Victoria opened her eyes and shot up from the bed. Another wave of nausea hit her as she righted herself. “Oof.” After another gulp of water, she pointed an accusatory finger at her father. “We’ve been at it? It’s always been a one-sided fight, Dad, and you know it. Absolutely nothing I do is good enough for her. I’m never ladylike enough, I’m not organized enough, I can’t find a husband. She’s been at me.”

“Okay, okay, then when are you going to assert yourself?” Archie asked. “You wore the dress and you met her idiot blind date; how did that work out for you?”

“Acquiescence saves us from the unnecessary arguments,” she said in a stiff voice. “If I battled her on everything, I’d never get anything done.”

“Like I said: How’s that working out for you?”

Victoria opened her mouth and then snapped it shut. He had her there. In her anxiety, she drank to calm her nerves. To avoid conflict, she wore the dress and got propositioned by a creepy lawyer. Victoria was the one who bore the brunt of her mother’s demands, and it rarely worked out in her favor. “I need to get out of this dress,” she said.

“Sounds like a plan,” Archie said as he rose from his chair. “Your mom ought to be back in an hour or so, would you like me to hold her off?”

“If you can, that would be nice.”

As he exited the room, her father paused before closing the door. “Maybe you can come up with a plan of attack for tomorrow morning. You need to tell your mother that you’re a grown woman.”

From her bed, Victoria nodded. “Sure, Dad.”

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Five

Just as her father said, Victoria was indeed quite dehydrated the following morning. It was around eight in the morning when she pulled herself out of bed and dragged herself to the bathroom attached to her bedroom. She drank directly from the sink until her belly was full, washed her face, and returned to bed. She would need to gather her strength if she was to go downstairs and confront her mother, who was still probably livid about last night’s events.

Victoria went into her weekend bag and pulled out her laptop. No doubt, emails were piling up since she last checked. She decided to send off a few before getting dressed and facing the music like a grown woman. She absently deleted spam, campus-wide maintenance alerts, and events before one message caught her eye. She clicked on it and narrowed her eyes in confusion.

“Friends of the Farmingdale Library, you’re cordially invited to the Halloween Masquerade Ball...” she trailed off and squeezed her eyes shut. “Oh, come on.”

Another ball.

This time, John would be in attendance.