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Against her better judgement Victoria Chase knocked on the door.
"What the fuck are you doing?" She muttered to herself, but she didn't move.
“Coming," a voice said from inside the room.
I should leave. She thought. I shouldn't be here. I need to leave.
But she was still standing there when Kate Marsh opened the door. Kate was smiling when she opened it, but her smile turned into a confused frown as she saw who was there.
"Victoria?" Kate asked.
"Hi Kate," Victoria said with an apologetic smile, though what Victoria was exactly apologizing for she couldn't say. Her very existence maybe? That seemed like a good place to start.
"Uh, hi Victoria!" Kate said, and for some reason her frown flipped right back into the most radiant smile Victoria had ever seen. It hit Victoria like a fist, knocking the breath out of her.
No, don't smile at me you imbecile, you should be slamming the damn door in my face! What are you doing? Don’t you remember what I did to you? Don’t you remember who I am? You of all fucking people should know better than to be nice to...
"Ummm…did you need something?" Kate asked, and with a start Victoria realized she'd just been staring at the girl, lost in her own thoughts and Kate's beautiful smile.
"I, uh, could I… come in?" Victoria asked, cringing at every word as it left her mouth. Her body braced for the rejection she knew was coming, but Kate just shrugged and moved aside. When Victoria just stared at her, dumbfounded, Kate cracked a smile and motioned for her to come in.
Victoria walked into Kate's room and was struck by how much it looked like, well, a dorm room. She had pictured some immaculate shrine with a giant cross erected in the center and a bookshelf with every bible translation that’d ever been printed and, sure, there were quite a few Christian posters up but mostly it just looked... normal. There were piles of dirty clothes near the closet, cute little doodles hanging up by the desk, an open violin case laying on the coach, and a cage of some sort on top of a dresser. It looked almost dingy compared to Victoria’s room. Kate Marsh could be dingy? The idea just didn’t seem to connect with Victoria.
Victoria moved towards the cage, her curiosity getting the better of her, and glanced inside. Two dark eyes stared back at her and Victoria involuntarily took a step back. She had a rabbit? Were pets even allowed in the dorms?
"I, I was just about to practice," Kate said from behind her. Victoria turned towards her and Kate motioned to her violin. "Do you mind?"
"No!" Victoria said quickly. "No, not at all, I'll just…" She looked around the room and her eyes settled on Kate's bed. "I'll just stay over here, don't mind me."
"Are you sure? If you had something you needed I can…"
"No, it's okay! I just… didn't want to be alone." Victoria's stomach churned at the admission, every instinct in her gut bulking at it, that she would admit to Kate fucking Marsh that she was too scared to be on her own right now.
But her gut had told her that Mark Jefferson was the coolest teacher she’d ever had. It had told her that she wanted to be just like him, because he was the very definition of genius. And he’d ended up being a kidnapping creep who got his jollies off on hurting women.
And her gut had told her that Nathan, while misguided, had been a true friend to her. It had told her that he had understood her in a way that few other people could, and that, like her, there was a nugget of decency hidden under all the awful. But then he’d shot Chloe Price in the bathroom and she was dead and he was likely going to prison for life for double manslaughter and kidnapping.
And it had told her that Kate Marsh was a stuck up, goody-two-shoes who looked down on everyone else from her pure ivory tower. It had told her that she deserved everything Victoria had done to her, everything she had planned to do to her. But when she had been crying in her room last night, feeling more alone and miserable than she had ever felt, it had been Kate Marsh who had knocked on her door and asked if she was doing alright, who had stayed with her until the tears finally stopped and her terror subsided.
So maybe her gut was fucking broken.
Across the room Kate smiled again and went over to the cage. To Victoria's horror she opened it and pulled the rabbit out. Then she walked toward Victoria, the rabbit held before her like an offering.
"No!" Victoria said as she raised her hands and blocked Kate's approach. "This is Cashmere , Kate. You do not get rabbit fur on cashmere!"
"This is Alice," Kate said sweetly, ignoring Victoria's protest. "And she's here to keep you company while I play."
Victoria froze, her heart suddenly throbbing painfully in her chest at Kate's words. And in that moment of hesitation, Kate struck. She pushed past Victoria's hands and dropped Alice straight into her lap.
Victoria instantly tensed, her whole body going rigid. She felt like screaming, felt like sitting up and tossing the thing across the room, but her body wouldn't respond. On her lap Alice squirmed, turning and sniffing.
“Pet her, let her know she’s safe,” Kate said. Victoria swallowed and gave the bunny a glare, but then she slowly lowered her hand. Victoria had never had a pet before. The Chase’s were a busy family and her parents had said they didn’t want to figure out what to do with a pet every time they traveled, which was hilarious considering how little they thought about leaving her alone in their enormous house throughout her childhood.
But because of that, Victoria didn’t know how soft and warm Alice would feel under her hand, how she’d be able to feel her little heart hammering away in her body. It was beating so fast, poor thing.
“Oh,” Victoria said softly as her hand started to run down the length of Alice’s body. “It’s okay, everything is okay.” Across from her Kate smiled sweetly and moved back over to her violin.
And then Kate started to play. Victoria had heard Kate playing plenty of times, they shared a wall so it was impossible not to. In the past the noise had been a source of annoyance to her. It wasn’t that Kate played poorly, Victoria knew next to nothing about violin but she’d heard enough to know Kate didn’t play poorly.
No, she had been annoyed because she was annoyed by everything Kate did, as if the girl’s very existence had upset her. So, even though she’d heard Kate play many times, she’d never actually listened .
