Chapter 9
VICTORIA
Rejection was a real bitch, Victoria was coming to realize.
She was not a stupid woman. Intellectually, she knew Anna had been right.
It did still hurt, however.
For days, the kiss replayed in the theater of her mind, and she could not bring herself to regret going for it.
Could not regret tasting the soft sweetness of Anna’s mouth, of learning how those pillowy lips felt under her tongue.
It had taken her by surprise a bit when she realized she wanted to kiss Anna, but she welcomed it, leaned into it.
How far she’d come from being resentful of the little dumpling therapist!
Now she wanted Anna in her bed, under her hands, coming completely apart at Victoria’s touch.
She was not accustomed to being told she couldn’t have something. But the radio silence from Anna couldn’t be construed any other way.
Victoria had appointments scheduled with Anna. She canceled them out of pique, then was further irritated when she received no follow-up messages.
But she kept doing the nightly meditations.
Kept eating satisfying dinners. The relapse into panic had been a harsh reminder of what she was trying to dig her way out of, so she would redouble her efforts to stay far away from that dark, oppressive pit.
No matter that part of her did still consider the exercises rather New Age nonsense; there was something about them that worked, so fine.
That another part of her saw them as keeping some part of Anna close to her while she was being kept at arm’s length… well, she wasn’t going to look into that too deeply. She had enough to be going on with.
At night, she slept deeply, dreamlessly.
During the day, she performed without flaw.
Sometimes, during particularly difficult procedures, she felt edges of panic creeping up on her, but she simply put her tools down if she could, stepped back, and took a few deep breaths.
Sometimes she did more of Anna’s exercises…
though not the countdown they’d done in the stairwell.
That might have been more distracting than helpful.
Fortunately, Anna’s little sheet had been full of useful grounding exercises that Victoria could try.
Once she felt the panic receding, she would pick her scalpels and probes back up and move forward.
It got her a few odd looks in the OR, but she was learning to care less about what others thought if she needed to put herself first for a moment.
She had learned that she couldn’t serve her patients well if she wasn’t well.
Had it been difficult to acknowledge she wasn’t well? Yes. Was it worth it? It did seem so.
Except for the part where she didn’t have Anna. Victoria thought about her options. She could set up another appointment, easily. She’d only canceled the ones she had out of a need for space to think, and, if she was being honest, a bit of pique.
But if she did that, she knew Anna would use the office setting as a backdrop for getting their working relationship back on track, and that wasn’t what Victoria wanted to discuss.
Anna would put firm distance between them—also not something Victoria wanted.
She understood that Anna was probably wrestling with ethical concerns.
Victoria had never really done a very good job acknowledging ethics herself, in some ways.
If she had, they wouldn’t be here. The whole mess with Hilary wouldn’t have happened if she’d adhered to hospital guidelines, admitted their close friendship, and recused herself from the case, no matter what Hilary wanted.
Victoria winced. Maybe she needed to get a better grip on ethics herself, actually.
“Hey? You okay?” A hand patted her shoulder, and Victoria flinched, turning to see a nurse she didn’t know trying to get past her as she blocked the doorway of the hospital cafeteria.
“Sorry. Sorry.” She hustled into the cafeteria, surprised at how crowded it was. Then she realized that it was a Spaghetti Day. Spaghetti Days at Oakridge were something everyone else in the hospital looked forward to, so the cafeteria was truly bustling. I am definitely not eating in here today.
She also wasn’t going to get spaghetti. Victoria had been consuming a lot of pasta lately and found herself not in the mood.
Instead, she wound her way through the carb-happy crowd and selected a Cobb salad, a banana and, as a special treat, a chocolate chip cookie.
As she paid for her lunch, she marveled just a bit at her progress in just a few weeks, all thanks to Anna being patient with her and pushing and chipping away at her walls until Victoria finally listened to her, and to herself.
Victoria took her bag of food and began to push her way through the throng of physicians and hospital staff to get to the cafeteria doors.
Had the crowd here doubled? “No spaghetti is that good,” she mumbled under her breath as she ducked and weaved through the excitedly chattering bodies, her gaze down, focused on her feet.
At the door, she collided with a soft, warm body. “Sorry! I…” Her voice trailed off as she looked up and realized she’d run into Anna. “Anna.”
“Dr. Ellis.” The two small words were an outstretched, arresting arm. A thick wooden bar coming down to barricade a door. Victoria flinched.
