Chapter 51
“Hi, Vic. I hope you’re well and that Michael’s visit was great. I’m also hoping . . . can we talk?”
Vic stared at the text for a long time. Then at the painting she was working on.
It was a strange thing, not like her usual renderings of people, buildings, pets .
. . No, instead it was images of herself, Audra, Madeline, Gwen and that woman they’d met at Pink Ginger the other night—Leigh—as flowers in a large ornate vase.
It seemed slightly strange even to herself to include Leigh.
It’s not like she knew her at all. She hadn’t been able to get over her embarrassment, so even though she chatted with them a little bit longer, she had declined to join them and ended up departing in a loose-limbed sway, not quite a stagger, before their final tea was drunk and their check paid.
There was something about Leigh that had stayed with Vic, however—a definite story that Vic felt resonated with her own, and Leigh must’ve sensed similarly, hence her applause and cheering.
Yeah, she couldn’t remotely explain it, but she knew Leigh—a creamy-white rose with coral-edged petals that had seen better days, head drooping heavy on its stem—belonged in the vase with the rest of them.
She glanced at Cal’s message again. It was a good time to pause.
She’d been studying the canvas without adding to it for some time now.
Some artists carefully planned their work.
She tended to fly by the seat of her pants, and she’d done as much as she could for this session.
She needed time to let whatever else was happening in these flowers’ stories come to her.
“Does now work?” she typed back so she wouldn’t chicken out.
“I’m nearby at a job. Almost done. Can I pick you up in fifteen?”
Vic sent back a thumbs-up.
Their greeting wasn’t awkward. That was the worst part.
Vic just felt happy to see him again—like one of them had been away on a short trip or something.
She wanted to hug him hello, not merely say it.
Or it wasn’t awkward for her, anyway. Maybe it was for Cal because once they started driving, he was very quiet.
Vic felt something shift. Maybe she’d been hoping for something she hadn’t admitted to herself yet again, after all—and this wasn’t it.
“Do you want to go to a coffee shop or something? I could buy you dinner . . .”
“Um, no,” she said. “Let’s just talk. I don’t want an audience.”
He nodded. Then a minute later. “Park at the bridge?”
“Sure,” she nodded. The bridge was a nice spot near downtown, not secluded but also not likely to feature another accidental Monika run-in.
When they got there, a couple of other people had clearly had the same idea. Date night in Greenridge! Not that this was a date. It was the opposite, of course.
Cal parked, turned his engine off, then shifted sideways in his seat to face her, a difficult thing for a man his size. He studied her face, still without speaking, looking for what Vic had no idea.
Then he put his hand on her knee. She tensed, couldn’t help it. She didn’t want him to touch her while he said mean, dismissive things to her. And she didn’t need a big formal breakup scene.
Seeing her discomfort, he immediately yanked his hand back. His voice was craggy. “Thank you for agreeing to hear me out in person.”
What is happening right now? Vic’s brain shrieked. She wanted to bolt from the vehicle but was paralyzed by her own curiosity. Wanting to know where Cal was going with all this overrode her desire to flee from whatever judgment he was about to pass.
“I am so, so sorry that I let you down so badly—and in so many ways.”
Vic blinked rapidly, but her eyes welled anyway. She knew what this was—the obligatory apology. I’m so sorry, blah, blah, blah. We have something special, blah, blah, blah. I don’t want to lose you, blah, blah—
Whatever combo of words he’d use, it would all translate to:
I want to stay in your pants, so I want you in my life as long as it’s not in public and no one knows about it or associates me with you, you shoplifting, homewrecking—
Cal touched her knee again, but in a hesitant way, light as a butterfly’s landing. “What is it?” he whispered. “What is your face doing?”
She hadn’t been aware her face was doing anything, but she knew what her heart was doing.
It was breaking—for real this time. It had been one thing for them to end, especially after finally feeling she was building something different than she’d ever had.
It was another for him to want to continue their relationship incognito, to be another version of Brent.
Her breath hitched, and she hiccupped, heart pounding.
She reached for the door. She’d walk home.
Cal’s voice stopped her mid-reach. “Whatever I said just now, whatever made you so unhappy, I’m sorry.
I know words aren’t enough and I know an apology doesn’t make up for how I treated you, but I just .
