Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
chapter sixty-one. last tango, then paris
✧
You reap what you sow. What goes around comes around. No matter how far you run, you can never truly escape. Everyone catches up to you in the end. And when it does, it usually kicks your ass.
✧
NATE ARCHIBALD DIDN'T quite understand the pain he was feeling when he woke up, finding that his bedside was cold and untouched. Victoria hadn't slept in the same room as him, she hadn't spoken to him since they had gotten home, she hurried to Emery's nursery and locked herself in there with their daughter. The young man had an ache in his chest, haunted by the words in which Victoria barked at him the night before, how she announced her fear of what if Nate was to leave her for Jenny. He was wounded by it, never having his mind swayed and truly believing he had been helping a girl who was simply lost trying to figure out her space in the world. His sister-in-law. But Nate was only entertaining what Jenny could not have, and what she continuously tried to have with each try she made in ruining the relationship between him and her sister.
It was deafening within their apartment, and Nate allowed the silence to consume him as his electric blue eyes zoned into the empty space by his side. Victoria's side of the bed, where she would giggle when he tickled her, or would chat for hours on before sleep because she got the zoomies just before her tiredness would take over her and send her into a slumber. Nate didn't understand the feeling, it was a mixture of guilt and sadness, and the knowing he had done something wrong to hurt the woman he loved.
It had only been eight hours since he spoke to Victoria, but that was in the lobby of the penthouse. The car ride back was silent, getting ready for bed was silent, and that even dragged out through to the morning. He heard no footsteps prodding around their apartment, no sound of movement and he begun to question if Victoria was purposely moving swiftly to not intrigue him to step out of their bedroom and spark conversation. Maybe time was what she needed? But Nate's patience with the silent treatment was running low.
While he got ready he was questioning himself on how he was going to open the conversation, what he will say that wouldn't escalate the tension built between himself and Victoria. He didn't want to push her away, not one their relationship had been going perfectly well, and where it felt that they were building a life and a family for themselves.
But the thing was, Victoria wanted to keep the silent treatment until she could conjure the right words, not fuelled with anger, at her boyfriend. The brunette teen loitered around the kitchen, Emery attached to her side as she begun to prep breakfast for the baby, who would cry each time her mother thought of placing her into the high chair. She thought with how quick she moved around the kitchen it would neglect her from having the chance of bumping into Nate. Oh, boy, was she wrong.
