Chapter Text
Praise came so easily from McKay’s mouth during her shifts that Javadi could do nothing more than trip over her compliments like some unexpected obstacle that grabbed at her ankles and pulled. Praise, sickly sweet and addicting, made her head spin—like that time Victoria shoved her hand in a candy pile at her mom’s preferred whole food, organic, grocery store when she was ten. It wasn’t normal candy, rather something a little on the healthier side of a Twizzler, but it was sugar and Victoria happily rode that high for hours after. Her stomach ached, and her mouth was stained with natural blue dye, but it was worth it.
McKay made her feel like that. On a buzz, shaking throughout her fingertips.
When her mom pulled her aside and asked why she’d done such a thing, Victoria wanted to reply that she could, that she could. Standing over the endless array of goods, she’d ignored the scoops attached to metal chains and shoved her hand in. Her life at that age had been nothing but adult responsibilities, her mom dead-set on her graduating and becoming a doctor before Victoria could even drive a car. So what, she wanted to indulge a little, act like the kid she was supposed to be? It gave her some control, this impulse that was impossible to ignore.
She had spent all of her life under someone’s thumb, she just wanted to see what would happen if she let herself do something unexpected.
Be good, Victoria, her mother scolded. Be better than good.
The PTMC was not something she could control. She had run through a million possibilities during her first shift, but when she saw that woman from Nepal get her degloved leg set again and promptly fainted, she knew she wasn’t prepared. She learned quickly not to expect anything. The Pitt was not anything like her imagination. An endless barrage of chaos and uncertainty, a beast she had to conquer daily. A smack in the face as to what human reality was—every single person who came through the doors had a life, a story. Some were worse, and meaner, than others. And she wouldn’t be so sure she could conquer her workplace, if not for those fleeting moments Victoria drank up McKay’s attention. More than that, McKay saw her for what she was. Javadi didn’t know she needed to be seen—really, until someone finally looked at her.
Triage was different from the rest of the Pitt, but she didn’t mind it all that much, especially in the first few hours of her shift. It felt good to be praised for what she knew she could do, and not criticized every step of the way doing it. It was a confidence boost. A motivator.
McKay praised her more often than not, barely even scolded her, and when it was that—a scolding—Victoria didn’t feel that unsettling urge to clam up with anxiety and try to keep her lunch in her stomach—like she did with her mother. She’d taken the hit, let herself be lectured, and was eager to try again, to do better. Her mentor assured her throughout every step of the way that Victoria had what it took to be a good doctor, and she learned from mistakes without feeling like an absolute failure.
Her mother, however, struggled with the concept.
Whenever Eileen Shamsi gave her an approving nod, a tight smile, Victoria knew it was the best she could do. She’d spent years of her life wishing for more, her mother dangling a carrot above Javadi’s head with the promise of more, until she couldn’t run any further. Like when she’d graduated from college, and she pulled Victoria in for a short hug, and she said those magic words like they meant something. Victoria loved that contact. Victoria loathed it completely years later.
“You’re doing a great job, Javadi,” McKay told her, squeezing her arm, and it was so effortless—Victoria could stay in that space, the one where everything was good because McKay said something positive to her. Her smile was nervous and off the walls insane—Javadi couldn’t help herself and trailed after McKay like a lost duckling. Hoping, praying, that there would be more to come. McKay leaned over Victoria during a simple procedure then, her hand covering Victoria’s to move the scalpel slightly to the right, and saying, “Just apply some light pressure, here. Good.”
With McKay, it never felt like Javadi was being talked down to. McKay was her teacher, and Javadi was her student, but she felt like she was allowed to breathe, to know the wrong answer and not be scolded for it (even if, for the most part, Javadi knew the right answers).
“Okay,” she said, though she had to blink a few times to refocus. McKay’s hair brushed against her cheek, and Victoria’s eyes narrowed in on the chain around her neck. She exhaled, cleared her throat, while McKay put some distance in between them. Gave Victoria the space to do her job.
McKay pulled her bottom lip in with her teeth, smiling once again and admiring Javadi’s work on their patient. “Excellent,” she said. “On your way to becoming an amazing doctor, Victoria.”
It was the end of that exact shift that became her undoing. Victoria pulled out all the stops, brought out everything that could calm her in a panic. She’d been going to therapy since she was eight years old and could first conceptualize death that led to a spiral, and her years of training had prepared her. She had been in therapy longer than she’d been without. Victoria imagined her therapist saying the words. Deep breaths. Count to five. Name five things you can see, four things you can touch…etc.
The walls of the room she was in. She counted how many animals were painted onto the walls—a source of comfort for a child, Victoria thought. A fox and a deer, surrounded by trees. The lights hung overhead. The slow din of those lights, reminding her of mosquitos buzzing. Victoria Javadi knew how to tackle a panic attack. It was written in her genetic coding, tacked onto the first page of her handbook.
She’d studied the statistics of child death, but she was pretty sure she’d never be able to handle a death like that, properly. It was a shock to the system. A shock to the Pitt. She didn’t know how anyone was able to find humor, hours later, after failing to save a twelve year old boy.
Victoria thought in order to do it, she’d have to forfeit her humanity, turn off all her emotions in order to live through it. And contrary to popular belief, she wasn’t a robot. She pretended to be, all throughout high school and college, to be the feel-nothing child prodigy that was only there to do in life what was expected of her. Javadi was going to be the next doctor in her family, and that was etched in stone from the day she was born.
Instead, Victoria found that she felt too much. She could get the job done in the moment, sure, disappear into that space in her mind, but at the end of the shift everything hit at once. Her fingers were almost blindingly white squeezing onto the metallic edge of the bed, as if letting go would mean her end. Her jaw clenched, and tears threatened to spill, but there was a stubbornness there. A refusal to cry. Instead, Victoria just sat there, a pounding ache behind her eyes and a tiredness all over her body nothing else could replicate. She felt wound up. A rubber band ready to snap.
She thought about Dr. Robby’s somewhat unhelpful, good-intentioned, speech from her first shift. Victoria would bury this moment deep inside her and try to forget. The door opened, and Javadi jumped up like she’d been electrocuted, wiping at her red eyes to see the intruder more clearly.
“Are you okay?” McKay asked, and Victoria wanted to crumble in on herself and die. The tone she took felt more like a person trying not to scare an animal away. Like she’d caught Javadi just seconds before a car made contact and crushed her under its weight. McKay hadn’t been there when Tyler came in. Victoria thought it might have hit McKay too close to home, reminded her too much of her sweet eleven year old son, the same one Javadi babysat on occasion. Victoria straightened her back and attempted a face that didn’t look like it’d been trying not to cry for the last ten minutes. Useless in front of her mentor, who had been able to see through Victoria since that first day.
“I saw you in here…It’s been a rough day, right?”
Victoria nodded, her face twisting into an uncomfortable smile—showing all her teeth. She managed, “I’m okay. I’ll be fine in…a minute.”
McKay had that look on her face, one she’d been able to notice a little too well. Like Victoria was a child with the inability to lie, to keep a poker face. McKay didn’t cross her arms, didn’t say anything, before she walked over and rubbed the side of Victoria’s arm. “Hey,” she said softly. “Take all the time you need.”
Victoria felt herself gasp at that, and then it couldn’t be stopped. All the times she’d waited, until she was patiently inside her own bedroom, her privacy—all gone with one well-meaning comment from her superior. Her body wracked with embarrassing sobs before she could stop it, and McKay’s concern was written all over her face as she pulled Javadi in, closer, her head just pressed up against McKay’s shoulder, her neck. The tip of her nose made contact with McKay’s chain.
“I’m sorry,” she wheezed, as if it could get any more embarrassing. McKay rubbed her back. “This doesn’t happen—I’m sorry, I’ll make it stop.”
McKay pulled her away, then, to get a better look at Javadi with all her crybaby tendencies. She tucked a few stray hairs behind Victoria’s ear. The look on her face was hard to read, even for her. It scared Javadi, to know she was making such a scene in front of her mentor. Someone she admired and respected. She’d never live it down. Javadi would only be known as the sensitive med student, the one who didn’t have what it took to be a good doctor, like McKay had been telling her. Victoria felt like a failure. Felt, somehow, that she was letting McKay down.
“It’s okay, baby,” McKay said, sitting down next to her on the bed and bringing Victoria in so she could sit. “You’re alright, it’s okay to cry. It’s normal to feel this way. You don’t have to apologize to anyone for feeling this way.”
Javadi, miraculously, was able to calm herself down. Just enough where she could sit up and away from McKay without sobbing again. Every hair on her body electrified, every pulse made her head ache. She heard rumors about Robby and Abbot on the roof, a little joke that Victoria was starting to realize wasn’t exactly a joke. If every bad case made her think of the roof, then she didn’t want to think about how Robby and Abbot were able to keep going. She imagined herself, ten years from now, overlooking the roof and trying to find the courage to take a step over it.
