mess.
No doubt about it.
She didn’t think she needed to purposely make it worse, right? No, she would much rather pretend like she was just fine. When faced with something that challenged her in that respect, she didn’t mind putting the bitch face back on to scare it away.
Simple enough.
Viktoria had made an art out of pretending her mind wasn’t a constant warzone of flashbacks, memories, and pain. It had become almost a game for her to figure out different ways to hide the fact she was terrified of almost everything now. So, it really didn’t feel like a big deal for her to cross the parking lot after dragging herself from the prospective panic attack that teased the edge of her mind instead of just giving into the hell that was waiting for her.
Oh, it would come.
The panic would come.
The attack would be horrible.
But for now, she had suppressed it. For now, it would fall to the back of her mind and taunt her from there. She was sure that once she was at home, and alone, it would come rushing back. Then she wouldn’t be able to keep it at bay. That was usually how it worked for her, anyway.
Yeah, a constant war.
That felt appropriate.
Inside the grocery store, Viktoria ignored the way the people near the entrance and exit doors felt slightly too close to her as she grabbed a cart. A guy in jogging pants and a hoodie brushed against her arm as he picked up a basket from the pile, and she did all she could do not to shudder and turn away from him.
Instead, she turned and gave him a glare that burned, snapping, “Do you fucking mind?”
The guy’s eyes widened, and he put up a hand as if in surrender. “Sorry, pardon me.”
There was always a part of Viktoria’s mind that reminded her in these moments that not all people were automatically out to get her, so to speak. That accidents were actually just mistakes, and it didn’t mean something horrible was going to happen to her, just because someone got closer to her than she was comfortable.
But it didn’t matter, either.
Already, the man had backed off. With his shopping basket in hand, he walked away shaking his head the whole time. Yet another person that would recognize Viktoria’s face the next time they came face to face. The first thing they would remember about her was the fact that she was a bitch, and they would keep their distance.
In some ways, she liked that.
In others, it irritated her.
Bitch was meant to be a slur—she just fucking owned it now. She would rather be seen as a bitch by people than easy prey. If being a bitch meant people stayed far away from her at all times, then that was perfectly fine with her.
Viktoria made quick work of going through the aisles and grabbing enough items to keep her fed for at least a month. That meant less time she would have to spend coming back here over the next thirty days.
Winning.
Other than a worker who asked if she needed any help—a guy, actually—while she’d surveyed boxes of cereal, no one else tried to approach her. No one got close enough to make her anxiety pick up a notch.
She was just heading for the checkout, a feat that would probably mean she would need to have chitchat with the idiot running the register, when something off to her left caught her eye. She came to a stop in the middle of the aisle and stared at the man twenty feet away as he surveyed a whole row of Hallmark cards.
The first thing she thought?
He looks like he has no idea what he’s doing.
It kind of shocked her that her initial reaction was not to keep walking; to pretend like she hadn’t seen Pavel at all, and go about her day. It wasn’t like on any other day she would stop to admire some strange man alone in a grocery aisle.
Oh, the nerves were present. The anxiety thrummed deep and the fear teased at her senses. Still, she watched him.
He put one card back, and then picked another out from the top row. Flipping it over, he read something on the back, and his brow dipped in the cutest way. The week before, when she had done his tattoos, he’d been wearing black jeans that molded to his ass and thighs, a plain black tee, and a leather jacket. He had the same wardrobe today, except