But she was undeterred. “I’ve meant to schedule a new session with you.”
Anna’s face was smooth, blank. Not cold, but… not warm, either, not inviting as it usually was. “That’s very good to hear, since you have cancelled the last few we’ve had set up.”
So distant. Victoria soldiered on. “I know. I…” She sucked in a deep breath and pushed it right back out. “I’m sorry. I’ll sort it.”
“Of course you know you can do that in your healthcare app, or just call Kathleen.” Anna’s smile was polite and nothing more. “Please excuse me, Dr. Ellis. I only have a short break for lunch today.”
She began to walk past Victoria. On impulse, Victoria reached out and gently grabbed her arm, guiding her back out into the corridor. “Anna, please,” she said, her voice low.
She could see that her touch, her voice, they got through that calm, still mask. Anna was trembling under Victoria’s light grip. “Dr. Ellis, not here.”
“I know. Can we meet?”
Anna bit her lip. “I have a free hour at 3 PM.”
“I want more time,” Victoria said, keeping her voice low. “I’ll leave my number with your reception. Text me, we’ll arrange something. Are you free Sunday?”
Anna’s brown eyes widened. “We can’t go on a…”
“I’m not asking for one. I just want time to speak with you, have a proper conversation, away from this damn hospital. Can we have that?” It took effort, but Victoria kept her voice light, and managed a smile. “I only want to talk, Anna.”
Glancing around as people passed them to go in and out of the cafeteria, Anna was nervous, and by now chewing on her bottom lip. But eventually, she nodded. “Okay. We can talk. Yes, leave your information with Kathleen.”
“Excellent. Thank you.” Releasing her grip on Anna’s arm, Victoria smiled again, and nodded. Turning on her heel to walk off to her office was the hardest thing she thought she’d done in some time, especially when she could feel Anna’s curious, concerned gaze on her back, but she kept going.
With each step, her heartbeat whispered, Sunday, Sunday, Sunday…
Victoria paced the parquet floor in the Getty Center’s Rococo exhibit, a series of rooms so ornately gilded and frilly that they made her minimalist teeth absolutely ache. Nerves thrummed a song of tension and restrained hope just under the surface of her skin as she waited for Anna to arrive.
She’d chosen the Getty because it was so very unlike the hospital and, despite the overstimulating excess of the Rococo rooms, it was a place she loved to visit.
Victoria often spent a free day here, or she had in the past. As she paced, she realized she hadn’t actually been here in some time.
Since… well. Probably since before Hilary died.
Victoria let herself think of the word, let herself sit with it. Hilary died. Then she tested out some words she had not allowed herself to consider at all before. Hilary died, and it was not my fault.
Her stomach twisted, and she had to walk over to a tiny nearby visitor sitting room and take a seat, breathing in slow, deep breaths in through her nose and out through her mouth, just as Anna’s meditations had her do every night.
“Hilary died,” she said aloud, quiet yet firm. “And it was not my fault.”
“No, it wasn’t,” came a voice from the doorway, and Victoria looked up, startled. Anna stood there, hands in the pockets of her navy-blue blazer and a gentle smile playing on her lips. “Hello, there.”
“Hello.” Victoria got to her feet, wiping her hands down her thighs. “I’m sorry, I’d meant to be waiting for you out there.” She gestured towards the Rococo rooms.
“Not a problem. I found you, and it sounded like you were saying some things that you needed to hear from yourself.” Anna tilted her head. “Do you want to talk about that?”
“No. That is, yes, but…” Victoria surprised herself with the conviction in her voice. “Not right now. I will, on Tuesday. I set up an appointment.”
“I saw.” A nod, and a slight, ever so slight widening of her smile. “I’ll look forward to that, then.”
“Today, I…” Victoria breathed in deeply and walked back into the Rococo rooms, motioning for Anna to come and walk alongside her. “Today, I didn’t want to talk as therapist and patient. I wanted to just… be ourselves. Talk as if we had some sort of normal relationship.”
Anna’s brown eyes were wary, and rather than join Victoria as she strolled, she stopped and backed up a step, making Victoria stop as well. “We can’t have a relationship, Dr. Ellis.”
“Stop that,” Victoria pleaded. “Stop calling me that. My name is Victoria. Today I am simply Victoria, and you are Anna.”
“This was a bad idea.” Anna took another step back.