Maybe, with experience, she’d be able to manage. Or, at least in this lifetime, doctors with more knowledge than her could stop the tragic accidents from ever happening again.
“I…don’t know how to manage it,” she said finally. The ‘it’ didn’t have to be explained, she hoped. McKay just looked at her and knew what she was trying to say. “I don’t think I want to manage it, actually, because then it’ll be something I have to live with, for the rest of my life.” Victoria waited for McKay to say something, the stereotypical thing, the it gets better speech of it all that was meant to reinvigorate her plan to save people’s lives, but it never came. She smiled, and it almost felt as if Victoria was being let in on a secret. Victoria didn’t think she made any sense at all.
“Are you sure this is what you want to be doing?” McKay asked, and Victoria’s whole body felt as if it’d been plunged into icy waters. “You’re still young,” she added. “This isn’t something you have to do for the rest of your life.” Victoria laughed, maddened, and looked at her mentor as if she’d grown two heads. McKay just stared at her, unblinking. “I know there’s a lot of pressure put on by your parents, but you don’t have to be exactly like them.”
All of her conviction crumbled, then.
Victoria hated how pathetic she was at that moment, how weak. “Are you saying I shouldn’t be a doctor? That…I won’t be good at it.” She had never heard those words from anyone before. Javadi grew up being praised, expected to follow in her family’s footsteps, expected to be better. To surpass her parents. To leave a legacy. McKay might as well have ripped her open with her bare hands.
“It’s not a question of whether or not you’re good at it. This isn’t for everybody,” McKay approached, gently. “It’s okay if you want something else. Something less…intense.”
Victoria imagined her mom after a shift, peering at her daughter from across the dinner table, rubbing out the crooks in her neck. There’s nothing better, nothing more rewarding on this Earth than being a doctor, she told Victoria.
The problem was, Victoria Javadi had no idea how or who or what to want. If she wasn’t a doctor, the kind that mattered to her mother, she didn’t deserve to live. That wasn’t a statement made out of desperation, it was simply a fact. There was nothing else for her. Being a doctor was her only purpose.
“If I’m not a doctor,” Javadi mumbled, “Then I might as well go up to the roof and jump.”
Of course, she hadn’t meant to say it out loud. Victoria was hyperaware of her boss. McKay tensed in an unnatural way, and she kept one grip on Javadi like she was afraid—well, Javadi didn’t have to be a child genius to know what McKay was afraid of. “I don’t mean it like that,” she tried reasoning. “Really, I’m okay, I just—What else would I be? Being a medical student is the only thing I’m good at. I don’t know anything but being a doctor.”
“You’re young,” McKay repeated. “You have all the time in the world to be good at other things, too.” She turned to the door, and said, “Walk with me? You should probably get home soon. I’d be worried.” Victoria, grateful she didn't bring up her mother, followed her hesitantly.
McKay kept a hand on the small of Javadi’s waist the entire time they’d walk together. She knew it was because Javadi made that stupid comment. Still, McKay knew that she was capable. At least, she didn’t want McKay to think that she would actually do something like that. “I’m not going to hurt myself,” Victoria announced, just outside the front doors. “You don’t have to stay with me.”
“I know,” McKay answered, gesturing for Victoria to keep following her. Victoria did so without protest, up until they sat together in McKay’s car. Now, it was awkward. Victoria pulled on her fingers, just to give her hands something to do. “Just want to make sure my med student gets home safely,” McKay told her.
When Victoria realized McKay was driving her home, she was touched.
“You made me forget,” Victoria said. “For a little while. Thank you for taking me home.” She went to open the door, but found it locked. Turning towards McKay, Victoria found herself unable to tell what the other woman was thinking. McKay was hard to read like that, sometimes. She cleared her throat. Victoria braced herself for whatever McKay wanted to tell her.
“You’re a good person, you know? I don’t want you to think you’re not capable, because you are. If being a doctor is what you want to do, then you are going to be a great one. You’re good at what you do. Just don’t burn yourself out, sweetheart. I’ve seen what it does to people, and I don’t want it to happen to you.”
“Thank you,” Javadi choked out, tears threatening to well over for the second time.
“You can always talk to me. About anything.”
She rushed to her front door before she could make a fool of herself, before twenty years of pent up frustration and anger spilled out of her lips to her poor, unsuspecting boss.
Victoria Javadi never was the type to have a lot of vices, to be fair. She never had the time for them, except to occasionally scroll on her phone for twenty minutes, what others around her called ‘doomscrolling’. There was, however, a new habit forming. She bit her nails, then subsequently remembered just how many body fluids she’d been in contact with, and stopped. Her mind wondered just what McKay might say to their shared bosses, and then, if Javadi’s fate was to be put into psych for suicidal ideation—what a 36 hour hold might entail.
The longer she waited for men to come take her against her will, the more she thought she might want it. A reset that she had no say in. Except, McKay didn’t say anything, only more persistent and careful using her words. A brush of an elbow, more praise tumbling out of her mouth than Javadi thought she deserved, more moments where McKay sat and breathed with her, offering her a protein bar and even a hidden stash of chocolate she’d stockpiled since last Halloween, hoping to use it for rare cases, like wanting to cheer up Javadi.
McKay was trying to prevent burn out. Victoria didn’t have the heart to tell her that ship had sailed twenty years ago.
“If you ever need a pick-me-up, you know where to find me.” McKay grinned at her, in that wolfish, crude way of hers, her eyes glinting under the fluorescent lights. She slipped a full size Snickers into her own pocket.
“Thanks,” she said, examining the sour candy in her hands as if it were the most interesting thing in the world. There was a biting curiosity—a question she wanted to ask, but wasn’t sure if she’d particularly like the answer to. Victoria decided to bite the bullet. “Why didn’t you report me?”
“Report you? For what?”
“The thing I said. About the roof.”
“Oh,” she said, biting her lip. “Not that I didn’t take it seriously, Victoria, but I know better than to just jump to the worst possible conclusion. I’m keeping an eye on you. If I feel like you need help, I’d contact Kiara right away. You need to feel safe if you want to ask for help, and reporting you isn’t the best way to do that.” McKay shook her head. “I trust you.”
“I do feel safe,” she said, shocked by the confession. “You’re a very safe person.”
“That means a lot coming from you. You can talk to me anytime,” McKay reiterated. “You’re not alone, Javadi. I promise.”
It wasn’t until Trinity said something, because of course she did, her goal to get under Javadi’s skin the most persistent and annoying. “Ah, teacher’s pet?” Her grin turned wicked at Victoria’s instant flush, her pulse racing. “I think it’s cute, Crash. You’ve got an insane work crush.”
Victoria didn’t.
Cassie McKay lived a whole lifetime before Victoria was even born, probably even a concept, to her parents. Victoria was straight, for the most part. Wasn’t allowed to sit and ruminate over her sexuality when she had exams to get through. Her only tell was that she found Mateo attractive—the only appearance of butterflies in her stomach in the last twelve years of her life. She didn’t know what it was about McKay. Still, she had to be somewhat selfish. She liked the praise. The other doctors intimidated her, and McKay had at first, too—but she felt more comfortable with her than anyone else. McKay was just so nice to her that she felt drunk on it. She would compare it to an addiction, a craving. This trust, this dance between them that they’d delicately practiced over the last few weeks of knowing one another.
McKay just got her. Trusted her more than Victoria trusted herself.
She wanted nothing more for it to mean that McKay was a good mentor, and Victoria had problems with authority because of her mother, and it was nothing inappropriate like having a crush on her boss. There was no possible way.
Still, there remained this unexplainable pressure in Victoria’s chest. It swelled and ached deep inside her bones, threatening to rattle—every time McKay threw her a look, and the warmth of her hands when McKay touched her—it all felt like overcompensation for attention she didn’t get as a child. Victoria only wanted approval. That was it.
It was harder, Victoria realized, to not notice McKay once those thoughts planted themselves and took root inside her head. How restrained she was, how good of a person she was—She could read any patient like a book, tune in, relate to them in a way Victoria couldn’t. She admired McKay for these qualities, wanted to soak them up like a sponge and learn from her.
She didn’t decline when McKay asked her to babysit Harrison the next day.
Harrison liked her just fine. He was a good kid who only sometimes acted as all eleven year olds did, but he was entertaining. Smart, too. Victoria knew where he got that from. Victoria was good with him, so there weren’t too many issues. She worked on her own assignments while she helped Harrison with his, and by nine pm, he was in bed and Victoria waited for McKay to come home to relieve her of her babysitting duties. She felt a little strange being in her house without her, even though she’d been a few times before. It was just Trinity and her comments making Victoria doubt herself.
