Viktoria's Secret

I walked out of Starbucks early Monday morning, my oversized sunglasses shielding my face, and the name on my styrofoam cup spelled wrong. Victoria. I rolled my eyes at the thought.

After realizing that a bartending job wasn’t exactly for me, Tj and I set out on a job hunt. He had called up a few of his friends, most of them being women, may I add. After what seemed like hours of watching him talk on the phone, he hung up and announced that I had an interview for a secretary position at some big company in the city.

The interview went well, and my knowledge of the English language came in handy. It seemed to have impressed them. Immediately after I walked out of the building, I received a phone call from Tj Oshie himself who informed me that his friend told him I was guaranteed the job. That took a lot of stress and worrying off of my shoulders.

Walking around the city seemed to calm my nerves. For the past week, Patrik Berglund hadn’t been dismissed from my mind once, making up for the lack of communication between my ex-fiancé and I. I had gotten used to the cold shoulder by now though.

I took a long sip of my coffee and kept walking down the street. Wondering through a city had always helped me think. It was nice to watch all of the people rushing around to go on with their lives. Then there was me, aimlessly walking with absolutely no place to go, no purpose. It was sure a hell of a lot better than sitting in that empty apartment all day.

I drifted into deep thought, the only thing keeping me in reality was the fact that I was walking. I thought about how much I missed my mother, father and brother. I thought about the wedding day, and I thought about things before I met Patrik.

My phone buzzed in the pocket of my peacoat. I stopped at a crosswalk and pulled it out.

We need to talk. From Patrik. My breath caught in my throat as I read the fine print on the bright screen. I didn’t bother to reply, I just turned down the next street and started my walk home.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A soft knock on my door ripped me out of the world of Lord of the Flies. The door opened shortly after the knock.

Patrik entered the room, and took a seat on the edge of my bed without making eye contact once.

“Viktoria, I want you to tell me why you left me standing at the altar,” he started, his voice weak and quivering. My heart began to pound in my chest, a thousand beats a second. I swallowed the lump that was forming quickly in my throat.

How could I explain everything to him? After all these years of it eating away at me, how could I come out and tell him everything? I didn’t think I could.

“Pat…” I started carefully.

“No,” he interrupted sternly, finally looking into my eyes, “I want to know the truth. Everything.” I sighed again, this time longer and deeper.

Where did I even start?

I stared in the mirror at my reflection. It seemed as though I changed since last time I looked at myself; this morning. My hair looked darker, a more natural color. My skin was vibrant and had a certain glow to it. I looked like I had gained weight. I began to worry that I wouldn’t fit into my dress next week.

I sucked my lower lip in between my teeth and started to gnaw at the delicate flesh. What was I going to do? I was too young for this. I could barely take care of myself, let alone a child. On the other hand, I thought of Patrik. I knew we could conquer anything as long as we were together. But this could break his career, everything he had worked so hard for. He was going to leave for America soon. Why would he want to be burdened with a child?

As I saw it, I had two options. Abortion was the first thought that came to mind. Though I had been against it all my life, I also knew I could never have a baby. At my young age, I was terrified of the pain and physical torture that I would be enduring for the next nine months.

My second option was to leave Patrik and keep it a secret. I would have the baby where no one would ever know, and then give it up for adoption. The thought of that also haunted me though. I would forever wonder if I had done the right thing.

“Did you tell him yet?” A voice sneered from behind me, and I heard Patrik’s booming laughter echo from the living room downstairs. I sucked a large amount of air into my lungs and looked through the mirror at the girl standing in the door way. My eyes went wide at her words. “Don’t be stupid, Viki. If you didn’t want anyone to know, you would have done a better job at disposing the evidence,” Sofia said with a smirk.

“Leave, Sofia,” I spat, not bothering to turn around to face her. Out of pure instinct, I felt my hand raise to rest on my flat stomach.

“So you didn’t tell him,” she sneered, with a small laugh. When she saw my expression, she laughed again. “You’re not going to, are you?”

“I don’t know,” I mumbled, staring into the eyes of my reflection. My face was paler than I had ever seen it. I look like I had just seen a ghost.

“This is your last chance, Viktoria. If you go through with this wedding, I’ll make sure you’d rather be dead,” Sofia threatened. “Patrik doesn’t love you. He’s in love with me, and he and I both know it,” she said faux sweetly. “You should just leave before you get hurt.”

Her words echoed through my mind. You should just leave before you get hurt. It wasn’t me I was worried about though. It was Patrik. A baby would ruin everything. We were so young..

“Please don’t say anything, Sofia,” I begged, finally turning around to meet her sneering gaze. She smirked.

“If you call the wedding off, and get lost forever, I’ll keep my mouth shut,” she bargained, “if you stay, well, Patrik finding out about your little secret will be the last of your worries. Think it through.”

Sofia turned on her heel and exited the bathroom, leaving me all alone to my thoughts. That’s when I realized that I couldn’t stay here any longer.

“I did it for you, Patrik…”

Patrik looked awe stricken. He didn’t know what to say. He even opened his mouth a few times as if he was going to say something, but closed it shortly after coming up blank. Finally, he thought of something.

“Sofia was blackmailing you?” He asked incredulously. I nodded shyly, looking at my feet. “What happened to the baby, Vikoria?” He now asked a little forcibly.

For the next nine months, I lived at my brother’s house. I did anything I could to help out for the first few months. After the sixth month, it became hard for me to do pretty much anything. When I got to month eight, I had to call my brother into my room every day to pull me up out of bed.

My brother and his wife were so kind to me during my pregnancy. Britta and I would get their two children out of bed every morning, and get them dressed. Then we would play with them all day, and make lunch and dinner. It was nice to be able to rely on someone when I felt like I had no one left.

I ignored phone calls from Patrik, Sofia, Malena, and even my parents. I left all of my friends behind. I only had my brother and his wife, and they were okay with that.

That’s why when my brother sat me down and asked me what I was going to do when the child was born, I asked him if he and Britta would be the adoptive parents. We talked about how neither of us were comfortable with strangers looking after my son, and we tried to figure out the best option so my baby would have the best life possible.

On April 23rd ,I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. He had eyes like his father, that was the first thing my brother said. Then it was also the first thing that my parents said when they saw him. He had my nose and my cheek bones. He was beautiful.

Patrik’s eyes became hard, and his cheeks faded to a brilliant red. I knew he’d be angry. I kept a huge secret from him for a very long time. The worst part? I spared him a lot of details that would have just made him angrier.

“Viktoria,” he started, sending fear throughout my whole body. “Tomorrow, you will go to the airport, and you will get on a plane to Sweden. When you come back, my child better be with you.”