and the best part about it is I'm the only who can do somethin' about it

[bye_felicia]

It hits her out of nowhere. One minute, she's berating a waitress for serving someone else before her, the next she's sitting there, staring open-mouthed at a girl near tears, the words still buzzing around in her head, sitting on her tongue, with surprise the only thing keeping them at bay.

The girl doesn't deserve this, she realizes suddenly. This is just the way that things are.

They're not home anymore. She can't treat people like this.

The girl runs away, escapes, and Victra doesn't see her again until she delivers her plate of food, so hot and fresh it's ready to burn her tongue.

But Victra can't pay any attention to her now. She has more important people in her life that she needs to apologize to. Her phone's already out and she's sending a mass text message with her location to everyone in her neatly cultivated contacts list.

I'm back to normal. Sorry.

And to Lincoln, an added:

Please forgive me.

Comments

[bye_felicia]

I'm fine.

She can hardly believe that Cameron's first instinct is to ask if she's okay. As if she's been the one going through a tough time these last few days. She's been fine. She's been trying to live the high life, the Gold life. It's everyone else she needs to worry about being okay.

I don't know what happened. I remember everything but I don't know why I did it.

[makeafairfight]

Well, that's concerning. Cameron looks at the text for a little while, turning that over. It's a little scary to think she might have been out of her own control, but then, it's also hard to think of another explanation. Victra can be haughty and judgmental and arrogant, true, but in small doses and often in a playful way, not entirely serious. Those aspects of her are there, but they're not usually... pronounced, to put it mildly.

She must feel awful.

Sounds like a Darrow thing. I'm glad you're alright. That was weird.

Which is also putting it mildly.

[bye_felicia]

Understatement.

Definitely it was a Darrow thing, but Victra feels a tinge of responsibility nonetheless. Maybe she wasn't in control of herself, but it was still her mouth that made the words. She doesn't want anyone to think that what she said came from her, that it exists in her mind as a truth.

Free? I'll buy you lunch.

[makeafairfight]

Cameron starts to write back that it's not necessary, but he erases it. She shouldn't have to feel bad for the way she behaved if it wasn't really her, but he can understand why she would. It's just the same as how it stings even though he knows she didn't mean any of it. It doesn't have to have been real for it to have happened.

Sure. Where should we meet?

[bye_felicia]

Bondurant, if that's okay with you.

It's not the most elegant of settings, but she's not looking to impress Cameron with a paid for meal at this point. She just wants to talk to him face to face and make sure that everything's okay. She needs to see people to believe them, not read off texts and hope that the meaning behind them is sincere.

[makeafairfight]

Sounds good. See you there soon.

It is, at least, somewhere Cameron already knows of, and a place not all that far from home. He lets Jenny know where he's off to and sets off shortly thereafter, soon arriving at Bondurant's. It's a little weird, admittedly, to be meeting with Victra now, but he's taking her apology at face value anyway.

[bye_felicia]

The wait between receiving the text message response and seeing Cameron walk through the door of the diner feels like an age despite the short time frame. Victra wants things to fall back into normalcy as quickly as she did, as if with a snap of her fingers. But that's impossible. Even with forgiveness, there's bound to be an awkward stage.

She waves down Cameron and gives him a tight, small grin. "Thanks. Promise I won't bite."

[makeafairfight]

"I'm not so sure of that," Cameron admits wryly, but he takes a seat opposite her all the same. He's here to figure out what happened and to give her the benefit of the doubt, not to make this worse. This is Victra. She can be tough, even sharp, but she's not usually cruel. This was something else.

"But I'll take my chances."