Her body, numb and cold, had Victoria toying with the thought of using the blanket spread over the couch, but then she thought she might be overstepping. Was that the impression Victoria was giving? That she’d have some weird interest in her mentor? She knew Santos was most likely joking, but was it obvious that way to anyone else?
Did McKay notice, and brush it off as Victoria being a young, inexperienced med student? No, because she saw how Victoria had acted around Mateo. Around everyone. She was a nervous wreck, sometimes.
Victoria didn’t think McKay would talk to her the way she did, if that were the case. It was all just casual. Victoria was reeling, and it made her nauseous, so she stood up and took five deep breaths. Her hand over her heart. She felt as if she didn’t belong there, in McKay’s personal space, without feeling like her mere existence there had tainted it somehow. Impure thoughts she couldn’t stop. She had the urge to scrub the floor underneath her feet.
Victoria was trembling by the time McKay walked in the front door, stopping to examine Victoria’s state before walking over to her and putting a hand on her back.
“Victoria,” she murmured, her hands moving to Victoria’s shoulders, slowly pushing her down. “Can you sit down for me? You’re freezing. I can get you something? Hot chocolate?” Before McKay dropped everything, she threw the blanket that had caused the problem in the first place around her shoulders.
She tried not to breathe it in, the inexplicable scent of her boss all around her, overwhelming her senses. A few minutes later, McKay came holding a red mug and put it in Victoria’s hands for her. She attempted to choke out a thank you, but bile was rising to her throat. Victoria brought the mug to her lips and inhaled, then took a small sip, letting the sweetness fill her brain. She took big drinks, and surprisingly, it settled her stomach. There had even been marshmallows in it. McKay made herself a cup, too, when she was sure the lights were coming back on in Victoria’s head.
“It’s good,” Victoria said when she finished, and McKay snorted. “I don’t think I’ve had hot chocolate in like, eight years.” It’s not a sad thing to say, Victoria thought, but McKay’s face kind of fell, anyway. She muttered something under her breath, and that term she used on Victoria slings forward to the front of Victoria’s brain. Pressure cooker prodigy. Like hot chocolate had anything to do with it. She thought it best not to talk about her mom’s short-lived phase of keeping the house artificial sugar-free, and the only chocolate she was allowed to have growing up for a period of time was so dark and bitter it’d almost turned her off completely.
“You wanna talk about it, kid?”
Victoria winced at that, and then felt guilty that she’d winced. To McKay, she was just a kid. She could find offense in it, sure, but she knew McKay didn’t mean it in the ways others did. Like Victoria was incapable or not trained enough or given special treatment because of her age, her status in med school. She eyed her expectantly from the other end of the couch. Victoria wanted to thank her for giving her her space.
“I was fine, five minutes before you walked in the door,” she blurted instead. “I promise, Harrison didn’t see me like that, I don’t know what happened, I just stood up and got dizzy for a second—“
“Hey. Hey, you’re not in trouble,” McKay responded quickly. She put down her mug. “You’ve been studying hard, probably forgot to eat, and just got dizzy standing up. It happens, people get in the zone and forget to take care of themselves. I’m sorry you had to wait so long for me.” She motioned toward Victoria’s own mug. “The sugar helps. I’m not mad at you, alright? I’m just glad I was here to help.” McKay scooted towards her, reaching out a comforting hand, and noticed that Victoria’s hands were still cold.
“Thank you,” she said. “For not getting angry with me.”
Her face softened. Without warning, McKay took Victoria’s hands and rubbed against them. Both of their hands together, generating friction and heat, and she really wanted to die.
“Does your mom get angry a lot?” McKay asked in the same tone someone would use asking a child if they felt safe at home. Victoria was not a child. If she really felt the need to, she could move out. One day. But there were a lot of complications and guilt surrounding that, which she didn’t feel like dragging McKay into. “She never seems happy with you.”
“She just knows I can do better,” Victoria defended her without thinking. It wasn’t automatic, in fact, Victoria relished in getting to talk badly about her overbearing mother, but she couldn’t stop herself. “She’s always pushing me to be the best I can be.”
“You’re already good, at your age,” McKay countered. “What else could she expect from a twenty year old med student?”
“She always tells me that she wants me to be better than good.”
Victoria could feel herself sigh into McKay’s touch. She prayed McKay wouldn’t get the wrong idea. The blanket was almost swallowing her, some soft material—Victoria thought it might be homemade, and she imagined McKay’s fingers working the yarn. And it wasn’t that Victoria wanted to cry, embarrassing herself even further by crying in McKay’s house, she was just exhausted. She wanted nothing more than to fall asleep with warmth spreading from her fingertips down to her core.
She woke up startled, her body twisted and aching, a larger blanket covering her now, a pillow underneath her head. When she removed it, she found that she was still holding the smaller blanket like a sweater, refusing to let go. The natural light was filtering in through the window, and Victoria felt something squeamish inside of her at the realization. She slept at McKay’s house. She had a panic attack, in front of McKay, after babysitting her son. And she’d fallen asleep on her couch.
She wanted to hide her face when she heard McKay coming through the hallway.
“You’re awake, Vadi,” she said, her hair still pulled up, an edge of tiredness to her voice. “Good morning.”
“Uh,” Victoria said, scrambling to get up and get anything that belonged to McKay off of her. “Morning. Sorry that I—slept here,” she fumbled to fix her shoes onto the right feet. “I’ll leave. It’s been a long week.”
“It’s okay,” McKay said, rubbing her eyes. “You don’t have to run, do you want coffee?” Victoria shook her head. “Tea, then? Harrison should be up soon. I was planning on breakfast…”
“Really, I’ll go,” Victoria insisted even when her stomach growled. “My mom is probably worried.”
McKay sucked in a breath at that, then smiled apologetically. Victoria couldn’t take the way McKay looked at her, sometimes, like Victoria was so easy to read. “Sorry. My couch was probably so shitty to sleep on. Next time, I’ll get an air mattress.”
“You can make me breakfast next time,” Victoria said, then thought about how hard it would be to break through McKay’s floorboards and bury herself under the dirt. And the joke was there, McKay’s smile teasing her, but it only made Victoria squeak out a pathetic goodbye before practically sprinting out her front door.
McKay did not ask her to babysit Harrison again for a couple weeks.
McKay tried to subtly bring up talking to Kiara, and Javadi brushed it off. She did take better care of herself after the fact, knowing that she needed to be on top of things, she needed to be in control. She stayed hydrated, ate when she could, and refused to let Trinity’s comments bother her. She was more into bothering Whitaker now, which Victoria felt was a necessary sacrifice for her own sanity.
And under it all, Javadi knew she was being dramatic. Ridiculous. It was a little bit of an overstep, to show more of herself to her boss than anyone in who knows how long, but it wasn’t a crush. It wasn’t like that. She’d just have to get it together, again. Prove that she belonged here.
It was staggeringly dangerous, her ability to go into that space in her mind where nothing mattered but work. The robot she’d been working so hard against. It got harder, over the next few days, to bring herself back after her shift was done and she trudged with heavy feet back to her bed.
She practiced how to be normal, in case anyone asks. It held her over, knowing she could put herself into autopilot. Even when McKay asked if she was okay, she let out a pleased squeak and a laugh. “I’m fine,” she said, vehemently.
And she almost believed it, herself.
Santos and Whitaker invited her over to their place the same night McKay had suggested she watch Harrison, another opportunity to prove herself to her boss. When Victoria suggested canceling her invitation, McKay stopped her. “You should hang around people your age,” she told her. “Have fun, Javadi. I’ll call Mateo.”
So, she took McKay’s advice. Santos laughed when Victoria told her McKay wanted her to have fun. She was mostly just there to listen to Santos complain about work, and drink, and Whitaker usually brought out his Switch and they played games for a few hours. Victoria could still say she had no care for beer, but it was all that was offered, and Santos suggested maybe it’d be good for Victoria to let loose, sometimes.
“I won’t tell your hot mom,” Santos promised.
Victoria was decent at the game sober, she knew, because Harrison and her often played together. But she was not good at playing Mario Kart while tipsy. Santos teased her relentlessly until finally, she threw the controller into Santos’ lap and admitted defeat. Victoria got up to get some water, and when she came back, Santos tapped on her knee.
“You work with McKay the most. You think she and Mateo are a thing?”
“No!” She answered, and it sounded rushed, frightened, like she couldn’t even comprehend it. Whitaker and Santos looked at her, and Victoria felt like a rabbit surrounded by gossip hungry foxes. “They don’t seem…into each other at all. Not like that.”
“He just watches her kid,” Whitaker answered. “And Santos told me McKay’s ex was jealous of him, or something?”
“That doesn’t mean anything. I watch her kid,” Victoria said, blinking a few times when Whitaker and Santos shared a look. “I don’t think so,” Victoria tried not to sound hopeful. “But—it’s not my business, if they’re together—She just never talks about her personal life like that. Why? Do they act flirty at work, or something? Because McKay is like that with everyone—I could count on two hands how many times she’s called me sweetheart in the past 6 hours.”
