Page 43 of Victorious: Part 2
It’s perfect.
It’s real.
The kind of content that shows actual life instead of the carefully curated version most people post.
“You getting this?” Phoenix grumbles, spitting sand out of his mouth.
“Every gloriously, embarrassing second of it.” I lower my camera, grinning. “Your dignity is seriously suffering on this trip.”
“What dignity? I lost that the moment I agreed to travel with a fucking cat named Dracula.”
As if he knows we’re talking about him, Dracula saunters over and rubs against Phoenix’s leg, purring loudly and proudly.
“Now you’re friendly, you little shit?” Phoenix groans, but he scratches behind the cat’s ears. “Psychotic little bastard,” he mumbles under his breath, rolling on his back with a huff.
Grinning as I watch Phoenix lying on the sand with our pet cat, while I set up for some landscape shots, moving between different angles and compositions. The preserve is massive, and everywhere I look, there’s something new to capture—the way the light filters through the sand, the endless expanse of desertstretching to the mountains.
It is simply breathtaking.
We work in comfortable silence for a while, me taking pictures and video clips while Phoenix pretends to keep watch, but I know he’s secretly playing with Dracula.
Phoenix spots a hawk circling overhead and points it out so I can capture it. When the wind picks up and starts messing with my tripod, he steadies it without being asked.
It strikes me how natural this feels.
How easy it is to work alongside him.
A perfect team.
“Can I ask you something?” I say, adjusting my lens for a macro shot of a flowering cactus.
“Shoot.”
“Your mother. Is she why you’re so protective? Not just of Sadie, but in general?”
Phoenix considers the question, absently petting Dracula, who has decided to use his boot as a pillow. “Maybe. Watching someone you love suffer, knowing there’s nothing you can do, it changes you. Makes you want to fight harder for the people who are still here.”
I nod, understanding more than he knows. “I still think about that night when you told me about your mom. How she dealt with her diabetes on top ofeverythingelse she was going through. It makes me realize how lucky I am to have the support system I do.”
“Your family’s incredible, Clo,” Phoenix agrees. “The way Maverick stepped up when you were diagnosed, the way he fought for you. I know he’s tough. He’s protective. But it’s only because he adores the ground you walk on. Like I do with Sadie.”
“He did step up. But he also sacrificedso much…” I pause, the familiar guilt washing over me. “The medical bills after Mom died were crushing. Dad had already left when I was reallyyoung, so when I was diagnosed, it was just Mom working multiple jobs to pay for my insulin and supplies. She died when I was thirteen, and Maverick was only eighteen, so he found himself suddenly responsible for a diabetic kid.”
“And you feel guilty about it,” he states. It’s not a question. Because he knows it’s true.
“Every damn day,” I admit. “He gave up everything for me. College, his own teenage years, probably a dozen relationships, because dating gets complicated when you’re raising your diabetic sister. And now here I am, pursuing this dream career that takes me away from him right when he needs me the most.”
“Clover.” Phoenix stops walking and turns to face me. “You know that’s not how family works,right?Love isn’t a debt you have to repay.”
“Isn’t it?”The words come out sharper than I intended. “Because it sure feels like it sometimes.”
“Aaron never would have wanted me to spend my life feeling guilty about being here when he isn’t. About having a life with Mom when he couldn’t. What little time I had with her,” Phoenix says quietly, and I see him still processing his own grief over his older brother. “Just like Maverick doesn’t want you to feel guilty for having dreams.”
The words hit me harder than they should.
My eyes shift to Phoenix with a questioning gaze. “Did you? Feel guilty, I mean?”
Phoenix looks out over the desert, his jaw tight. “For a long time, yeah. After Mom basically abandoned us for drugs, I did some really stupid shit. I joined the Steel Serpents partially because I was angry and looking for a fight. I felt as if Mom had this perfect life before us, and she was angry it was taken, and that Sadie and I weren’t good enough to fight for. Took me a long time to realize that being reckless wasn’t honoring Aaron’s memory… it was pissing on it.”
