by A. E. Radley
“Assuming the worst,” Holly closed her eyes and mumbled to herself.
“What?” Victoria asked.
“Nothing. I’m just realising how dumb I’ve been.” Holly opened her eyes and looked at Victoria. “Nothing could make me hate you.”
Victoria chuckled. “I wish I could believe that. But I remember what I was like, even if you don’t.”
Holly abruptly stood up and walked to the door. “Don’t move,” she commanded before leaving the room.
Victoria stared after her in shock. She couldn’t believe the girl was being so forward. Things had changed. She let out a breath that had become trapped in her lungs. The breath she felt she had been holding since the first time she worried about Holly’s memories returning.
She didn’t understand. Holly said her journals were accurate if the royal bitch comment was anything to go by. And yet Holly hadn’t immediately run away.
Holly burst back into the room with her bag and closed the door behind her. She opened her bag and pulled out a journal.
Victoria rolled her eyes. She didn’t need this. She didn’t need to hear the contents of her former second assistant’s diary. She didn’t want to hear how she had made Holly cry or despair.
Holly sat down and opened the journal. She flipped through a few pages before she found what she was looking for.
“‘She wasn’t in the office today’,” she read aloud. “‘Louise was relieved, but I was depressed. A day without Victoria feels like a wasted day’.”
Victoria gasped. She tensed; waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“‘I’m hoping when she returns that it will be a late night to catch up. I’ll volunteer, of course. Louise thinks I’m sucking up, aiming for a promotion before her. But the idea of promotion terrifies me. Because if I am promoted, I’ll move to another department. And I don’t want that, I want to be here’.”
Holly flipped over a few pages before stopping again and reading further.
“‘She sent me on three pointless errands today. I don’t mind. I achieved everything she wanted, no matter how impossible she thought it might be. Seeing her surprise when I return with what she needs is captivating. I’m sure she doesn’t think so. I love being the one who impresses her’.”
Victoria shook her head. Surely, she was reading the wrong meaning into Holly’s text.
Holly turned a few more pages. Her cheeks were starting to redden.
“‘She’s beautiful today. I think she’s caught me staring a couple of times. Part of me wishes she would… wishes she would realise that I’m madly in l-love with her’,” Holly stammered momentarily. She sat up straighter and continued. “‘Then at least this torture would be over. Most likely she’d relocate me to another Arrival office altogether. But in my dreams, she’d smile softly as I have seen her do when she is on the phone with her children’.”
The room started to spin. Victoria finally connected the dots and realised what she had done. Suddenly the throwaway comment from over a year ago came back and hit her so hard she thought she might black out.
She jumped to her feet. “You should leave,” she told Holly.
Holly looked up at her, her face ashen, tears forming in her eyes.
“You’ve done nothing wrong,” Victoria amended. “But you really ought to leave.”
“I just wanted to tell you how I felt,” Holly said. “I wanted to explain to you that I could never hate you. I loved you, even then. I don’t expect anything from you. We can pretend it never happened, I just… needed you to know that I could never hate you. There’s nothing that you could do to make me hate you.”
Victoria shook her head. “There is, you just don’t recall it yet.”
Holly dropped her journal heavily onto Victoria’s desk and stood up as well.
“Then tell me! Stop holding this knowledge over me. It’s not fair, Victoria. Whatever it is that you know, or think you know, then tell me. I can’t keep going on like this.”
“It’s my fault you walked away!” Victoria shouted back.
Holly backed up a step, never having heard her raise her voice.
“I am the reason all of this happened.” Victoria walked over to the study door and held it open. “Without me, you wouldn’t have memory loss, you wouldn’t have lost an entire year of your life.”
Holly walked over to the door. She slammed it closed and leaned her arm on the solid wood, her face was centimetres from Victoria’s.
“No more secrets, tell me,” Holly demanded.
Victoria cleared her throat softly.
“I… I didn’t know then,” she clarified before she told her tale. “I didn’t know you had feelings for me—”
“Loved you,” Holly corrected.
She swallowed. Holly was so close to her. She could smell her scent. This would probably be the last time that Holly would look at her positively. She tried to take it all in so she would remember the moment.
“We’d been at an afternoon drinks reception,” Victoria explained. “In the car, you suggested… that you cared for me. Just cared, nothing more. Of course, I had no idea of the strength of your feelings. And I thought you were drunk. I…” She turned her head away, not wanting to see Holly’s face. “I told you that you were being ridiculous. And I asked why you thought I should even acknowledge your existence, I told you that you were nothing to me. Just a second assistant, like hundreds of girls before you.”
Victoria closed her eyes. She wondered if Holly was a violent person. She wouldn’t blame Holly if she struck her.
“I didn’t know how deep your feelings ran. I can see now that that conversation must have broken your heart. And set in motion the whole chain of events.”
41
Holly took a step back from Victoria. Her hands trembled as she pressed a palm to her racing heart. Victoria was probably right; the rejection of her feelings had probably sent her running away. But that was irrelevant now.