Not like Victoria was counting how many times McKay said it. She definitely did not have a page dedicated to it in her notebook.
“They just give off a vibe, sometimes.” Santos mused. “Like they’ve definitely had sex before. What do I know, though? I thought Crash wouldn’t be able to survive the first day of rotation, and she’s still here. My guessing game is a little off.”
“Thanks,” Victoria said dryly. The unwanted image of Mateo and McKay hooking up flashed behind her eyelids and threatened to burn directly into her irises. She almost wanted to ask McKay more about her personal life, not like she’d ever open up. There were some things that she didn’t have to know. Still, it would hurt a little. McKay could read Victoria’s attraction to him that first day, and it would feel a little cruel for her to have kept this relationship a secret while watching Victoria stumble over herself.
Victoria’s work crush had mostly resigned itself to the corner of her brain where dating coworkers was not the ideal. But still, Victoria did appreciate his attractiveness. He was sweet, and kind, and if anything felt like an appropriate crush to have. Innocent in its intent. Still, she liked the way they worked together. Victoria wouldn’t mind if Mateo changed his mind about dating in the workplace in the future. She’d put those thoughts in a corner, and forced herself to at least be able to work around him normally.
She didn’t think about Mateo outside of work hours anymore.
The problem was, she just couldn’t stop thinking about him now, with McKay.
“They’re not together,” Victoria said aloud, firmly, with conviction that made it true. Santos gave her a confused turn of the head.
“What are you talking about?” she asked, her fingers hovering over the buttons of the controller. Javadi felt herself start to sweat. Santos watched her with a curious glint in her stare, and then snorted laughter. How much time had passed that her colleagues moved on from the subject entirely? “Wait, you mean Mateo and McKay…you’re still thinking about that?”
For the second time, Javadi spent the night somewhere unfamiliar.
Having time to herself, even around coworkers, gave Victoria some kind of magical reset. It wasn’t a cure-all, but it brought her some comfort and relief. The world did not stop spinning on its axis if she let herself have a break. She’d only accepted a few years ago that not wanting to be around her mother constantly wasn’t something to feel guilty about, and the world hadn’t stopped then, either. Victoria found herself enjoying the wins from the current week in her rotation, her losses minimal—and sometimes, her mother’s voice pushed for something harder, but McKay was there with something relatively easy—something that wouldn’t always end in a loss.
After a few days, Victoria had a bugging feeling that she wasn’t going at the same pace as her colleagues. Like McKay was maybe too afraid of Victoria having a mental breakdown, which—if she did—she would have done it that first night. Victoria was stronger than McKay thought she was, a little hurt by McKay’s dwindling trust in her. She just had to say something. It came out before Javadi could think about an appropriate time and place for it. She said her name, grabbed her elbow in the same way McKay did to her.
“Dr. McKay?”
“Yes, Javadi?” Her face remained casual, like touching her meant nothing. That was just how she expressed herself, and Victoria was matching her energy. Her eyebrows furrowed as she looked at Victoria.
“I won’t break,” Victoria said without much thought behind it. “I’m capable, and I can handle more than a kid with a sprained ankle. Trust me.”
McKay smiled at that. “I know you can. You’re my favorite med student, after all.”
**
Victoria worked alongside Mel for the rest of that week to stretch her legs, take her out of her comfortable box. Mostly, because she couldn’t stop thinking about how it felt to be McKay’s favorite anything—how McKay was so quick to say that Victoria was hers. She needed to snap out of it. Working with Mel seemed to be the right thing to do. It wasn’t necessarily bad, because Mel King was just a pleasant person to be around, if not a little awkward. Javadi could appreciate that. They’re both awkward together, and then they’re silent, and they do their job. It could be worse.
McKay and Victoria bumped into each other while she was getting ready to leave, and McKay came up close behind her and said, “Can we talk?”
Victoria nodded only because she couldn’t trust herself to speak clearly.
“I just wanted to say you were right. I’m sorry. Sometimes, I overstep.” She sucked in a breath. “I wanted to give you a few wins, but I do want you to know it was only out of worry. It was wrong of me to get in the way of your education. You have to learn everything, even the shit that makes you want to quit and never look back. Even the things I wish I could protect you from.”
“It’s okay,” she said, her voice low. She couldn’t look at McKay’s face, settling for her shoes on the floor, counting the specks in the tile. “I appreciate it—the concern. For me. But, if I want to be good at this, I can’t…”
“You are good,” McKay insisted. “I’m not lying when I say that, when I tell you that you’re my favorite, because you’re scarily good at what you do. Questionable bedside manner, but that’s a problem for another day. You learn fast.” McKay was good at that, breaking the tension. Victoria wished she had that kind of power.
When Victoria decided to look up at her, McKay finally stopped looking at her like she was something fragile, something only made to be broken.
“Can I be with you?” Victoria asked. “Next shift.”
“Sure,” she said. “You know, Robby’s going to yell at me for showing favoritism.”
Victoria couldn’t help but beam at that as if a ray of sunlight had entered her body and warmed her from the inside. Her nerves were on fire. Then, she opened her mouth again, and ruined it.
“Can I ask you a personal question?”
McKay tilted her head, a smile hesitant on her lips. Victoria hoped she was remembering when McKay had asked her the same thing during her first day. She didn’t assume what Victoria was going to ask, didn’t answer until she knew all of the details. “Yeah, go ahead kid.”
“Are you seeing anyone? Like—Mateo, or…” McKay’s smile faltered, her eyebrows rising and her mouth opening slightly. Victoria had to backpedal, explain herself before McKay decided to tell her off about privacy between student and teacher. “I just wonder…Like, you have Harrison, and he’s this great kid with a good mom, and you had time for a relationship, and I was just wondering if you still had time to be…Normal? After all this?” Victoria gestured pathetically. “Work.”
“I have a life outside of work, if that’s what you mean.” McKay offered Victoria as a lifeline, looking at her with a certain softness Victoria couldn’t decipher. “And to answer your question, even if it is mildly inappropriate, I’m not seeing anyone. But this job doesn’t prevent me from seeing someone, if I wanted to. I still go out, and do things, and decompress. This work isn’t my entire life. It wouldn’t be fair, to me or Harrison.”
Victoria understood. She didn’t know what she was asking, exactly. If Victoria would be allowed any sense of normalcy after this. McKay still had a life. She and Mateo weren’t a thing. These two became sources of relief for different reasons. She let all the tension in her shoulders, her back, melt away.
“If you like Mateo, you should talk to him,” McKay leaned forward to whisper. “He really is an amazing guy. He’d be lucky to have you.” Victoria smiled at that, more genuinely than she’d expected.
“I will,” she heard herself saying.
“Good girl.” McKay patted her on the shoulder, gave her a squeeze—and then turned around and walked away.
Victoria’s heart dropped out of her chest.
Victoria, the one to ask, this time, if she can hang out with Whitaker and Santos, not even giving them time to do anything—or say no, Javadi reasoned, as she showed up with a twelve pack. McKay didn’t have her son that weekend, so she wasn’t at risk of being called for babysitting duty. “Can I hang out for a few hours?” She could hear herself practically begging. “I need to stop thinking.”
“Huckleberry, Crash brought beer! So where is it, this fake ID? I need to see how you manage to get past the cashier.” With a flash of her fake I.D., the one she’d started using when she was eighteen and wanted to feel normal when she was invited out, Santos approved and finally let her in. The apartment was uncharacteristically dark, and when Victoria realized what they were doing—watching some slasher on the TV—she thought that maybe she made a mistake. What had she come here for, other than to talk about her weird feelings about McKay? To ask, can you see it, too?
See what? That McKay wanted her? The idea was so ludicrous that she wanted to ask Santos to check if her pupils were blown—if the fall she’d taken her first day was starting to show delayed signs of brain injury. That, at least, could explain why Victoria felt so insane all of a sudden.
The movie was more stupid than anything, not even enough to make Victoria queasy with the amount of gore, squicked out only by the sexual nature of the movie, but they’re all buzzed and having a moment when Trinity said, emboldened by the dark room, “Damn. Garcia rode me hard today.”
“Just because Javadi’s here, doesn’t mean I want to listen to you complain about Garcia again.” Whitaker groaned a little, and nudged Victoria lightly. “Maybe you can get it out of her, but she won’t shut up about it. I think Trinity has a thing for one of our bosses.”
Victoria stopped herself from asking: Was this a fucking set up?
“She’s hot,” Santos whistled. “Anyone would have a thing for her. Well, ‘cept maybe Crash, but she’s into more of a mommy vibe. I can’t really tell, though—is it just the whole doe-eyed look you have going on? Are you into it or not?”
