When would it be long enough? When would Lassiter stop waking up and turning to the other side of the bed to wish her a good morning? Would he ever get used to the silence that met his ears when he walked through the door of his apartment?
Even now, after the divorce was over, Lassiter pondered these questions. He missed Victoria every now and then, it wasn't as bad as when she had first left him.
He felt like an idiot. He had thought the dinner was more then it had been. He wanted it to be a restart on their relationship. He wanted to put aside the bad blood and remember why they had fallen for each other.
Did she ever really love you? The small nagging voice in the back of his head asked, almost sarcastically, daring him to hope that her feelings had been real. But they had been real, hadn't they? She had told him she would never stop loving him. Maybe that had been a lie, too. Maybe she had been lying to him since the day she met him.
Then the little voice laughed at him for doubting himself. It laughed and then reminded Lassiter of all the fun times he and Victoria had shared together, just to make Lassiter depressed when he remembered he no longer had those."
"Sir, can I help you with anything?" A girl's voice broke into Lassiter's thoughts.
The head detective shook himself and realized he must have been staring at the butter section of the grocery store for at least the past five minutes. He glanced at the girl, she wearing a white shirt and green apron like every other employee of the store.
"Can I help you with anything?" She repeated, the smile plastered on her face faltering slightly.
"No, no, I'm fine," Lassiter mumbled and grabbed a package of butter and headed for the next aisle. This was the one thing that Lassiter was never going to get used to; grocery shopping for one. Sure he had done it in college, but in college you ate canned pasta and ramen noodles every day.
He looked down at his grocery list. He'd already picked up butter, milk, and eggs. The next thing on the list was a box of cereal. He headed for aisle seven and reached for a box of granola. He got the kind with raisins in it, he loved raisins, but Victoria hadn't.
She was in his head tonight, most of the time Lassiter could shove her to the back and focus on work, but tonight there were no cases to occupy his mind.
He turned the corner at the end of the aisle and immediately ducked down the next one, not caring what was down it. The contents of the shelves didn't matter. All that mattered was that they were tall enough to hide him from the dark haired woman in the produce section.
Of course she would be at his grocery store on today of all days.
Lassiter had managed to convince everyone, including himself that everything was fine after the divorce was final, but right now, seeing Victoria, he knew he'd just been lying for the past six months.
It had been easy to lie. The Yang case took their minds off of everything and then they'd gone to Canada, he'd even cut his hair, which looking back was probably a move to distance himself from his wife even more.
He could lie about how much he missed her and he could lie about how it had taken him almost a month to stop putting on his wedding ring in the morning.
Looking around the aisle, Lassiter decided that he didn't need anything here and turned with his cart to go back the way he came. That's when he heard the unmistakable sound of two grocery carts crashing together.
"Hey!" The woman pushing the other cart protested.
Lassiter's stomach sank. Why would she decide that she needed to go down the international foods aisle?
"Carlton?" Victoria's voice sounded surprised.
He pulled himself together and gave a small, apologetic smile. "Victoria, sorry, I didn't see you come around the corner."
"How," she paused. "How are things going? I saw you on the news a few weeks ago. You caught that Russian drug dealer."
"Things are fine, I'm fine. Nice to see you." He maneuvered his cart around hers and headed for the checkout.
He paid for his things and put them in the trunk of his car and it wasn't until he was sitting in the driver's seat, watching Victoria leave the store, that he realized that when he had told Victoria he was fine... he had really meant it. He hadn't wanted to win her back, he knew what their relationship had turned into and he didn't want to go back to that.
The night in the restaurant had been hell, watching Victoria turn and walk out the door into the wind. Lassiter had wanted to run after her, scoop her up in his arms and have her forget about everything. He wanted to rip up those divorce papers and go back to being a married couple, but now, watching her leave, he was fine.