Victoria was pressed against the study door, her head turned to the side and her eyes tightly closed. She couldn’t imagine the pressure Victoria had been under. Keeping that last conversation bottled up must have been torture, even if she hadn’t understood the magnitude of her actions until this moment.
Not to mention living in fear that, at any moment, Holly could be struck with the memories of her behaviour.
She reached out a shaky hand and took Victoria’s.
Victoria’s eyes flew open, and she inhaled nervously.
Holly gently tugged on her hand, pulled her away from the door, and gestured for her to sit on the sofa. Victoria did what she was told. She sat primly on the edge of her seat, looking like she was waiting for the world to end.
Holly sat on the coffee table in front of Victoria. Their knees almost touched.
“I have never, and will never, blame you for what happened. Even now,” Holly said very clearly. “Whatever you might have said, I made the choice to walk away. I fell in love with you, I acted on it, and I must have known what might have happened. I decided to leave you, and I got into an accident. You didn’t push me in front of a bus,” she paused before joking, “did you?”
Victoria let out a hesitant laugh. “No, no, I can assure you that I didn’t.”
“I’m sorry that you’ve been living with this guilt,” Holly said.
“I’m fine—”
“No, you’re not.” Holly leaned forward and wiped the escaped tear that ran down Victoria’s cheek. “You can’t keep things bottled up like that.”
“I had no idea that you felt—”
“Feel,” Holly corrected. She watched Victoria swallow.
“Holly… I’m flattered. But I’m positive it’s not love that you feel,” Victoria spoke softly, refusing to make eye contact. “It’s probably nothing more than hero worship. Or Stockholm syndrome.” She chuckled.
“I thought so, too,” Holly admitted. “But it isn’t. And being here with you proved to me that it is love.”
“I-I’m
completely wrong for you,” Victoria said hastily. “I’m over twenty years your senior. I have two children. I’m divorced, impossible to live with, married to my job.”
Holly’s heart froze for a split second before it started pounding in her chest. Her eyes widened, and her eyebrows rose.
“You’re… telling me why you are wrong for me,” Holly whispered.
“Of course I’m wrong for you,” Victoria replied.
“But you’re not telling me that you don’t feel the same way.”
All the colour drained from Victoria’s face at once. It might have been comical if it wasn’t so serious.
“I don’t care about your age,” Holly explained. “I love your children, and they like me. Alexia thinks I’m way cool, don’t forget. So what if you’re divorced? What was the next one? Oh, yeah, impossible to live with. I’ve lived with you, and I didn’t find it impossible. I loved it. And I don’t mean the luxurious guestroom. I mean the time I shared with you, which wasn’t much because you kept running away. But I always wanted more, even before I knew what I felt for you.”
“Y-you are confusing love and gratitude. Because I brought you home.”
Holly stood up and pressed Victoria back into the sofa. She straddled her, taking her face in her hands and pressing the lightest of kisses to her lips.
Victoria’s arms wrapped around her back. She stared up at Holly with astonishment.
“Does this feel like gratitude?” Holly asked.
She slowly dipped down to kiss her again. Unhurriedly, to give Victoria the time to come to her senses and push her away. Just in case Holly had completely misread the situation.
But Victoria reached up and pulled her in close. Their lips met and Holly let out a gasp. She couldn’t believe her luck. She was straddling Victoria Hastings, kissing her and being held tightly by her. It was her dreams come true.
“Mom!”
Holly jumped backwards, tripped over the coffee table, and wobbled for a few moments before miraculously righting herself.
“Impressive,” Victoria said. “Though she is two floors away. She just has extraordinary lungs.”
Holly’s heart was pounding. Victoria got up and opened the study door.
“Yes, darling?”
“Hurry up, we want to see Holly, too,” Alexia shouted from the upstairs of the house.
“We’ll be there shortly,” Victoria promised. She closed the door and faced Holly.
Holly was out of clever things to say. She felt exhausted. The last couple of hours had been an emotional rollercoaster, and her headache wasn’t giving up. But Victoria didn’t look mad. In fact, she was smiling.
“Maybe we should go to dinner. Together. Alone,” Victoria suggested. “Soon.”
Holly’s eyes widened. “I’d like that. Tomorrow?” she suggested. She didn’t want too much time to pass.
“Tomorrow,” Victoria agreed. “I can spend some more time explaining how wrong I am for you.” A smile curled at her lips.
“Good, that gives me the chance to tell you how wrong you are and how right we are together.” Holly grinned. “Can I kiss you again?”
“I don’t know, can you?”
Holly rolled her eyes at the semantics. She walked across the room, her arms outstretched. She was relieved and ecstatic when Victoria met her halfway. They fell into each other’s arms. They fit together perfectly.
Holly didn’t bother with a chaste, sweet kiss this time. This time, she put all of her feelings into it. She moved her lips softly but firmly over Victoria’s, demonstrating how she felt. Victoria moaned into her mouth.
Having zero memories of any previous romantic encounters made the whole situation even more surreal for Holly. She’d dreamed about this moment. Both before and after her accident, by all accounts. And now she was lip-locked with Victoria. Literally the woman of her dreams.