Victoria had taken another swig of beer to calm herself, to convince herself that Santos actually had a workplace crush and it wasn’t some prank to get her to admit her feelings about McKay, but then she choked and sputtered. Whitaker’s eyes widened in the dark, and he leaned over the couch to give her a few good raps on her back.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah. Yeah, I—“ Victoria buried her face in her hands. “You want to hook up with Garcia?” Victoria knew without a shadow of a doubt that Garcia was beautiful, but they hadn’t interacted much. Still, her mind replayed every single flirtatious moment between her and Santos over the last few weeks.
“Duh,” she said, choosing not to dig when Victoria answered a question with another question. Victoria—hearing rather than seeing— Santos throwing back her head to finish her can with a satisfying crunch. “You could cut the sexual tension with a scalpel. She’s pretty, and bossy, and I can’t tell whether she likes or hates me. Just my type.” Victoria let out a laugh, before Trinity shoved her and said, “Since we’re sharing workplace crushes so freely now, you can tell me all about McKay—or at least, what makes you want her so badly.”
“McKay?” Whitaker questioned, as if he had misheard. “I would’ve never guessed that.” Javadi couldn’t help but think that her coworkers gossiped about her outside of work—that she was a frequent, popular topic—and as much as that annoyed her, it was a problem for another night.
“I’m straight,” Victoria responded, bluntly. It came off more defensive than she meant it to, like she was trying to convince herself rather than the two of them. When would she have had time to experiment, anyway? “I mean, I’ve never liked a girl before. I like Mateo. She’s just my mentor, and she’s nice to me, and she doesn’t pick apart every move I make in the ER. It’s not a crush, it’s just—“
Victoria didn’t want to humor the idea.
“Mommy issues,” Santos offered, dragging the two words out as long as possible. “I get it, Crash. If I had a mom like yours, I’d want an older woman to tell me what a good job I’m doing all the time, too.” Dennis looked like he wanted to run away from their conversation. Victoria wondered if she could run and hide with him, too.
“I think your mom’s nice,” Dennis threw his hat in the ring. “Intimidating as hell, though.”
“She’s nice,” Victoria didn’t want it to feel like a lie. “I just wanted to know if McKay was like that with any of you.”
“Like what? I mean, most of the time, you’re with her.” Dennis said, trying to be helpful.
She doesn’t know, after, what possessed her to say it. The beer, or the darkness, or Trinity’s admission that she had an inappropriate workplace crush—and Victoria was being encouraged to talk about McKay, and how she felt—with these weird pangs in her chest.
“She called me a good girl while we were talking after work, and it made me feel. Weird.” Victoria’s mind drew a blank on what else to say, all the words she built up on her walk over to Trinity’s apartment dwindling, a warmth in the core of her stomach.
“What could be the context for that?” Dennis asked incredulously, but then put his hands up. “You know, I think I’ll just leave it alone. I’m going to bed.” He managed a rushed goodnight while Trinity stole his spot.
“Huckleberry’s right. What was the context?”
Victoria was silent for a moment, chasing after the right words in her tipsy brain. She didn’t have time to feel embarrassed by it.
“I wanted to know.” Victoria rested her head back against the couch cushion, near Trinity’s feet, and looked up at the ceiling. “If she had a thing with Mateo. And I guess she took that as me asking if Mateo was single, and she told me to talk to him. When I told her I would, she called me that.” She let out a deep breath, surprised by her composure, how concise she was being.
“Do you like Mateo?” Trinity asked, which Victoria was here about McKay, not him.
“I do,” she answered honestly. “As a person, yeah. Enough to want to see him, romantically? I—I don’t know, he told me he didn’t date coworkers. I wouldn’t say no if he wanted. To date, but that might just be desperation more than anything.”
“Did you like it?” Santos asked, and when Victoria turned to look at her she finished, “Being called that? I don’t think Dr. Bangs is going to be offended if you ask her to stop.”
Victoria bit her lip, subtly. Or at least, she tried. “It made me feel…good.” Victoria’s admission ate at her insides. She wondered if Trinity could feel the shame radiating off of her. “I like how McKay treats me,” she said. “But, I really don’t think it’s a crush. I mean, I’ve always been too busy to date or—Or otherwise.” Victoria didn’t have to say have sex, because for as long as Trinity’s known her she’s clocked her as a virgin, someone inexperienced. “I don’t know.” Sighing, she thumped her head against the couch. “I don’t even know if I like girls. Women.”
“Wanna go for a test run?” Santos offered, and it could have been the beer in her system, but she refused to snap her head back to look at Trinity again, genuine fear of what she might have been implying. Did Trinity just ask her to hook up? Right now? Trinity, seemingly unfazed, said, “We can go to a gay bar, and I’ll make Whitaker our DD. I’m an excellent wing man. At least, if you do like women, you can find someone else to think about that isn’t a woman twice your age. Or, if you’re into that, at least someone that isn’t your boss.”
Ah, so that’s what she meant. Victoria felt herself unwind, the blood rushing to her ears.
Victoria didn’t know what she liked. Every aspect of her possible attraction to McKay made her feel guilty. Superior, age gap, mommy issues all wrapped into one. It was all shame, wrapped up in a box with a pretty bow. She started wondering if she should feel ashamed about liking women, in general, but that wasn’t super important to her. It wasn’t life ending. In fact, it might make her mother try too hard, something she couldn’t stomach the thought of. She hoped, for a flash of a second, that she was straight, just so she never had to talk about future partners with her parents. She didn’t exactly need her future girlfriends or boyfriends or whatever being picked by Eileen Shamsi.
It wasn’t the worst plan, she guessed. If all else failed, she could at least have a night out at a bar like a normal young adult, where no one knew she was a proclaimed ‘child prodigy’.
“Okay.”
Victoria Javadi experienced the week from hell. The lows of work beat her mercilessly, kept her numb, until she could cry into her pillow at home like God intended. McKay kept an eye on her, but Victoria couldn’t help it—Trinity knew about her frustrations, her concerns, about McKay. She jumped out of her skin when McKay touched her, and tried not to acknowledge it when a pet name slipped out. She acted like McKay was a dangerous stranger rather than her teacher.
“Everything okay, honey?” And McKay knew, ever so observant, ever so considerate. Teetering on the edge, trying to find balance—give her an invitation to open up.
McKay, calculating how much of a risk Victoria was to herself.
It sounded so much like her mother, her mother’s preferred nickname for her, that it made Victoria a little queasy. She wouldn’t be able to work in her current state if she didn’t say something. Victoria dropped the syringe onto the tray with a little more force than intended and bit her lip. As frustrated as she was, she wanted to remain professional.
“I’ve got this. Everything is okay,” Victoria said, meaning it, and hoping McKay would realize she meant it too. “Just, if you could not call me that—I’d appreciate it.”
“Oh,” McKay said, blinking in surprise. “Yeah! Yeah, of course. I’m sorry about that, Dr. Javadi.”
That didn’t mean Victoria wanted McKay to stop all of the names McKay had grown fond of calling her. Now, it was only Javadi, or Dr. Javadi, which Victoria was fine with—really—but now that McKay was not actively calling her sweetheart or baby, she felt like something was missing. Even ‘Vadi’ had been taken away from Victoria, and she didn’t like it.
Three hours after the initial confrontation, Victoria felt urgency to correct herself. She was an overthinker, after all. Once something got in her head, it stuck like glue until she worked or talked it out, mental taffy stuck in the back of her teeth. They went up to the roof to collect a donation, and the only sound was the hum of the elevator. “Dr. Shamsi,” Victoria started, hoping she could get the rest of her words out before there was a chance for awkward silence. “Whenever I hear her say that—honey—it sounds derogatory. Like she’s talking down to me. When I heard you say it, it made me feel…small. It freaked me out. But, just that word.”
“Oh?” McKay questioned, a raise of her eyebrow. “I’m sorry I made you feel that way. I’ll be more careful with how I speak to you going forward. Some things just slip out.”
That wasn't it, Victoria thought stubbornly. She didn’t want to admit it, out loud, in front of McKay, that she liked everything else. “You didn’t,” she insisted. “I just…if you want to keep calling me other things, that’s fine. Honey is off limits.” Victoria didn’t get McKay’s answer before the elevator door opened and someone was handing her a cooler and there was no time to talk more about Victoria’s unresolved issues with her mother.
The longer the week dragged on, the more apprehensive Victoria felt about her plan with Trinity. A pit in her stomach that only grew with each passing day. She blamed her poor decision making, saying yes to Trinity’s insane plan, on her drinking. It had taken some time to figure out when their schedules aligned, but they’d managed a Saturday, a weekend Victoria knew McKay didn’t have Harrison.
