Victor: Her Ruthless Crush by Theodora Taylor (beach read book TXT) 📕

couldn't be polite. He had to know, “What are you doing here so late?”

“I had to wait until my father left and my mother was asleep to sneak out and come here,” she answered in a rush.

But then her hands faltered. She raised them once, twice, before speak-signing, “I read your note.”

Victor's heart hammered in his chest. It was a wild animal throwing itself against its cage because it wanted something so badly.

But he waited. Not out of patience. He waited because he couldn't have signed in those long moments if he’d wanted to. He could barely breathe.

“You are so great, Victor, but I can't.” She gave her head a short sorrowful shake. “I can't do this with you.”

So this was what it felt like to get rejected. A new kind of pain exploded inside his chest.

Strange, so much had been given to him his entire life. Friends, women, servants, and riches. His life had been painless up until now. Even his mother and ability to speak had been taken away before he was old enough to truly feel the loss.

But this…this hurt. This hurt even more than he’d bargained for when he’d decided to return to Tokyo and finally tell her how he felt.

A wind, despairing and loud, filled his head, and he could barely concentrate on the rest of what she said after that.

Who cared about her reasons anyway? The point was she'd read his secret. And she'd come over here to tell him she didn't feel the same. He should send her away. Have Donny drag her out before she realized how upset he was—

“….I just couldn't do that to another girl. And I know a lot of people are all about open relationships these days. I also get that Americans have a reputation. But I'm not like that."

Those particular words broke through the howling wind inside Victor's head.

He froze. Frowned. Then lifted his fingers to sign, “What?”

“You don't know this sign? Girlfriend?” she asked, emphasizing the sign for GIRLFRIEND. “It's like wife…but before marriage.”

Yes, of course, he knew that sign. In both CSL and ASL. He’d thought of it often during his time in Hong Kong away from her. But… "What did you say about girlfriend. Repeat that last part.”

“Um…” she said out loud before mumble signing, “I don't know what kind of relationship you have with your girlfriend, but I don't do that. I don't go out with other people's boyfriends. I'm not like that.”

Victor blinked. Then signed, “I don't have a girlfriend.”

Now she frowned. “Ayane, that woman who came every Thursday? Wasn't she your girlfriend? I’ve been assuming she was your girlfriend this whole time.”

She was having trouble looking at him again. To the point that Victor worried that she wouldn't be able to see it when he answered, “She is not my girlfriend.”

She glanced up. But only a little bit. “Then who is she to you?”

“No one,” he answered, signing emphatically. “She is NO ONE.”

Her eyes widened, and she took a step back as if he had hit her, the same as when Phantom round housed him earlier.

“You don't have a girlfriend?” she repeated. As if she didn't entirely trust his ASL.

“No,” he answered, adding a short shake of his head so that there would be no further misunderstanding. “I don't have a girlfriend.”

“Oh…” Again, she didn’t sign, and her voice sounded small.

Dawn looked away from him. Up at the ceiling. Down at the floor.

And the truth began to dawn on Victor—absolutely no pun intended. His supposed girlfriend had only been an excuse for her rejection. It was the reason she’d prepared to explain why she couldn't return his feelings. So now she had to figure out how to let him down easily without it.

Victor couldn't stand it. Couldn't stand being on the receiving end of her pity-filled rejection.

“The note was a joke,” he signed.

At the same time, she signed, “I like you too.”

They both stopped, their hands freezing in mid-air as they each registered what the other had just signed.

“It was a joke?” she asked, her voice cracking underneath the question. She stared up at Victor, her big brown eyes stricken and hurt.

For a moment, for too many moments, Victor just stood there, frozen and buffering. What had he done? What the fuck had he done?

He raised his hands to correct the lie. To tell her the note was 100% true, and quite frankly, the hardest thing he'd ever had to write. But she turned her back on him before he could, rushing towards the door.

No, no, no! She liked him back. She actually liked him back. He couldn’t let it end this way.

Victor raced after her, grabbing her up in his arms before she reached the door.

He pulled her to his chest, telling her with his body what he couldn’t with words. But she fought his hold.

“Let me go!” she screamed. “Fuck you! Let me go!”

He never heard her scream before. Or swear.

He hated that he'd hurt her. Hated it so much. All his pride went out the window as he forcefully turned her around.

“No joke,” he signed as clearly as he could while keeping her facing him with one arm banded tightly around her. “No joke. I…”

Diu, he didn't know the ASL for “promise” or “swear.”

A moment from their first ASL class flashed through his mind. Like a lifeline thrown out to his stormy sea.

“My words don’t cheat,” he signed. Then he resorted to the same mishmash of ASL and CSL that she so often employed, hoping she'd understand. “I was trying to save face. I like you. I like you very much.”

She didn't believe him. He could see the disbelief in her brown eyes, filled with angry tears, threatening to spill over.

He had to convince her. Had to show her he wasn't lying…

So he kissed her. He kissed her so hard that all the feelings he'd been keeping pent up inside came flowing out to shout the truth at her in a language she could understand.

I like you. I