Page 58 of Olivia's Only Pretending
I’m sorry I was such a bad charades partner
Victor
it’s okay, you can make it up to me
Me
How so?
Victor
It’ll take a few back deck chats and famous grilled cheeses
Me
Done and done!
The next morning, I was running late to work after tossing and turning all night. My thoughts were a tangled mess over Victor and me. I drove under a sheet of rain to the school, running across the campus, trying to avoid puddles with my jacket over my head.
“Long morning?” Sylvie asked as I passed her desk, feeling like a soggy mop.
“Longnight,” I moaned, running my fingers through my damp hair as I headed toward my office.
I collapsed into my office chair, dropping my tote bag on the ground beside me while taking a few deep breaths in and out. I chuckled a little because it reminded me of Victor. Back when we first started spending time together, I had just moved into my house. The early stages of renovations were chaotic and stressful, and he saw firsthand how tightly wound I could get.
I remembered the first time he gently reminded me to breathe.
“Your shoulders are by your ears,” he said, eyes squinting at me. He placed a heavy, warm hand on my shoulder, pressing it down gently.
“I’m stressed.” I was sitting on my hardwood floor among a scattered pile of plans for my house that felt daunting. “I store my stress in my body. It winds up my neck and shoulders.”
“Liv.” Victor’s usual playful voice took on a soft tone. It immediately settled my thoughts like someone turning the radio from static to silence. “Don’t worry about all of this.” He patted the pile of papers. “Just worry about this.” He picked up one of the first plans we’d agreed upon. “This is the only thing we worry about right now. We’re doing this one step at a time.”
I took the paper from his hands and looked at it. This one we were ready to tackle. All the kinks were sorted. I liked the idea of letting the others patiently wait to be worried over.
“And if you start trying to carry your worries around on your shoulders again”—he gave my shoulder another squeeze, his rough fingertips against my soft skin—“breathe in and out, in and out.”
We took a deep breath together, over and over, until it felt silly, and we were laughing there on my living room floor, my stress burned off at the edges.
It became a consistent ritual between the two of us. Anytime I’d start getting stressed, my shoulders drawing up toward my ears, Victor would step in.
Wherever we were—my house, the pizza place downtown, the hardware shop—he would look me in the eyes and say, in that steady, warm voice that felt like an embrace,breathe in and out, in and out.
Somehow, something so simple felt like a balm to my raw nerves. Something about it always worked. I wasn’t sure if it was the breathing. Or Victor. Probably both.
Yet, even now, on a stressful day with rain running down my neck, alone in my office, Victor still found a way to settle my nerves, without even being here.
I turned on my computer to begin responding to emails when a student knocked on my door. I waved her in.
Chloe, a student in my Ancient Greek History class, sat down in the chair opposite my desk. “Hi, Dr. Rhodes. I saw you had office hours today. I wanted to pop by for a second.”
“That’s great. I love when my students pop by.” I leaned back in my chair.
“I heard about your romance book club. My friend Ashley is in it, and she’s always raving about how fun it is. I’ve been too busy this semester to attend any of the meet-ups, but the other day, I grabbed one of the books you guys are reading for October,” she said, as I reached for my coffee cup to steal a sip. “It’s set in Ancient Greece. I was meaning to just flip through it for fun, but I wound up devouring it over the weekend.”
“Sometimes, a book will sneak up on you like that. You won’t expect it, but it’ll hook you. I’ve missed a lot of sleep thanks to some good books.”
“The interesting thing is that I’ve really struggled to wrap my mind around your Ancient Greece course. We’re supposed to be learning about their daily lives and customs, and my mind has trouble grasping onto it in a concrete way. But this book”—she pulled it out of her bag and waved it around—“has really helped. It made what we’re studying come alive and really grounded it in my mind.”