She imagined, in her messed up little brain, inviting McKay out to the bar with them on the basis of comradery. There were a few problems with that plan. One, McKay was sober, and Victoria would never be the one to put her in that situation. It was incredibly fucked up. Two, it would be at a gay bar, which Victoria thought wouldn't be a problem, exactly, maybe just a little awkward. And third, Victoria was going to a gay bar to see if she was attracted to her boss, which McKay could not find out about.
The day before Victoria and Trinity went out, Victoria faced the brunt of an unsatisfied patient, berated by an impatient woman who had been waiting six hours to be seen. She screamed at Victoria until her skin turned an impressive shade of red, called her a pathetic excuse for a doctor, and Victoria swore she could hear something being muttered under her breath. McKay was fuming by the time she got over there, and brought Ahmad along with her. Victoria almost wished the woman had tried to hit her, tried to provoke her in some way.
God, Victoria hated stupid people. McKay came to her, then, asking if she was alright, if she needed to take a break, to which she declined. Then, McKay said it, without a filter—“You’re tough as hell, Vadi. If we weren’t working in medicine, I would have kicked her ass.”
“She sucked, right?” Victoria deflated, a little, shrugged and smiled.
“Definitely.”
When a patient thanked her for catching something that two previous hospitals had failed to diagnose, Victoria’s anger subsided completely. She wanted to tattoo the look of pride on McKay’s face behind her eyelids. Even felt brave enough to boast about it to her mother, who had told her, firmly, not to get cocky. To remember her place.
***
Dennis was nothing but a victim to Trinity and Victoria’s antics. He didn’t mind going out with them, but he wasn’t exactly happy that he would be sober the entire night. Still, he remained a good sport, and Victoria couldn’t help but feel a little grateful. Dennis insisted on Victoria riding shotgun, so she took the opportunity to apply some eyeliner using the visor mirror.
Victoria hadn’t gone out to a bar since she was around eighteen. She had a couple people she would deem friends, at least people she could go out with, sometimes—to study or go to the bars with, but no one close, so the gap was scaring her. Had the bar scene changed in the two years she hadn’t gone?
Her anxiety was palpable, her hands shaking trying to do her eyes.
She practically stabbed herself when Dennis pressed on the brakes. It smeared, a little on the corner of her eye, but easily fixable. She used her nail to scrape the excess, giving Dennis a playful look.
“Sorry,” he said sheepishly. “Didn’t want to hit a squirrel.”
“You wrung a rat’s neck with your bare hands but you won’t hit a squirrel?” Trinity asked from behind them.
“Rats are disease ridden, and don’t belong in a hospital,” Dennis pointed out. “I’m not going to kill a squirrel just because he wants to cross the street.”
Trinity gave her a once-over before they walked into the bar after Dennis had parked. Victoria didn’t exactly have going out clothes, couldn’t think of an appropriate outfit for their location, so she managed on something simple—something that wouldn’t attract attention. Which, Victoria lamented, was against the point of the plan.
Victoria’s first outfit of the night was nothing more than a black dress—something she was gifted for graduation rather than picked out by her, and it was, well, boring. It wasn’t age appropriate, Victoria thought, for a young woman in her twenties who went out and partied. But it was all she had. She did, however, put on red lipstick, which made her feel more adult, somehow. Trinity, of course, gave her criticisms.
“What, are you attending your own funeral? Come on, Javadi. I’ll help you fix this.” This led to the outfit Victoria currently had on: a black sheer sleeveless top, one that had an open back, which made her feel naked and exposed; a gold skirt that shimmered a little when she moved; the red lip, she was allowed to keep, Trinity thought it looked good on her; small gold hoops, her black heels, and a leather jacket for the weather.
“Hair up or down?” Santos asked her.
“Down,” Victoria said. She at least wanted some kind of protection, a curtain to hide behind.
Victoria took it upon herself to buy Dennis a drink—just one—at the start of their night. Just for driving them, even if Dennis didn’t know exactly why. The night was still young, so Dennis had plenty of time to have one drink. Trinity wanted to stay for a few hours, at least. Or however long it took before Victoria met someone.
She didn’t know, really, what to do. The bar was cast in a blue and red glow, flashing lights just above her head. The sound of some pop song blasting through the speakers, a long line at the bar as other patrons attempted to get somebody’s attention. There was what seemed to be a cramped dance floor, a little too small, people unbearingly close to one another. A stage in the corner, instruments set up, and Trinity had already talked to a few people and told Victoria there was supposed to be some kind of indie, local band. Victoria was surprised by how easy it was for Trinity to befriend a person, then remembered that people were drunk.
They’d gotten the attention of the bartender. One drink in, and Victoria felt some of her anxiety quell.
Her eyes lingered in the corner of the bar, near the stage, and Victoria tried to tell herself she was only zoning out, but even she thought that was a weak lie. A girl caught her eye, and she was being a creep about it.
By her third drink, Victoria was starting to feel the drums reverberating throughout her chest, her heartbeat matching the wildness of it all. Victoria let Trinity drag her into the crowd, and she swayed a little, too tipsy to be self conscious about it, while Trinity kept a watchful eye out, tapping Victoria’s shoulder and motioning toward a woman watching Victoria from the stage steps, a small smile on her lips, and felt her stomach flip. (She wouldn’t admit such a thing to Trinity, but she had already noticed the woman because she reminded her of McKay. Was she cursed to associate McKay with bangs for the rest of her life?)
“Her?” Trinity asked. “Go over there, go talk to her!” she urged.
“What the hell do I say? Aren’t you supposed to be my wingman?”
Trinity rolled her eyes. “Go over there and ask her to dance with you. There.”
She should have known that Trinity would leave her to the wolves.
Victoria, with a little too much liquid confidence, sauntered over, not sure of how exactly her face looked in the moment. Her eyes fell on the stranger’s as she got closer. The woman’s eyes were brown, a small dusting of freckles across her face now that Victoria was in front of her.
“Hi!” Victoria shouted over the music.
“Hey,” the woman said, a little louder. She was dressed in something simple, but still put together. A jean jacket. A pair of black pants. A simple, white shirt, that was one size bigger than she needed. “I’m Nat!” Now that she was closer, Nat was probably only a few years older than Victoria was.
“Victoria!”
“Pretty name.” Nat moved closer, putting her hand on the small of Victoria’s back, lips almost close enough to touch her ear. “For a pretty girl.” Victoria swallowed down her ridiculous giggle, and her breath hitched in her throat. Victoria knew she should respond, but her mind had gone horribly blank.
Ask her to dance, the logical part of her brain provided.
“Want to dance?” Nat suggested, Victoria nodding, then asked, “Is it okay with you if I put my hand here?” She lowered her hand, down to Victoria’s hip, and an excited feeling fluttered in her stomach. Victoria smiled as a way of saying yes, stealing a glance in the direction of where she’d left Trinity, and Trinity was making some weird shape with her arms, which Victoria came to realize what she wanted her to do, and she put her arms around Nat’s neck, and they just swayed together, examining one another.
Nat’s breath tickled her face, smelling of something sweet. She leaned closer to tuck a hair behind her ear. “I saw you eyeing me earlier,” Nat said. “See something you like, baby?” Her lips were grazing Victoria’s cheek, and she turned towards Nat, and then Nat was kissing her.
Victoria liked women. If that was all Victoria gained from this night, it was something she was fine with. She didn’t know what Trinity thought of as a test run. Victoria wasn’t exactly expecting to sleep with anyone tonight. It had to be with someone she at least trusted, and Nat was pretty but a complete stranger. The kissing was nice. Victoria could appreciate the kissing. Everything else, if she let herself think about it, was enough to make her knees wobble.
Nat pressed her palm against Victoria’s jaw, and Victoria felt something cool, metal, against her skin. A ring. They made out for a few minutes, Victoria breathless by the end of it, when Nat grabbed Victoria’s hand. “Do you want to go somewhere, little more private?” Victoria tried not to, but she tensed. She must have made a face, too, because Nat took a step back.
“Hey, it’s okay if you say no,” Nat looked at her, confused. “You just seemed into it. Am I reading it wrong?”
Victoria wanted, selfishly, for Nat to shut up and to keep kissing. So she could practice. So she could be really, really good at it.
“I am,” Victoria lamented, a little feverishly. She was surprised by how into it she was, something threatening to burst from inside her. It felt good to be wanted like this. She decided to be honest. “I never kissed a girl before. I didn’t even know I was into women, until you kissed me.”
Nat laughed at that, almost as if she didn’t quite believe it, but she nodded, once, when she realized that Victoria was telling the truth. To be fair, she looked a little freaked out. “Glad to be of service, then,” Nat grinned. “But, to put it nicely, I don’t think you’d want me as a first time anything. It’s not you,” Nat said when Victoria’s face gave her away. “I just prefer someone a little more on my level. Sorry.”
Victoria opened her mouth to say something, but part of it was true. Still, Nat seemed nice enough. But she wasn’t ready to jump into a hook up, just yet. She needed to take some things slowly. Nat noticed this, and told Victoria to take time for herself after her realization, to accept the fact of liking women, before she jumped into anything.