Soft lips, gently roaming hands, the scent of expensive perfume. Everything magnified and yet so fleeting. She knew it would be over soon. But, for now, she wanted to take everything in, memorise every tiny detail.
Victoria seemed to be out of air, so Holly softly ended the kiss.
They stared at one another in silence for a moment, wide smiles gracing both their faces.
“We should join the kids,” Holly suggested.
“We should. But I don’t think I’m going to be able to keep this ridiculous grin from my face,” Victoria admitted. “I should probably warn you that Hugo suspects my feelings for you.”
“Alexia knows I have feelings for you,” Holly confessed. “I didn’t tell her, she guessed.”
Victoria’s eyebrows raised. “So… that certainly makes things easier.”
“It does.” Holly took her hand. “Sit next to me for the movie?”
Victoria blushed as she looked at their connected hands. “Try to stop me.”
42
Victoria really couldn’t understand Alexia’s obsession with the Toy Story movies. That said, she was grateful that they were thoroughly dull so she could spend her time exchanging meaningful glances with Holly.
She wanted nothing more than to return to the study and discuss what they were doing. What the future held and whether or not she was kidding herself for thinking that any kind of a relationship with Holly might work. She also wanted to kiss the girl again. It had been a great number of months since she last shared a romantic kiss with someone, and she wasn’t even slightly satisfied.
Of course the kiss had been magnificent. More than she could ever have expected, but now she found herself wanting more. She felt like a teenager all over again.
The movie paused.
She looked up and frowned before seeing Hugo with the remote in his hand, a cheeky grin on his face.
“Okay, you two, what’s going on?” he asked. He pointed to the two of them with the remote control.
“What do you mean?” she replied. She sat up a little straighter and attempted to look nonchalant.
“We’re going on a date tomorrow,” Holly announced.
Victoria stared at the side of her head, wondering where the girl got her courage from.
“Cool,” Hugo said. He looked at her. “Way to go, Mom.”
She felt her cheeks warm.
“Fi-nally,” Alexia said. “I was getting old waiting for you two to figure it out.”
Holly laughed and launched a tickle attack on Alexia. The two of them fell from the sofa to the floor of the living room and started to roll around as they attacked one another.
The screeches and giggles made Victoria laugh. She caught Hugo’s eye, and he smiled at her. She smiled back before indicating the pair on the ground with a tilt of her head. He nodded in agreement.
They both pounced, Hugo grabbing and tickling Alexia and Victoria trying to do the same with Holly. Sadly, Holly was stronger and easily turned the situation around.
In a matter of seconds, Victoria was on her back, and all three of them were tickling her. She laughed loudly, pleading them to stop but secretly loving every moment of it. Maybe she was forty-seven, but right then she felt no older than Alexia.
“Mercy, mercy!” she eventually cried when breathing was becoming a struggle. Hugo and Holly stopped immediately, but Alexia continued on. She grabbed Alexia and pulled her into a tight cuddle to stop her little fingers from finding her ribs.
“I’m proud of you, Mom,” Alexia whispered, her face centimetres away.
“Thank you, darling.”
Alexia wiggled out of her grip and stood up. She smoothed her hair out and looked at Holly, who was resting on the sofa.
“Does this mean you’ll move back in with us now?” Alexia asked.
Holly shook her head. “No, sorry, Alexia.”
Victoria felt her heart drop. She had hoped that Holly might agree to move back. She’d missed her terribly. And moving into the guestroom wasn’t really moving in together in her eyes.
“But why?” Alexia whined.
Yes, why? Victoria though
t.
“Because I need my independence,” Holly said. “I need some time and space in my own place, so I can miss you guys all the more. And so I have the best possible chance of making this work with your mom. I want us to be equals. As equal as we can be, anyway.”
Victoria got up from the floor and pulled Alexia to her.
“It will be for the best, darling. Don’t worry, Holly will visit us very often.” She looked meaningfully at Holly.
“I will,” Holly promised as their eyes met.
Victoria felt a buzz of excitement run through her body. She didn’t know what would happen next, but she knew she was going to make an effort to be more transparent. Assumptions and gloomy predictions had nearly torn her and Holly apart. She wasn’t going to let that happen again.
They all sat in their respective seats again, and Hugo started up the movie.
She felt Holly’s arm wrap around her shoulder, and she leaned into the one-armed hug. She listened to the steady rhythm of Holly’s heartbeat and looked at her two children.
This was something she could get used to. Something she would get used to, she promised herself.
She turned to Holly and pressed a quick kiss to her cheek. Then she rested her head on Holly’s chest and let out a satisfied sigh.
43
Holly dropped her suitcase onto the bench at the end of the bed with a grunt. Each time she moved, the case got a little heavier. She supposed that was a good sign.
She slid the zipper around the case and flipped the lid open.
“Would you like any help?”
She turned and saw a very smug-looking Victoria in the doorway.
“No, thank you. You’ll only critique my clothes.” Holly returned to what she was doing.
“I’m getting better at that,” Victoria sought praise.
“You are,” Holly confessed. “I’m fine to unpack by myself, but I’d like the company though.”
Victoria entered the guestroom and sat in the armchair by the window.