat—the one I had fit on him. It looked empty without his broad shoulders filling it out. It looked like a ghost.
I looked away.
I was fine. I was surviving.
I just wished survival didn't hurt so much.
The night of the Senior Fashion Show arrived with all the subtlety of a bomb blast.
The auditorium was packed. A thousand people. Students, faculty, press, industry scouts. And in the front row, center seat, sat President Sterling.
My father looked pleased. Smug, even. He was wearing a tuxedo, holding court with the donors. He waved at me when I peeked out from behind the curtain.
I felt a wave of nausea.
"Five minutes to curtain!" the stage manager yelled.
Backstage was chaos. Models were running around in various states of undress. Makeup artists were shouting. The air smelled of hairspray and panic.
I stood by the rack of my collection. Modern Armor.
It was dark. Aggressive. Lots of leather, metal hardware, and sharp silhouettes. It was a collection born of anger and heartbreak.
"Ready, boss?"
My lead model, a guy named Julian from the drama department, walked up. He was wearing the charcoal coat.
He looked good. He was tall, thin, handsome.
But he wasn't Roman.
The coat hung slightly loose on his shoulders. The sleeves were a fraction too long. It didn't strain across the chest the way it had on Roman. It lacked the... power.
"You look great, Julian," I said, forcing a smile. " Shoulders back. Walk like you own the place."
"Got it."
The lights dimmed. The music started—a heavy, industrial beat that I had chosen because it sounded like a factory. Or a war.
"Go," I whispered.
The show began.
I watched from the wings.
One by one, my creations walked down the runway. The crowd gasped. I heard applause. I saw flashes from cameras.
It was happening. Everything I had worked for. Everything I had dreamed of since I was a little girl sketching in my notebooks while my dad was in meetings.
Julian walked out for the finale. He stopped at the end of the runway, stared down the crowd, and turned.
The applause was thunderous.
"Designer! Designer!"
Professor Vance pushed me onto the stage.
I stumbled into the blinding light.
The noise washed over me. People were standing. Cheering.
I looked into the front row. My father was clapping, beaming with pride. He looked at me like I was finally worth something. Like the investment had paid off.
I smiled. I waved. I took a bow.
And inside, I felt... nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
I looked past the lights, scanning the darkness of the back of the auditorium.
I don't know why I looked. A stupid, masochistic reflex.
I was looking for a shadow. For a pair of ice-blue eyes. For a man leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, looking at me like I was a storm.
But there was no one there. Just shadows.
He wasn't coming. He was gone. He had chosen the contract. He had chosen the money.
The applause sounded like static. The cheers sounded like mocking laughter.
I walked off the stage.
I went straight to the bathroom, locked myself in a stall, and dry-heaved into the toilet until there was nothing left.
The after-party was at a gallery downtown.
It was fancy. Champagne towers. Tiny hors d'oeuvres. People in expensive clothes talking about "vision" and "aesthetic."
I was the guest of honor.
I was wearing a black silk slip dress—simple, stark. I held a glass of champagne that I hadn't touched.
"Vanessa! Darling!"
My father appeared, wrapped in a cloud of expensive cologne. He had his arm around a man in a grey suit.
"This is Mr. Moretti," my father boomed. "From the Foundation board. He loved the show. He thinks you have a real future... in philanthropy."
Mr. Moretti smiled, revealing capped teeth. "A talented young woman. Your father tells me you're ready to join the team in New York next month."
"New York," I repeated dully.
"Yes," my father said, squeezing my shoulder. "Director of Events. It's a fantastic opportunity. And perfect timing, now that you've got that... distraction... out of your system."
Distraction.
He meant Roman.
"It wasn't a distraction," I said. My voice was quiet.
"What?" my father frowned.
"It wasn't a distraction," I said louder. "It was my life."
My father’s smile faltered. "Now, Vanessa, don't start this again. You won. Look around you. You're a success."
"Am I?" I asked.
I looked around the room. At the fake smiles. At the people who didn't know me, didn't care about me, just cared about the Sterling name.
I felt suffocated.
"I need air," I said.
I put my glass down on a passing tray and walked out.
"Vanessa!" my father called.
I kept walking.
I walked out of the gallery. Into the cold night air.
It was snowing again.
I walked down the street, my heels clicking on the pavement. I didn't know where I was going. I just needed to be away from the champagne and the lies.
I found myself at the boathouse.
The lake was frozen. A vast, white expanse stretching out into the dark.
I stood at the railing, shivering in my silk dress.
I remembered the night in the truck at the overlook. The way he had kissed me. I would move to Mars for you.
He had lied.
But... had he?
I closed my eyes, replaying the breakup. The way he had stood in the basement, rigid as a board. The way he hadn't touched me.
I used you.
It was so cruel. So out of character.
Roman was blunt. He was arrogant. But he wasn't cruel.
And then I remembered something else.
Something Banksy had said.
If he has to choose between you and hockey? He might choose you. And if he does, he'll hate himself for it eventually. And then he'll hate you.
He chose hockey. He chose the contract.
But what if he didn't?
What if he chose... me?
My brain stuttered.
If he chose me, he would have stayed. He would have fought.
Unless...
Unless staying meant hurting me.
The contract.
His father had threatened to cut him off. But he had also threatened me. To pull my funding. To ruin the show.
Roman had looked at the contract. He had looked at me. And then he had ended it.
A cold realization seeped into my bones, chilling me more than the wind ever could.
He didn't leave because he didn't love me.
He left because he did.
He took the fall. He got expelled. He became the villain.
So I could have this night. So I could have the applause. So I could be the "Success."
"Oh my god," I whispered.
I looked at my hands. They were shaking.
He had sacrificed everything—his degree, his captaincy, his reputation—to save mine.
And I had let him. I had screamed at him. I had thrown a pillow at him.
I was the idiot.
I turned around. I needed to find him. I needed to call him.
But he was in Vancouver. He was gone.
My phone buzzed in my clutch.
I pulled it out.
A notification. Instagram.
Tagged in a photo by Carter Banks.
I opened it.
It was a photo of the team. They were at a bar, watching a TV screen. On the screen was a hockey game.
The caption read: Watching the Tsar tear it up in Vancouver. 3 goals in his debut. The monster is loose.
I zoomed in on the TV screen in the photo.
There he was. Roman. Wearing a Giants jersey.
He wasn't celebrating. He wasn't smiling.
He was looking at the camera with dead, empty eyes. The same eyes I had seen in the basement.
He looked miserable.
He looked like a man who had won the game but lost his soul.
I stared at the photo. Tears blurred my vision.
"You idiot," I sobbed into the cold air. "You noble, stupid, self-sacrificing idiot."
I couldn't live like this. I couldn't be the Princess in the ivory tower while he was bleeding out in the snow.
I wiped my eyes.
My father wanted me in New York. The world wanted me to be a Sterling.
But I didn't want to be a Sterling.
I wanted to be a Volkov.
I opened my banking app. I had my trust fund. I had the money from the show tickets.
I looked up flights.
Burlington to Vancouver.
There was a red-eye in three hours.
I didn't hesitate. I booked it.
I wasn't going to the after-party. I wasn't going to New York.
I was going to get my heavy machinery back.
And if his father tried to stop me?
Well. I had learned a thing or two about armor.
I turned and started running toward the dorms to pack.
I was coming for him. And I was bringing hell with me.