“Have a good night,” Nat said, giving Victoria a kiss on the cheek. “Good luck, Victoria.”
She was right. Victoria realized with a shock to the heart that she liked women. She needed to sit on it, marinate in it for a while. Because, with a sinking realization, she couldn’t help but think of McKay while kissing Nat, and her body was filled with disgust and shame and want, the same impulsive need to stick her hand in a jar full of candy. She wanted to kiss McKay just to see what it felt like, just to see if she could. Wanted to study her under a microscope, her mannerisms, her behavior, her relationship to other people, her relationship to Victoria.
Victoria was screwed.
Trinity made her way over to Victoria, with a wiggle of her eyebrows. She could still feel Nat’s lips all over her. “Women are hot,” Victoria said, feeling a little crude.
“Men?” Trinity asked, only to get a gauge on what Victoria was, exactly. She had just found this out about herself two minutes ago. She didn’t need to put a label on it quite yet.
“To be determined,” she said with a shrug.
Trinity bought her a shot to celebrate.
When Victoria realized that the plan had gone smoothly, she launched into the second half of it, entirely made up, entirely Victoria’s idea. She wasn’t shocked, life altered by the course of exploring her sexuality—deep down, looking back, the signs had always been there. Her head, however, was a bit fuzzy. And the bar scene was getting to her, the lights, the never-ending music.
Trinity and Dennis knew nothing about Victoria’s made up part two to the plan. Sitting in between the two of them at the bar, she excused herself to get a little fresh air. Dennis nodded, and Trinity swiveled in the opposite direction, flirting with some girl Victoria didn’t catch the name of. She was pretty sure Trinity didn’t know it, either. Victoria hopped off her seat, phone in hand already, and was swallowed up by the crowd, walking towards the back patio. A few small groups had had the same idea as her, and she pondered a minute or two before deciding to call McKay.
Victoria could feel her confidence slipping away each second that McKay did not answer. On the last ring, she picked up.
And her mind drifted to her conversation, earlier, with Trinity—when Victoria was changing, and Trinity asked, “Do you think there’s a chance McKay could be into you?”
Victoria snorted at that, fully, completely, without missing a beat. “No. She’s made it very clear to me that she sees me as a coworker, as a student—“ She didn’t say the obvious, that McKay thought of her as a child, because she didn’t want to be. “When I tried to invite myself out with her one time, she thought I wanted to babysit Harrison, and she told me Harrison would love to have someone closer in age to hang out with.”
“Ouch,” Trinity said. “It could be a guilt thing, you know,” she offered after a second. “She doesn’t point out our age difference all the time like she does with you.” Victoria looked over to see her applying lip balm. “That’s called projection. She isn’t as handsy with anyone else like you, either.”
Victoria was adamant. McKay was not into her.
“Victoria?” McKay asked on the other line, and Victoria could hear her shuffling in the background, the sound of a light being turned on. “Is everything okay? It’s almost one in the morning.”
“Sorry,” Victoria said automatically. “Sorry, yeah, it’s late, I know—I just…need help. I didn’t know who else to call.”
Victoria felt disgusting, evil, manipulative. Her hands trembled with anticipation, and then guilt—a little excitement to wash it all down. McKay was the kind of person to help someone in a crisis, especially when it came to young women—and sue her, Victoria was a young woman in crisis. She gave McKay the address, and then McKay made a noise, one she couldn’t tell was positive or negative. Victoria thought, her cheeks burning with shame, that McKay knew exactly where she was.
Oh, well. It was too late to back out now.
Victoria waited in the cold until she watched McKay pull up in her car with a screech, her windows down, gesturing for Victoria to get in. She hopped the small black fence around the patio, opened the door, and just sat there in silence until McKay made a low humming sound in her throat, waiting for Victoria to break the silence.
“Thank you,” Victoria said. “I’m sorry, you’re the only one I could think of to call who wouldn’t, like, completely freak out on me.” Her breath caught in her throat at seeing her boss so vulnerable, so different outside of work. She had on a simple pair of black sweats, another black shirt that probably once had some kind of graphic on it, but from years of use had faded until all Victoria could see was the letter V. And, Victoria thought, her heart skipping a beat, she’d never seen McKay with her hair down. Never seen her outside of work without sporting her iconic ponytail.
“I’m glad you called,” McKay said in reply. “I don’t want this to be—a normal thing, alright? But it’s okay that you called me. I want you to be safe, rather than stupid, got it?” McKay kept her eyes on the road as she said, “Don’t worry your friends. Text them and let them know what’s going on.”
I’m in McKay’s car, she texted Trinity, and the three bubbles popped up. I don’t know what I’m doing.
WHAT?
Victoria groaned, her half-assed plan coming to a halt. She thought, maybe, that she would do something brave—calling McKay here, asking her to come get her, but now she was stuck. She didn’t know what to do with herself. She pointedly ignored the rest of Trinity’s texts, and when Dennis started, she knew she was in trouble.
McKay had agreed to drive her home, but the thought made her want to puke. Almost there, on her street, Victoria said, “Can we just stop, pull over for a minute? I…” She didn’t want to be pathetic, asking McKay something moronic, if she could stay the night again. Without Harrison there, with Victoria’s new realization, it would be inappropriate. She didn’t want to be inappropriate, she just wanted it to sizzle out, the same way her crush on Mateo did.
McKay pulled off to the side without saying anything.
She looked—different, with her hair down. Almost unrecognizable, but still undeniably her, still her smell, her voice, her smile. It made her look younger, which was stupid. Victoria felt like the car was too small of a vehicle to hold the two of them, and Victoria’s suffocating feelings. She sighed, deeply.
“I think I like women,” she admitted, and it was a little bizarre and weird, coming out to someone she liked, God—it felt like coming out to her parents. Victoria felt all kinds of gross about it.
McKay breathed through her nose, amused, only for a second. Her face changed—recognition and realization, Victoria thought. “Oh,” she said. “Yeah? Was that your first time at a gay bar?” She didn’t lecture Victoria on underage drinking, to her surprise, and relief. She guessed that since McKay knew she could set broken bones, could face death, the many trials and tribulations of trying to save a patient’s life, Victoria could handle a few drinks in a public setting.
Victoria nodded, her hands going to her cheeks, and she was aware of McKay looking at her now, examining her, realizing that the girl in front of her was different. “This is stupid. I don’t know why I’m telling you. Maybe because you’re, like, the safest person to tell? It just felt like too much. How I feel. And I needed to get out of there and just like, simmer, with this information.” Victoria inhaled through her nose. “I was getting claustrophobic.”
In reality, in some sick twisted version of her fantasy, she wanted to test it—to see if she was wrong, to reassure her that nothing was really there. All she had to do was study McKay, and figure out what she was about, and she knew the more she learned about her boss, the less intense her—crush, she thought, shivering at the admission, would be. She wondered how many times McKay had looked out for her, had her eyes on Victoria before she even noticed, and it made her feel kind of sick but in an exciting way.
McKay never missed a detail, watching the way Victoria full body shuddered at her, admitting it to herself, and held Victoria’s arm, rubbing with her thumb. “You cold? You look really nice, but you have to be freezing in that.” She turned on the heat.
Victoria was suddenly very hot. Goosebumps, damn them, covered her arms.
She flipped open the passenger visor to look at herself, just to give her something to do other than stare at the way McKay was touching her. She noticed, begrudgingly, that her lipstick was all over the place, mingling with something else, with the color of Nat’s lips—and Victoria wondered just how long it took for McKay to see.
McKay wordlessly pulled a container of wipes from somewhere in the back of her car. “Here,” she said. “Looks like you had a really fun night, Vadi.”
“I guess.”
There was a question posed on McKay’s lips, curiosity flooding her face, and Victoria practically begged her to ask. She wiped at her lips, her cheek, her chin, until there was no evidence of Nat left on her face. “You look like you want to ask me something,” she said, trying to sound confident. “What is it?”
“It’s none of my business as your boss what you do in your free time, and you didn’t have to tell me, but thank you for sharing it—“ McKay almost sounded like one of those self help pamphlets the doctors gave out to teenagers about STDs, but this particular illness seemed much more embarrassing. “I’m glad you felt safe enough to tell me. It can be a lot, coming out. It doesn’t have to be, but something like that can really shake you.” McKay smiled, a little lopsided. “I guess you were trying to figure everything out, when you asked me about Mateo?”
Mateo was still in the equation, still the acceptable person in McKay’s mind.
“I like both,” she offered. “I think. Mateo is…more like a friend, now, though. I don’t think there’s anything there.” A half-truth.
