One town over words startin' to spread, you've got another woman lyin' in our bed,
VPOV
Vanya apologizes to John when he catches up with her. She can't resist a last look at Diego to see him glaring at her. Taking John's arm, she lets herself lean against him, using the support he offers. He walks her home and leaves her at her door with a kiss and a promise to call when he gets home so that she knows he's okay. She knows what lurks in the dark, she knows the danger.
Changing out of her suit and cleaning her face free of make-up, Vanya pulls on a pair of leggings, thick wool socks, and an old black shirt that she keeps in the bottom of her drawer. She pulls out a bottle of apple cider and some fireball whiskey, making herself a hot drink even though it's barely fall outside. Tonight is a night for something a little stronger than herbal tea or cocoa.
Her phone rings as the cider heats and she has a quick conversation with John, saying goodnight and agreeing to talk tomorrow, maybe get lunch or something. She hangs up and fixes her drink before going over to her old record player that sits in the corner of her living room near the window. She puts on Sweeney Todd and keeps it turned low as she settles on her couch and pulls out her journal to write. It's something she'd started doing when she was still going to therapy and she'd kept up the habit even years later. Her bookshelf is filled with journals, some only a month long and filled to the brim, others spanning a few months.
Unable to stop thinking about seeing Diego earlier, she carefully writes about her thoughts and feelings, remembering how things used to be between them, years ago. She can't help but wish she still had the optimism of her eighteen year old self. But life has worn it away over the years. It feels like a lifetime but it hasn't even been a decade. Maybe half a decade.
She writes in her journal and refills her drink until the words blur and she's pretty sure she's well on her way to being drunk. She's probably written enough tonight alone that she could start a new book. But she won't. She would never write a book about the things in her journals.
Instead of going to her bedroom, she pulls the blanket from the back of the couch and wraps it around herself and goes to sleep in the living room.
She wakes up early the next morning to pounding rain and crashing thunder that shakes her apartment building. She jumps at the noise and flinches at the flashes of lightning that accompanies another crash that shakes the building. Tucking her hands into the shirt she's wearing, she wraps her arms around herself and moves closer to the window. The rain is so heavy she can barely see outside and she considers opening the window.
Finally, she does, after getting a couple of towels to soak up any rain water that make sit past the fire escape. Trying to flip her lights switch lets her know that the power is out, at least in her building, and she lights a few candles. The rain eases up but the thunder and lightning don't and she gets the strangest sensation that it's like a reflection of her inner turmoil.
But, she's sure that plenty of people romanticize the notion that the world reflects their pain, or even their happiness.
Her sleep had been plagued with memories of living at the Academy and spending dreary afternoons in the parlor with Diego. The dreams had shifted into the darker territory of her walking through the empty and dark halls calling for Diego, her mom, Five, Ben, even Reginald, and no one answering her. A dark room with one window in the heavy door at the end of a hallway.
Vanya hasn't had nightmares in years but last night there had been plenty.
Pulling her shirt closer to her body, she tucks her face behind the fabric and imagines it still holds the scent of soap and Diego. She misses him so much and it's her fault. If she had stayed at the Academy, or searched him out once she knew he'd left, too. She could have done a lot of things differently and now she can't. He's with someone else.
And it's not like it is news to her.
Klaus had told her, the few times they've talked since she left, that he'd brought a couple girls to the Academy, much to Luther's and Reginald's vexation. And after he left, Klaus had seen him out and about with a girl or two. So, she knew that, in the abstract sense, he had been with other people. Just like she had.
But hearing it and seeing it are two different things she figures.
Thinking about it isn't helping her any and the storm outside is getting stronger, raging through the city with a callous disregard for anything in its path.
With a sigh, she's forced to close her living room window, though she leaves the towels on the floor for the moment. She grabs her fire whiskey since the apartment is so cold and she's feeling bad about everything in her life. She crawls into her bed and buries herself under her thick comforter, drinking straight from the bottle as she ignores the tears brimming in her eyes and spilling over.
There's no noise but for the thunder and rain as she lays there and tries to forget the past, forget that she ever knew Diego Hargreeves.
That she ever loved him.
That she still does, after all of this time, and always will.
2x7