Victoria drummed her fingers on the desk. She’d seen the wince on Holly’s face at the memory of the Rockefeller shoot. She wished she hadn’t said anything. Maybe Holly would have attributed the memory to some delightful day out with friends rather than a terrorising work event.
She narrowed her eyes as she tried to recall the finer details of the day, what she had said, what she had done. She remembered being bitterly cold and frustrated that most of the models were useless on skates.
There was a knock on the door, and she scrambled to pick up her mobile phone and put it to her ear.
“Come in,” she called.
Holly walked into the study and closed the door behind her. She walked straight over to the desk and leaned over it, causing Victoria to back up into her chair. Holly snatched the phone and looked at the blank display.
“Thought so,” she said smugly. She placed the phone on the desktop, sat in the chair in front of the desk, and looked at Victoria.
Victoria pressed her back into her office chair. Her hand raised, and she started to play with her necklace.
“I was… just finished,” Victoria said.
“Of course you were.” Holly didn’t sound convinced. “We need to talk.”
“Do we?”
“We do. I want to know what is going on. Why do you keep hiding out in here?”
Victoria balked. “I am not hiding out, I am working.”
“No, you’re not. I’ve seen you working, you’re focused, you don’t hear the knock at the door. And this … other behaviour… seems to happen around me, so I want to know why.”
Victoria wondered if there was a way to escape the room. Her brain wasn’t coming up with any useful excuses. She swallowed hard. This was it. They could no longer pretend that Holly didn’t recall her terrible behaviour.
“I think you know why,” she said.
“No, I don’t, that’s why I’m here,” Holly said plainly. “I don’t get it. One minute you’re fine, the next you clam up. Or run away.”
“I do not run away,” Victoria denied.
“You do.” Holly folded her arms and sat back in her chair, pinning Victoria with a glare.
Dread was giving way to frustration as Victoria leaned forward.
“If I do, and I’m not saying that I do, but if I do… it’s for your benefit. So you don’t have to be around me.”
Holly frowned. “But… why?”
She slapped her desk. “Because I know you remember! Or you know everything through your journals. I’m sure all twenty-six volumes are dedicated to how… how horrible and spiteful I am!”
Holly’s eyes blinked rapidly. A moment later the girl winced and rubbed at her temple.
“And that look,” Victoria said as she gestured to Holly. “That… horror at remembering. I saw it after I reminded you about Rockefeller Plaza. You remembered what I said to you. Whatever it was. How I’m expected to remember every single conversation, I don’t know.”
“Whoa, whoa.” Holly held her hands up. “I don’t remember. And this look, this is a headache starting. Which, by the way, you are causing because you stress me out.”
Victoria felt the wind leave her sails. “You… don’t remember?”
“No. If I’d had memories, then I would have told you. Why do you…” Holly’s eyes widened. “Oh my god, is that what all of this has been about? Have you been worried that I’ve remembered working with you? And you… you’ve been taking yourself out of the situation. For me?”
Victoria’s nose flared. She felt like she was being mocked. “But your journals…”
“My journals told me a lot about my life,” Holly admitted. “And, yes, they did say that you were a royal bitch most of the time. But I don’t care. Did you worry that I… what? That I hated you?”
“You will hate me,” Victoria said with dead seriousness. “It will come.”
“No, it won’t,” Holly replied.
“It will. You may not remember now, but one day you will. And that is why I pulled away. For your sake. Because I knew that one day you would remember how terrible I was to you, and it would break us apart.”
“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.”