“That’s cool,” McKay shrugged. “You know, I’m—“
Victoria’s phone vibrated, and it was Dennis—and she really wanted to keep talking, but McKay watched his contact show up and urged her to answer it. She debated putting it on speaker phone, but her friends were loud enough without it. Plus, she didn’t want McKay to hear them say something stupid.
“Javadi, are you okay?” Bless his heart, he sounded so concerned.
From the music in the background, Dennis was still at the bar.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m with Dr. McKay, she drove me home.” McKay nodded at her, probably giving the okay to mention her at all.
“Isn’t your mom going to be mad at you?” Trinity’s undeniably loud voice shouted. “You can’t just show up at home when you told her you were staying at our place!”
She hadn’t thought about that when her plan was in motion. She hadn’t thought about much at all, really, before deciding that she wanted to be alone with McKay, to stew in her newly developed feelings, just to see, and decide where to go from there. If she showed up now, if she woke her mom at this hour, especially still with alcohol on her breath, Victoria Javadi would never see the light of day again.
Her eyes widened, her predicament sobering her up, and that nervous fluttery feeling in her chest returned.
“I can’t go home,” she moaned. “Mom will kill me if she sees me like this.”
McKay’s eyebrows furrowed, and she looked almost annoyed—it was after midnight, after all, and McKay had to be exhausted—and Victoria was stupid and selfish and—
McKay started her car again. Shakily, Victoria choked out, “What are you doing?”
“If you don’t mind crashing on the couch again, then you can stay at my place tonight. Just this one time. I don’t want you to pick up bad habits, or think that I’m cool with what you’ve been up to tonight. The gay awakening thing, that’s great. Good for you, Javadi, really. The drinking and sneaking past your mom? It makes me a little uneasy. But, you are an adult, and this is something you don’t need to be lectured about. There are plenty of worse things you could be doing right now.” McKay smirked. “Trust me, I know.”
“You don’t have to do this—“
McKay cut her off so quickly Victoria felt like she’d been slapped.
“I know. I want to.”
The line went dead. Victoria had forgotten about it completely. Trinity texted her, rapid fire, and Victoria checked it with her brightness completely down. It was in her group chat with Dennis and Trinity, mostly unused, only there for nights where they wanted to go out.
Crash is going to get some, finally!
She deleted the text.
**
That night, surrounded by Cassie McKay in all her glory, her life, that same damned blanket that smelled like her wrapped around her shoulders, Victoria had a dream.
It wasn’t the first dream she had that was sexual in nature. She’d had some, fleeting and nonspecific, during puberty—ones that only left her feeling flushed, confused. A shape of a man or woman from a show she watched, holding her, kissing her, but this was different. Much more…medical. She guessed it was fitting, in a way. Another new discovery about herself.
Victoria was in a gown. Laid up in a hospital bed, her head hazy, as she looked around the room. It looked like one of their beds in the Pitt, but off, somehow. Not complete.
“Can I come in?” a voice asked, and Victoria knew that voice, so she let out a confident sound, ready, when McKay moved the curtain and walked in. “It’s just a simple exam,” she said softly. “Nothing to worry about. I want you to tell me if there’s any pain, okay?”
Victoria didn’t really know or understand why she was being examined, but she couldn’t think of a good reason to deny it, instead letting McKay do her job. She started by putting on gloves, which were ridiculously cold—Victoria hissed under her breath at the change in temperature, all while McKay began to trace down her collarbones, her neck, feel for her pulse point.
“Any pain here?” she murmured, adjusting Victoria’s gown. She inched lower, now, closer to her breasts, and Victoria found that she was waiting for it, breathing slowly, trying not to let McKay pick up on the fact that her heartbeat was racing. McKay’s hands hovered for a moment, and then one palm, pressed against her sternum, dragging down to her bellybutton, agonizingly slow.
“No pain,” she whispered. The exam didn’t make any sense. Victoria wanted to see her own chart, just to see why she was here, why McKay was doing this.
“Good, good,” McKay said, smiling down at her. “You’re doing so well, Vadi, I’m glad you’re not hurting.” McKay changed courses, then, her hands rubbing down Victoria’s thighs, legs, ankles. Rolling both her feet. All with the same answer. No pain.
“One more place for me to check,” McKay whispered, her face now inches from Victoria’s, her breath cool and minty on her face. “Is that okay with you, baby?” She brought one hand to Victoria’s chin, and the other pressed on her hip, inching closer to the place Victoria desperately needed someone to touch.
“Is there any pain, Vadi?” McKay uttered, the heel of her palm pressing down—making Victoria gasp and flail around. “You have to tell me if it hurts.”
“No—“
“You don’t have to lie to me, sweetheart. I just want you to feel good.”
She watched McKay’s glove hand reach her, and then everything stopped.
Victoria woke up before she could enjoy herself, her eyes flying open at the sudden intrusion, her heart skipping a beat. Her eyes were greeted by darkness, her position twisted once more. It took her a few seconds to remember where she was, and of course. A wet dream, probably the only way her insane brain could try to work through her growing feelings, her strange desires. She didn’t have to reach down into her pajama pants—which McKay let her borrow, another set of grey sweats, Jesus Christ—she knew her thighs were sticky.
In previous situations, she would only wake up mildly annoyed, doing a load of clothes and letting the feeling pass, and that would be it—but Victoria felt a need in her gut, an ache between her legs. She didn’t make a move to put her hands on her body in any way. She didn’t trust herself. Not that she knew what to do, even. Victoria had other things worth doing than touching herself. She felt like someone with no control, and Victoria needed to be in control. Even with something like this. She couldn’t afford to slip.
She wasn’t about to do something stupid. McKay was only in the other room. Not wanting to go back to sleep just yet, in case her dream picked up where she left off, she brought herself up and sat in the dark in silence. It was almost four in the morning, but Victoria didn’t care about bothering Trinity, so she sent her a text anyway.
Just had a dream about McKay, she typed. Feelings are fucking stupid.
Two hours later, Trinity sent a laughing emoji.
McKay bullied her into breakfast that morning, some eggs and toast, and a pick of her fruit of the day from a bowl. She poured Victoria a glass of orange juice, and it was so sickly sweet that it made her gums sting. Victoria watched her run around her kitchen, declining every time Victoria offered help, but it was endearing, in a way. She wondered, briefly, if having a crush meant everything that person did was amplified, inherently likable. She kept her head down when McKay stuck her thumb in the corner of her mouth to lick something—juice from cutting a strawberry, maybe—and wondered, again, if McKay would have done that same thing in her dream if she managed to stay asleep a little bit longer.
“Thanks for breakfast,” Victoria said.
“You’re staring,” McKay commented, nursing a cup of coffee. “Any other life-changing experiences you feel like sharing?” McKay didn’t expect Victoria to take the question literally, but she giggled to herself at the idea of answering honestly. When she looked back at McKay, her bangs sticking to her forehead, her eyes large and curious, Victoria felt the overwhelming urge to kiss her.
She couldn’t help it. The domesticity of it all made her delirious.
McKay’s phone buzzed, and her demeanor changed completely—Victoria had never seen someone turn angry so fast, she hardly had any time to ask what the problem was before McKay muttered under her breath, “Fucking Chloe.”
It was funny, almost. Victoria had forgotten about her. Put her, and McKay’s ex, under a list of people she didn’t really care about.
“Sorry,” she sighed heavily, brushing her bangs out of her face. “I’ve been arguing with these two since last night. She just won’t fucking drop it.”
“Drop…?”
“I’m trying to figure out my schedule for next Wednesday, because Harrison’s parent teacher conferences are coming up, but Chloe keeps trying to tell my loser ex that I don’t need to be there, that she will be, like I’m not Harrison’s mother, and it’s pissing me the hell off.” McKay took a few deep breaths, part of a ritual, probably, that she learned as she was getting sober. “Just a goddamn child,” she fumed. “Trying to play like an adult.”
Victoria’s reality check hit her harder than she thought. The last few days she must have been experiencing a psychotic break. How could she sit here, five years younger than Chloe, and expect McKay to want her? Seriously? Her toast felt dry going down her throat. Orange juice threatened to come back up. McKay made it clear that Chad and Chloe’s relationship was disgusting to her. McKay would only be a hypocrite, if she showed any interest in Victoria at all.
“God, that’s—shitty,” Victoria said, unhelpfully. “You should be there. You care a lot about Harrison, and his education. Chloe doesn’t need to be in the room. She isn’t his mother.”
“Right?” McKay bit down on her piece of toast. She slammed her phone down so that she wouldn’t be able to see any of her notifications. “Fuck. You don’t want to hear this, huh, Vic? I’ll take you home.”
Victoria hated the idea.
“Actually,” she said, shyly. “Trinity made me change when I got to her place last night. Can you drop me off there?”
McKay rolled her eyes, and Victoria knew it to be affectionate, but the sinking feeling refused to go.
Victoria had to kill her feelings.
She was stupid to think otherwise.