PART 6:

This was what normal looked like. messy, small, real, and she was destroying it with every word out of her mouth. After breakfast, Victoria had claimed she needed to run errands. Ryan had walked her to her car, kissed her goodbye, asked if she wanted to have dinner later that week. “I’ll check my schedule,” she’d said.

Now, she sat in the Civic in a grocery store parking lot 3 mi away, her real phone in her hand, staring at the texts that had come through overnight. her CFO. Emergency board call Monday morning. The Seattle expansion is over budget by 12 million. Her head of security. Three more journalists asking about your personal life. I’ve stonewalled, but they’re persistent.

Her mother. Dinner Thursday. Don’t cancel again. Victoria’s double life was collapsing under its own weight. She’d been so careful for 2 years, keeping every part of her deception airtight. But Ryan was different. Ryan wasn’t someone she could date casually and walk away from when he inevitably failed the test.

Ryan was someone she was actually falling for. And Emma, sweet, serious Emma, who’d already been abandoned by death and was now trusting Victoria not to abandon her by choice. Victoria pulled up her messages with Sarah. I need to tell him. Sarah’s response came immediately. Are you sure? Once you tell him, you can’t take it back. I know. When Victoria thought about Ryan’s face that morning, the way he’d looked at her like she was something precious.

The way Emma had whispered about not leaving. Soon. I just need to figure out how. But soon turned into another week of lying. Then another. Victoria kept finding excuses to delay. She needed the right moment, the right setting, the right words. The truth was she was terrified. terrified that Ryan would feel betrayed.

Terrified that he’d look at her differently once he knew she’d been testing him like some kind of experiment. Terrified that everything real between them had been built on a foundation so false that it couldn’t survive the truth. Meanwhile, life with Ryan and Emma continued. Sunday dinners became routine.

Victoria started keeping a change of clothes at Ryan’s apartment. Emma started calling her Tori with the kind of easy affection that suggested she’d already decided Victoria was staying. They fell into patterns. Ryan would text her from the garage during lunch breaks, sharing photos of particularly ridiculous car problems. Emma would show Victoria her homework asking for help with math problems Victoria could solve in her head, but had to pretend to struggle through.

They went to the park, to the library, to a children’s museum where Emma spent two hours in the dinosaur exhibit explaining to Victoria with absolute authority that T-Rex arms were actually very useful. Thank you very much. And people who made fun of them didn’t understand paleontology. Victoria bought Emma a book about female scientists.

The kind of gift that cost $15, but felt more meaningful than any of the milliondoll donations Victoria made to universities and research institutions. Emma had hugged her so tight Victoria couldn’t breathe. “This is my favorite present ever,” the girl had whispered. Ryan had watched the exchange with an expression Victoria couldn’t quite read.

Later, when Emma was asleep, he’d pulled Victoria aside. “You’re really good with her. She’s easy to be good with.” “No, I mean it. You’re patient. You listen. You don’t talk down to her.” He’d paused. “My ex, the woman I dated before you. She used to get frustrated when Emma would go on and on about stuff.

Said she didn’t sign up to be a mother. I like hearing Emma talk about stuff.” I know. That’s what makes you different. Different. Victoria had wondered what he’d think if he knew how different she actually was. The lies were getting harder to track. Victoria had started keeping notes on her phone about what she’d told Ryan, what details of Tori’s life she’d invented, the fake nonprofit job, the fake roommates, the fake financial struggles.

She’d slip up in small ways. Mention a wine she shouldn’t know about, then claim she’d read about it online. Reference a business contact, then pretend it was someone from her volunteer work. Know too much about corporate law, about venture capital, about the tech industry. Ryan would get that look, that puzzle-solving look.

How do you know this stuff? He’d asked once when she’d explained the difference between series A and series B funding rounds. I listen to podcasts. What podcasts? She had named three she’d frantically Googled while he wasn’t looking. The near misses were getting closer. One afternoon, Victoria was at Ryan’s apartment when her real phone, which she’d stupidly left in her purse instead of locked in her car, rang with her actual ringtone, not the generic chime of the burner phone.

Her ringtone, a specific song she’d set years ago. She’d lunged for her purse, fumbled the phone silent, claimed it was a spam call. Ryan had frowned. That’s your ringtone for spam. I like to know when it’s worth answering. He’d accepted it, but barely. Another time, Emma had spilled juice on Victoria’s jacket. While cleaning it, the girl had found a dry cleaning receipt in the pocket from a place in downtown Aspen that charged $150 per garment.

“Why is this so expensive?” Emma had asked, reading the number with the careful precision of someone still proud of being able to read numbers in the hundreds. Victoria had grabbed the receipt. They made a mistake. I complained and got it fixed. But Emma had looked confused and Ryan had looked suspicious and Victoria had felt the walls closing in.

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