One Flight Down
Chapter Fourteen
He looked over at her. Even in her yoga pants and t-shirt with damp hair, she was gorgeous to him. Before the power went out, he had planned on coming down and trying to talk to her. He couldn't focus on work very well today. Donna's words rang in his head on a loop.
"Judging from the look on her face when she talked about it, I'm not sure she is completely over it…or you for that matter."
Donna was always excellent at reading people and was rarely wrong about her conclusions. He wondered if this could be one of the rare times she was wrong. He wanted to believe that Victoria still had feelings for him…that maybe he hadn't ruined everything forever.
But if he wanted any kind of a chance with her, he had to be honest with her about his reaction the day he found out she was moving. He owed it her to tell her the whole story. She had been sharing a lot about her life. There was still a lot he didn't know, but he was learning more about her.
She was starting to let down her guard. He needed to reciprocate if he wanted to have a chance.
When the lights went out, he took it as a sign. He could do down and see if she was alright and then maybe get a chance to talk to her. As he sat on her couch drinking her wine, he wondered where to start.
"So are you going to say anything?" She chuckled.
"I'm just wondering where to start." He said, being honest.
"You can start anywhere you want." She told him.
"That day you told me about your move…"
"Oh boy." She took another drink of her wine. "It's gonna be that kind of disclosure. Maybe I should go get the rest of the wine from the kitchen."
He ignored that comment and continued to talk. "Look, Vic, everything I said to you…everything that happened…it wasn't about you."
"I know. It was about your mother." She said.
"Wh-how…" He stammered, utterly confused. "How the hell did you know that?"
"When I ran into Marcus in Boston, he mentioned that you weren't as close anymore because you exposed your mom's cheating to the family. I put two and two together and came up with four. It wasn't that hard to figure it out." She explained.
"So you've known for a while?"
"Yep." She nodded.
He wasn't sure if he should be relieved that she knew or annoyed that Marcus had told her. He settled on a combination. "So you know that when I broke up with you that day, it wasn't about you?"
"I know that you must have been dealing with a lot of conflicting emotions." She told him. "What exactly happened?"
"I came home from practice and caught my mom cheating. She somehow convinced me that I should keep it a secret because if I told my father it would only break his heart and tear apart the family."
"I'm sorry." She apologized, giving him a small smile. "That must have been rough being put in that position."
"It was." He nodded. "And when you told me you were moving because your father was cheating on your mom…it really set me off. I'm not saying it was fair to you because it wasn't."
"No it wasn't." She agreed.
"I shouldn't have said that you would cheat on me. You had never given me any reason to believe you were capable of something like that. Just because your father cheated doesn't mean you would."
"I'm glad you realize that." She told him. "But I can see how you would react that way. If you were anything like me when I found out about my father, you were angry at your mother for cheating. I can only imagine how that must have been compounded by her having you keep it a secret. But let's be completely honest. Our relationship may have been officially over that day, but you had broken up with me long before that."
"Victoria, that's not true."
He watched as she took a long drink of her wine and then stood up. She walked over to the window and looked out with her back to him.
"Harvey…it is true. You spent months pushing me away."
He stood up. "I wasn't trying to. I just was overwhelmed…"
"I get it." She turned around to face him. "Trust me, I get it. I may not have for the longest time, but…"
"No." He argued, walking over to her. "I don't think you do."
She scoffed and shook her head. "You didn't trust me."
"How can you say that?"
"It's easy because it's the truth." She shrugged. "You had countless chances to tell me what was bothering you because I asked you at least once every day. But you always shrugged it off and said nothing was wrong. You not only broke my heart. You also made me feel like I was crazy. I knew something was wrong. I knew something was bothering you."
"I know. You asked me a lot." He nodded.
"And every time I asked, you looked at me like I had grown a second head. Every time you told me that nothing was wrong, that everything was fine and I was just imagining things. But you were systematically pushing me away a little at a time and I couldn't stop you."
"I never meant to hurt you like that."
"It's in the past." She shrugged.
He walked over to her and gently put his hands on her shoulders. "It is in the past, but I am still sorry about it."
"Can I ask you a question?"
He nodded. "You can ask me anything."
"Why didn't you love me enough to trust me?" Her voice was softer, unlike the hardened tone she was using earlier.
His heart broke when he looked into her eyes and started to realize just how much he had hurt her. "I…It..." He was having trouble finding the right words.
"It's fine." She shook her head. "I shouldn't have put you on the spot like that." She moved, breaking free of his grasp. "It doesn't even matter anymore."
A big clap of thunder boomed throughout the room. He stopped her from getting too far away from him by grabbing her hand.
"Harvey…"
"Victoria...it does matter. I didn't know what to do after I caught my mom cheating. I wanted to tell my father that day. I wanted to get everything out in the open. But I also didn't want to hurt him. I knew he wouldn't be able to forgive her and I knew that if I told him about what I saw it would break up my family. I didn't want to do that to Marcus. At the same time though, I hated keeping it a secret. It ate at me every day. I wanted so badly to tell you about it. But I didn't."
"Because you didn't trust me enough." She added.
"Because I didn't want you to think less of me." He explained, seeing the look of confusion on her face.
"Why would I think less of you?" She questioned.
"In hindsight, I should have told my father immediately. It would have been the right thing to do. I knew it back then but I wasn't brave enough to do it. I thought that if I told you about it and the fact that I was keeping the secret for my mom…well I thought you would see me as weak."
"I wouldn't have seen you as weak." She assured him.
"I do though." He replied softly. "I kept my mom's secret and instead of her ending the relationship like she promised, she kept cheating on him. I allowed her to keep making a fool of my father for a year longer than I should have. I made everything messier and more complicated than it needed to be just because I was afraid to be honest with everyone."
"You were a teenager." She reminded him. "You shouldn't have had to deal with that. Your mom shouldn't have put you in that position to begin with. She should have told your father herself instead of asking you to lie. I loved your mom but that was just plain wrong of her. And I wouldn't have thought you were weak or thought less of you in any way. I just wanted to help you with whatever was bothering you."
"But I didn't let you in."
"No you didn't."
"I'm sorry for that." He told her.
"I'm sorry you had to go through that alone." She told him.
He still had her hand in his so he lightly rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand. "Can you ever forgive me?"
"I forgave you a while ago." She told him. "I had to or else it would have destroyed me."
"What do you mean?" He was confused by that statement.
She took her hand back, pulling it from his grasp before heading back to get her wine glass. "It's nothing."
"Really? Because it seems like something." He followed her back and picked up his wine glass too, drinking what little was left and placing it back down on the coffee table.
"I shouldn't have said anything." She sighed, draining the glass of the remains she had left behind.
"If you have something to say, then please say it." He encouraged her.
"I shouldn't because it isn't fair to blame some things on you."
"Well now I really want to know." He chuckled.
"Fine." She looked him square in the eyes. "Right after we moved to Arizona I got severely depressed. Moving to a new city on the other side of the country, dealing with the drama between my parents and dealing with the end of our relationship all caught up with me at once. I was miserable. I spent three months in a self-imposed quarantine. The only time I left my house was to go to school."
"I'm sorry." He told her. His heart broke for her at that news. He didn't want to be the reason she was depressed and felt even worse about how he treated her that day.
"It's ok." She shook her head and shrugged her shoulders. "I got through it."
"Still…"
"Can we please talk about something else?" She asked.
"Ok." If she didn't want to talk about it right now, then he would respect her wishes and drop it.
"So if you don't mind me asking, how is your relationship with your mom now?" She interrupted him.
He sighed. "That…is a question that requires more wine."
She gave him a smile. "Luckily for you, I have plenty more wine."