Page 97 of Victorious

“How many times are we going to do this?” she asked.

Mitch didn’t look at her when he answered. “As many as we have to.”

She set the bottle down and shoved her hands in the pockets of her bomber coat. A birthday gift from Mitch, three years before. It was too big then, and too big now, but one day, she supposed, she would grow into it.

“Maybe it’s the windchill talking,” said Mitch, “but you know what I could go for? A beach.”

“A beach?”

“Yeah, we haven’t lived by the ocean yet. Might be nice. Sun, and sand, and terrible fruit dri—”

“I can’t keep doing this,” said Syd, the words spilling out in a single foggy breath. “I’m so tired of running.”

He let his head fall back. “I know, kid.”

She blew out a breath, and followed his gaze, up to the darkening sky, the first stars just beginning to show through. “What would you do, if you didn’t—” She caught herself before saying “if you didn’t have me” and pivoted to “if you didn’t have to hide.”

For a moment, Mitch was quiet. Then, he smiled. “I’d have a cabin at the edge of the woods. With a woodpile. And a red pickup truck.”

It broke her heart, to hear him say it. To realize what he had given up to keep her safe.

The fact he hadn’t even hesitated.

“And I’d own a diner,” he added, “with the best pie in town.” He knocked his shoulder into hers. “How about you?”

Sydney opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She pressed her lips together.

The truth was, she didn’t know. She’d spent so many years now in a suspended state of animation. She figured it was easier to live in the present, eternal as it was, than to dream of a future without Mitch or Victor in it.

“Syd?” pressed Mitch.

“I’d go to college,” she said at last. “I’d stand out, obviously, because I look so young. But I’d be the top of my class. And I’d have friends. And I’d live in a dorm that allows dogs,” she added, unsure if that was even a thing, but hey, they were dreaming. “But I’d live close enough to drive home every other weekend. For the pie.”

Mitch smiled. “Sounds like a good life.”

Sydney nodded. “It is.” And then, “Do you know where Victor is?”

She’d meant to catch him off guard, and by the looks of it, she had. Mitch stared at her, then shook his head. “I don’t, kid. I haven’t seen him. Not since the night he left.”

Syd believed him. And she didn’t.

She’d learned, from Victor, the difference between a lie, and an omission, and a partial truth. The trick was in the wording. So she believed Mitch hadn’t laid eyes on Victor Vale. But that didn’t mean they weren’t in touch. She wondered how they did it. Wondered what they talked about. If he thought he was protecting her, by skirting the truth. But he must have seen the skepticism in her face because he overcompensated, tried his hand at an outright lie. “I don’t even know that he’s alive.”

“I do,” she said.

Mitch cocked his head. “You do?”

“I know he’s not dead. If he was, I’d feel it.” She rapped her knuckles on her chest, where that faint tether lived. “Right here.”

She let her eyes unfocus on the dark. “It’s fine,” she said, indulging in her own lie now. “That he left. I don’t care.”

Silence settled, heavy and cold.

Syd downed the last of her drink, and shivered.

Mitch tipped out the rest of his Summer Breeze. “We better get back on the road. It’s a thousand miles to the nearest ocean.”

Syd hopped down from the tailgate. “If you’re tired, I can drive,” she offered, and Mitch laughed with his whole chest.