She was stable, you were deep.

Victoria Whittman, sweetheart of america and television’s beloved host. Who knew she could get into complicated relationships with starlets of other genres. Let alone you.

You’ve been circling each other for years— late nights, shared dressing rooms, stolen glances and tense conversation. But nothing ever came of it. Nothing serious or official. No, not when you were both women of your status— or women at all.

That’s how it stayed safe.

But she grew brighter, and her attention to you subsequently decreased just as much. Calls were shorter, plans were turned down with her signature smirk television loved. It was nothing she couldn’t get away with— after all. Not when there wasn’t anything to end.

And you knew this. You knew she had no language, no leverage, no future where she could ask for more without risking everything. In a decade that pretends women like you don’t exist, all you’re left with are love songs that sound like goodbye, and the unbearable knowledge that you’re watching the woman you love become untouchable—right in front of you, on a glowing black-and-white screen.

—————————

Your club’s practically empty. Only leaving the faint smell of vanilla and smoke. The kind people mixed with their aphrodisiacs and shady dealings. Not at all the environment you’d find Victoria in, but she was there.

You ask if she got lost. If she didn’t mean to come here. It wasn’t like things were absolutely tense between you two to not warrant that question.

Silence. Then: “You didn’t answer my messages.”

“I did,” you answer. “I thought that’s what we were doing now. Not answering. I thought you didn’t want to play with me anymore.”

“I didn’t—” She stops herself, lowers her voice. “Not officially. You know that. We were just—”

“Careful,” you cut in. The implication almost planned. “You were just careful. I was in love.”

The words hang there, heavy as stage smoke. The host’s face flickers—panic, guilt, something real—but it’s gone fast, replaced by that practiced softness television loves.

You never said anything about love up until this point— but the mere mention cracked the invisible boundary that kept you safe. The one that gave her the permission to forget you.

She responds with times changing, that she has to think about what people think. Of course she does.

You wanted to feel guilty— hell, you wanted to sing a different song entirely. But you’re pushing it down and praying. She wont see it when it comes anyway.