Part 40: Victoria
Victoria stood in the hallway between her bedroom and her parents’ room. She was stuck; she was frozen. Every few seconds she would make a decision one way or the other, move a few steps, and then reconsider it and go the other direction instead, like one of those squirrels that get flattened in traffic, or a computer stuck in a logical loop. The pattern of her thoughts was circular, and not in the pleasant way that allows you to take the things you want to do and make them seem reasonable and useful and good, but the bad way where it actually felt like a circle.
She had to wake up her mom because Hannah was in trouble but she couldn’t wake up her mom because then she would get in trouble and she couldn’t help Hannah, so she had to go back to her room and wait for Hannah so she would know she was okay, but she couldn’t just wait, so she had to wake up her mom . . .
The first thing she had tried, as soon as Hannah went offline, was to call her cell phone. Of course. She was a little afraid to call because what if Hannah’s mom heard it - or what if she heard Hannah’s mom screaming, throwing things, attacking Hannah, and couldn’t do anything about it? But Hannah didn’t have texting, and it was an emergency, so she had no choice.
But then she heard the sound of vibrating coming from her own bed. Hannah had left in such a rush that afternoon that she’d left her cell phone behind, hidden under Victoria’s British-flag-print blanket (one of the few things from Before she had been able to keep, because it turned out British things were cool.) Hannah always wrapped herself in that blanket when she played video games, and it must have fallen out of her pocket in her enthusiasm. The thought made Victoria feel like crying.
If only Mrs. Brixton hadn’t gone to bed; if only she had her license. For one wild moment, hovering in the hallway, Victoria considered stealing her mom’s keys from the hook in the kitchen and going to get Hannah herself. That was what Hannah would do, she knew. But there was too much Girl Scout left in her. Even if she tried, she wouldn’t be able to drive the minivan. She would need lessons; she would need someone to teach her step by step before she could ever drive. She couldn’t just do things the way Hannah could.
What about Elizabeth, what about Catherine? They were too far away to help, but maybe they could give her some advice. Maybe they knew a way to wake up Mrs. Brixton without making her angry. Finally freed from her trap, Victoria went back to her room and frantically scrolled through the contacts on her phone, looking for their numbers, but they weren’t there. She didn’t have her own sisters’ phone numbers - why not? It seemed like something that should have just been there automatically. Something her parents should have forced her to do when she first got a phone. Part of their job.
But under E - nothing. Under C - only Courtney, Caity, and Callie. None of them would be any help.
Who else was in there? Other people from school and her parents.
Suddenly, she heard a vibrating sound and realized it had been happening intermittently the whole time she was in the hallway. She had thought it was just in her head, a memory from before, but it was real. Hannah! She must have realized she left her phone behind and gotten hold of her mom’s phone somehow (she pictured Hannah fishing through the pockets of a passed-out, couch-sprawled Ms. Pascucci) and was using it to contact Victoria. She would know her own phone number, which Victoria did not.
“Hannah!?” she said breathlessly.
“Victoria?” responded the other voice. Definitely not Hannah’s voice: male, familiar, panicked.
“Wait, James?!”
“Victoria?” he repeated. “Why do you have Hannah’s phone?”
“She left it here,” she explained. “Wait, why are you calling her? You call her?”
“No, but I think she’s in trouble.”
“I know. How do you know?”
“She told me.”
“Yeah, she told me too.”
“Wait, what’d she tell you?”
“Uh . . .” Victoria’s mind was blank. What had Hannah told her? She was hung up on the fact that she was talking to James right now, of all people - James who hated her, James who called her his enemy, James who she called a selfish little boy in her profile. “Wait, are you on right now?”
“On?”
“Line.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll send you it.” She hung up and dashed to her computer. That would be easier: she could just send James the conversation instead of having to summarize it herself. She trusted him completely right now. He would figure out what to do once he had all the information (because obviously Hannah had told her more than she had told James.) If he said to wake up her mom, she would; if he said to call the police, she would. But while those ideas were just her ideas, they were worthless. Only he could make them real.
victoriASS1992: i’m gonna send you our convo
xx themachine: ok sure
She highlighted her conversation with Hannah - starting a few lines before Hannah came back and started telling her about her mom, so James would see what they had been talking about (they had been talking about him before that, she remembered now with a strange thrill) - copied and pasted it into the chat window with James:
XXxSuicidesxGracexXX: lmao hes like a sexy priest
victoriASS1992: are there even hot priests? lol
XXxSuicidesxGracexXX: oh for sure for sure
XXxSuicidesxGracexXX: we’ll find them someday
XXxSuicidesxGracexXX: and corrupt them
victoriASS1992: corrupt?
XXxSuicidesxGracexXX: yeah
XXxSuicidesxGracexXX: poison their *minds*
XXxSuicidesxGracexXX: hold on brb
victoriASS1992: ok!!!!
XXxSuicidesxGracexXX: fhlkfjsghlksghsflj
victoriASS1992: whats wrong?
XXxSuicidesxGracexXX: my moms a fucking bitch
victoriASS1992: wait whyyyyyy
XXxSuicidesxGracexXX: you know why
victoriASS1992: ya but why right now
victoriASS1992: is she drunk?
XXxSuicidesxGracexXX: she’s always drunk victoria
XXxSuicidesxGracexXX: i swear to god
XXxSuicidesxGracexXX: she just came in here
XXxSuicidesxGracexXX: freaking out at me
victoriASS1992: omg why
XXxSuicidesxGracexXX: saying i’m a selfish bitch
XXxSuicidesxGracexXX: for asking her tocome pick me up
XXxSuicidesxGracexXX: when she was at her boyfriends
XXxSuicidesxGracexXX: cause now hes mad ather
XXxSuicidesxGracexXX: but hes a drunk asshole too
XXxSuicidesxGracexXX: idk the whole things retarded
XXxSuicidesxGracexXX: hes retarded
XXxSuicidesxGracexXX: shes retarded there both retarded
XXxSuicidesxGracexXX: wait hold on one sec
victoriASS1992: omg ok
victoriASS1992: im here
victoriASS1992: is it gonna be ok orrrrrrrr
victoriASS1992: let me know when your safe
XXxSuicidesxGracexXX: okay im back sorry
XXxSuicidesxGracexXX: now shes mad that im on the computer??????
XXxSuicidesxGracexXX: so i gotta get off
victoriASS1992: omg that sucks
XXxSuicidesxGracexXX: it doesnt suck it fucking BLOWS
victoriASS1992: sorry your right
XXxSuicidesxGracexXX: you’re*
XXxSuicidesxGracexXX: okay i really got to go now
victoriASS1992: ok ill be here
victoriASS1992: i hope everythings ok
XXxSuicidesxGracexXX: it’ll be okay don’t worry
XXxSuicidesxGracexXX: she’ll probably pass out soon lmao
XXxSuicidesxGracexXX: i’ll talk to you later
victoriASS1992: ok ttyl bye
In nervous anticipation, Victoria tapped her fingers on the desk, on the edge of the keyboard, on her thigh, an old habit that she took up when she stopped biting her nails. How slow did this kid read? Or maybe the old habit would help. It was an emergency, after all, it wasn’t like she was going to start doing it all the time again. (It had been so hard to stop the first time. It had been the biggest problem in her life when she was, like, ten. Before she had met Hannah, before things like alcohol and people hating you for no reason had entered her world.) She put her left hand up to her mouth and continued to tap impatiently with her right.