Kate moved her delicate arms, the bow traveling back and forth over the violin in slow, mournful notes. Victoria couldn’t even tell if Kate was playing a song yet or just warming up, but the notes seemed to vibrate through Victoria’s body and resonate with something deep inside her.
Kate continued playing and Victoria watched, drinking in every detail: the way Kate’s face scrunched in concentration while she read the music, the way her small fingers moved across the strings, the way she swayed slightly each time the bow changed directions. Victoria drank it all in. And she listened, the music constant as Kate’s bow never left her violin, the slow tones causing Victoria’s heart to ache painfully in her chest. Everything else melted away, all her other thoughts drifting away with the chords, and even though it was sad, it was a freeing kind of sadness, because it wasn’t her own.
Against her hand, Alice moved every time Victoria forgot to continue petting her, which was often. It was like she kept forgetting she had a body, kept forgetting there was anything besides the music.
Kate paused in her playing, her bow coming down to rest at her side. She frowned at her music for a moment before turning to Victoria. Her eyes widened as she saw her.
“Victoria, are you okay?” Kate asked, her voice suddenly alarmed.
“Y-yeah, why?” Victoria asked softly.
“You’re crying,” Kate said, her voice growing soft to match Victoria’s own. Victoria started and reached up a hand to her eyes. Sure enough, her hand came back covered in moisture.
“Are you okay?” Kate asked again, her voice kinder this time. She didn’t leave her spot by the music. She looked over at Victoria, her violin still posed on her shoulder. Victoria found she couldn’t meet Kate’s eyes. Without the music all of Victoria’s thoughts came crashing back down. About Jefferson. About Nathan. About how she had thought she was just like them. About how she was. About what that said about her.
“Why did you let me in here?” Victoria asked as she looked down at Alice, the little bunny’s dark eyes staring back at her.
“You asked me to,” Kate said simply.
“But why...and last night, why did you…”
“You were sad,” Kate said.
“After everything I did to you? After everything I was…” Victoria cut off, a sudden sob interrupting her. Kate didn’t even know, wasn’t even aware of Victoria’s worst sin. She didn’t know that on the night Kate had been drugged and kidnapped, when Jefferson had...done what he’d done, Victoria had known how messed up Kate had been. She’d seen Nathan and the other boys swoop in, ready to take advantage. She could have stopped it, could have stopped all of it. Instead, she’d done the opposite, she’d laughed and encouraged and then videotaped the whole thing.
And she had planned to show that video to every single person she could. She even bought a fucking website, shelled out over a hundred dollars, just to make Kate’s life a little bit more miserable. And now, for the life of her, Victoria couldn’t even remember why. Why had it been so important that Kate Marsh suffered? Why did Victoria have to ruin ever fucking thing she ever touched? Why was she…
A single note, loud and clear, interrupted her thoughts. Victoria looked up and saw that Kate wasn’t looking at her anymore, she was looking down at her violin as she slid the bow across one of the strings.
“Did you recognize that song I was playing earlier?” Kate asked as she switched the bow’s direction, playing a quiet chord.
“No,” Victoria answered, her mind blanking again as she focused on the music.
“Not surprising, I have to play it pretty slow, I’m still learning. It was written by Tchaikovsky, who wrote a lot of really sad songs,” Kate said, and her bow traveled back and forth as she talked, entrancing Victoria.
“Tchaikovsky was a tortured man,” Kate continued. “He lost his mother young, ruined his one and only marriage, and seemingly battled with depression his entire life. And he poured all of that emotion into his music. It’s beautiful.”
Kate stopped playing. Instantly a sense of pure panic rushed through Victoria. She didn’t want Kate to stop playing, she didn’t want to go back to her thoughts. On her lap Alice shifted, sensing the sudden tension in Victoria’s body. She forced herself to relax as she ran her hand down the bunny’s body.
“I wondered once, not too long ago, why God would let us get so sad, would let us get so hurt,” Kate said as she put her violin down and started packing it back in its case. “I finally realized last night that that pain and sadness, it’s what makes us most like him, it’s what brings the best out of us.” She turned then and walked over to Victoria. Seated on the bed, Victoria had to look up at Kate now and the smaller woman seemed to tower over her.
“I hated you Victoria,” Kate said as she looked down at her. “I hated you more than I’ve hated anyone in my entire life. But last night, hearing you crying, I couldn’t hate you anymore. You were in pain, and because I knew what that pain felt like, I couldn’t hate you anymore.”
“You should hate me,” Victoria said quietly. Kate shook her head.
“No. Hating you didn’t make me feel better. This though,” Kate said, and then she sat down beside Victoria, sat so close their hips were touching and Alice hopped over, half on Kate and half on Victoria. “This does feel better.”
Victoria turned to look at Kate and Kate looked back at her. She was uncomfortably close, but Victoria found she didn’t mind. It was distracting, like Alice had been distracting, like the music had been distracting.
“It shouldn’t make you feel better. I don’t... deserve this,” Victoria said, her voice low.
“Forgiveness isn’t earned, it’s just given,” Kate said with a smile. She looked down at Alice and scratched the bunny between its ears.
“So what, I cry on your shoulder once and we're just friends now? That’s really all it takes?” Victoria snapped, irrational anger suddenly welling up inside her.
“Is that what you want? To be my friend?” Kate asked, ignoring Victoria’s tone as she played with Alice’s ears. A thousand objections raced through Victoria’s head, a thousand reasons why Victoria Chase and Kate Marsh could never be friends. That did not happen. It was the last thing Victoria deserved.
She didn’t say any of them. Instead, she simply said, “Yes.”