. . well, I want you to know that I know how badly I screwed up and how much you deserved better.
If you ever think of me in the future…” His voice petered out, then continued, soft as water lapping against sand.
“Please don’t hate me—and please remember all the other things I said and did.
They were true, and they were how I really feel about you. ”
Vic turned back to face him, a churn of new confusion roiling in her stomach.
If she ever thought of him… Remember all the things…
Her voice was scratchy, her throat sore.
“So, you’re not just saying sorry in the hopes that everything can be like it was and we’ll keep .
. .” She cleared her throat. “. . .hooking up?”
Cal jerked back in his seat a little, looking shocked. Then he shook his head and scrubbed at his beard with one hand. “You were never, ever just ‘hooking up’ for me, Vic—and no. I understand that I ended us. Even so, I still owed—owe—you an apology.”
Vic couldn’t find words, but maybe her face was telling him something again, because he continued, “I’m horrified that I silenced you and told you that something you wanted to tell me didn’t matter.
Of course, who you are, your past, how it shaped you is important.
I should’ve listened. Then I wouldn’t have been such a useless tool, standing there like a jerk while those two malicious gossips took a piss at you. ”
An embarrassing, pained squeak escaped Vic, and she squeezed her eyes shut. Cal was really saying these things, feeling these things, even while believing they were done?
“And I’m sorry I didn’t come to your defense. I know it hurt you that I didn’t speak up or give you the benefit of the doubt—or, at the very, very least, talk about what happened afterward on the drive back to your place.”
Cal reached past Vic and opened his glovebox. When he handed her a slightly crumpled but unused wad of tissues, she realized she had tears streaming down her face.
He shook his head again. “I’d do anything to go back in time, listen to you properly, like I should have the first time, so Monika’s awfulness wouldn’t have taken me by surprise.
It’s not an excuse—but the things she said about you are so contrary to who I see you as, I just .
. . couldn’t get my head around it when you didn’t deny them. ”
Vic laughed shakily, then sniffed a bit. “That is because you wear some weird invisible glasses and see me through distorted lenses that make me appear much better than I am.”
“Nope,” Cal said in his serious, earnest way. “It’s because I actually see you. You’ve been viewing yourself through the eyes of people who are seriously whacked for far too long.”
Vic was going to make light of his comment, deflect it—but she was trying to break patterns, wasn’t she?
She nodded slowly, took his hand in hers, and placed it back on her knee. Firmly this time.
His eyes widened in surprise. Then he smiled and patted her leg, then squeezed gently.
“You are being too generous to me,” she said. “And I appreciate it—appreciate you. Your kindness. But don’t kid yourself. I was everything Brent’s wife would’ve accused me of being. Selfish, stupid—and a lot worse.” She bit her lip. “Are you—do you want to hear all this?”
“Yes,” Cal said simply. “I want to hear anything you want to share with me.”
They talked for a long time. Twice, Cal started the van up again and let it idle so they wouldn’t get too cold.
She explained that in the beginning she hadn’t realized Brent was married.
She really hadn’t, or she wouldn’t have started seeing him.
She really wouldn’t have. Michael’s dad, the high school love of her life that she’d followed, pregnant, to the city after graduation, had been a cheater—and so had several other men she’d been involved with.
She would never intentionally do that to another woman.
But then when she did find out about Brent, they were already fully involved and she, at least, was completely invested.
“He had a whole lot of lines that I should’ve seen through immediately,” she said bitterly. “But I was stupid.”
Cal nodded, but it came across as empathy for how she was feeling, not agreement that she was an idiot.
“His marriage was over. They were just sharing space. Their relationship had been dead for a long time. He was only there for his two boys, blah, blah, blah… like I said, I believed him. Now, if I’m honest, I have to admit I believed him because I wanted to believe him, so I wasn’t the bad guy, the homewrecker, the—”
Cal flinched and looked as if he wanted to object, but he held his tongue.
Okay, so he didn’t want to hear the full depths of her self-abuse.
She could live with that. She moved on. “Anyway, to no one’s surprise except mine—Monika was right about that—when she finally gave him an ultimatum, he chose her—or to keep his house and life of ease, at least. I don’t think he loved her either, or he wouldn’t have done that to her. ”