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Victoria Javadi wasn’t supposed to feel like this. Jealous, that was. It was… unbecoming, her mother would call it. An ugly emotion. Not befitting of a bright, promising girl like her. She was too smart, too well-taught. Victoria was often able to subdue feelings, emotions like it. She had to, to keep that respect she worked so hard to earn. But when she heard that Cassie had planned a date with a man, a… a patient… it became overwhelming.
She’d rushed to the bathroom, something between a panic attack and the urge to puke rushing through her whole body as she almost sprinted to the sink. She was sick to her stomach, her body exaggerating as she hung over that sink, staring at herself in the mirror, hands gripping onto the porcelain.
“Come on, V…” She mumbled to herself, stare burning a hole in her own eyes. Her heart was beating out of her chest, longed to break a path through her ribs. It wasn’t anything medical, anything physical, she’d checked to the best of her ability. No this… this was a reaction, an overblown one she just couldn’t stop. “Calm… calm the fuck down, dammit…”
This was stupid. She hated feeling like this, pinching her eyes closed in an attempt at forcing herself out of it. Forcing these feelings from her mind. Instead, images of Cassie projected themselves in the darkness behind her eyelids. Cassie’s face, her arms, that smile and that awfully gorgeous laugh. And then the man, whatever the fuck his name had been, at her side.
Victoria’s heartbeat only sped up.
She looked herself in the eyes again, found tears welling up at the bottom of her eyelids. She couldn’t believe it. Why? Why was she overreacting like this? Cassie wasn’t hers, nothing of the sort. They were nothing, there was nothing there. She was just her mentor, her superior. She had no… no right to get upset over this. No doubt, if it came down to it, Cassie would tell her the same damn thing.
And, like fate had been listening, the door to the bathroom swung open, followed by Cassie waltzing in, calling out her name.
“Javad-”
Victoria turned her head to the side, and found Cassie’s pupils growing three times their original size, worry shooting into her expression as their gazes found each other. Cassie pulled into a jog instantly, approaching her with the type of urgency like she’d just watched Victoria get stabbed. She stopped just short of Victoria.
“Victoria, are you okay?” Her eyes skittered all over Victoria as she asked the question, inspected her for cuts, bruises, wounds, whatever. She was trying to find out if Victoria was hurt, why she looked how she did. Why she looked so distraught, why she looked like that. Only Victoria knew that there weren’t any physical causes at play.
“I-I… I’m…” Victoria trailed off, choked on her own words as she balled her right hand into a fist, pressed it into her thigh. It was only then, so focused on trying to keep her real feelings inside, that she noticed Cassie’s right hand hanging between the two of them. Her gaze shifted from that hand to Cassie’s eyes, and found an expression like a question. An inquiry for permission. Victoria softly nodded, and Cassie placed a hand on Victoria’s bicep, softly grasping at her through the fabric of her lilac hoodie.
Like always, Cassie’s touch grounded Victoria. Brought her back down to Earth. There was still work to be done, but Victoria finally allowed herself to breathe again, like a weight lifted from her lungs. And with her heartbeat back to somewhere above normal-adjacent, Victoria allowed herself to look Cassie back in the eyes.
And there she was face to face with Cassie, for the first time in what felt like forever. And her mind was everywhere. Part of her wanted to slap her, another part wanted to push her away. Even another wanted to scream at her, chew her out for going out with a guy despite how big of a crush Victoria obviously had on her. How much she... she loved her. How much she wished she didn’t.
Victoria did none of that. Instead, she levied a weak smile and mumbled out a rote reassurance.
“I’m fine.”
“Are you?” Cassie raised an eyebrow, her lips curling into that smirk that spelled doubt. Caring doubt. Doubt that meant ‘don’t lie to me, for your own good’.
“I swear.” Victoria lied.
“Do you wanna tell me what happened?”
She didn’t. Of course she didn’t. She didn’t wanna lie, either. But… it wasn’t like she could tell the truth. Victoria sighed. “I just… crazy migraine, turned into a panic attack, and it spiralled from there.”
“Jesus.” Cassie chuckled. That stupid chuckle that Victoria heard in her daydreams, that echoed in the back of her mind every time she heard it. She squeezed Victoria’s bicep in reassurance, and Victoria cherished the feeling. “So, you fine now?”
“I think so, yeah.” She lied again.
“Alright.” Cassie’s hand left Victoria’s bicep and slipped into the pocket of her hoodie, and Victoria felt cold in an instant. “Well, take your time in here, okay? I don’t wanna rush you. But when you’re done, find Dr. Robby. He told me to fetch you, so it’s probably something urgent.”
Victoria just nodded, lips pursed. She couldn’t find the words to speak, hoped Cassie would understand the non-verbal answer. Cassie nodded back, and turned her back to Victoria as she began walking to the bathroom door. There, with her hand on the handle, she came to a stop one more time and turned her head to Victoria.
“Victoria, please… keep me informed, okay?”
“About- about what?”
“About you, dummy.” She smiled, one full of care. “I care about you. If you’re not doing well, if you need help, I want you to let me know. So I can help you.”
“Yeah, okay, sure.” Victoria cast her gaze to the floor, rubbed her bicep with her. “I can do that, yeah. I promise.” She emphasized that last part with a weak smile, all she could muster.
“Great.” The door opened and Cassie walked out, the sound of chaos seeping in through the doorway for a moment before it fell back closed and isolated Victoria back in that dim bathroom. She turned her back to the door. And a tear rolled down her cheek.