Page 78 of Hate You Most
She never used to Google herself or Dakota. What the press wrote about them was often negative, and it could easily get into her head, affecting her skating.
Viktoriya tapped on the first link she saw.
It was an article with a large photo of her and Dakota attached.
The photo showed the two of them standing in a grocery store aisle. Viktoriya wore a baseball cap and large sunglasses. Dakota stood beside her with her cap low, holding a basket and glancing toward the shelves. It was the time they'd gone grocery shopping for Halloween candy a few months ago. The one time they'd tried to resume to normalcy after the crash.
The angle was strange and blurry, clearly taken from several aisles away.
Viktoriya scrolled further down and there was another image. It was another photo of them taken from a distance. It was the two of them sitting in their car outside of the hospital. The photo had clearly been taken through a window, as the photographer’s reflection was faintly visible in the glass. The photo was blurred and zoomed in—but it was still clearly visible that it was them.
Viktoriya's eyes moved to the headline written in bright letters above the photo.
DAKOTA SANCHEZ REFUSES TO LEAVE VIKTORIYA VOLKOVA’S SIDE AFTER DEVASTATING CAR CRASH — FRIENDSHIP OR SOMETHING MORE?
She stared at the headline for far too long. Time stopped, the world slowed.
Nothing mattered anymore—she could never return to Russia. They would view these rumors as pure fact and she would be seen as endorsing a non-traditional relationship.
She took a breath.
These rumors would remain rumors until they were proven true, and nothing between Dakota and her were proven. The nature of their relationship existed on the very line between factuality and gossip.
She pressed on a link attached at the bottom and another article followed, with blurry security footage of Dakota and her standing too close in a hotel hallway. The headline was even worse.
SECRET VISITS? SKATING STARS CAUGHT SNEAKING THROUGH HOTEL HALLWAY AT EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIP.
She clicked through and found another article. A large professionally taken picture of Dakota and Viktoriya at the 2014 Olympics at the podium.
The headline made her want to throw up.
COLD RIVALS OR SECRET LOVERS? INSIDE THE COMPLICATED RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN VOLKOVA AND SANCHEZ.
Her head was spinning. She shoved the tablet to the side and stood too quickly. The room tilted as she tried steadying herself against the edge of the couch.
The secret photos, the gossip headlines, Dakota’s quiet explanations—none of it lined up the way it should have.
If they were really married, if it had been something practical and simple like Dakota had said, then why did everything look like it had existed long before that? Why had the photos stopped instead of multiplied? A sick thought slipped into place before she could stop it: what if they weren’t married at all? What if Dakota had said it just to get her back to America—something believable enough that Viktoriya wouldn’t question it while her memory was gone?
She tried pushing the thought out of her mind, but it wouldn't leave. It festered into her memory on repeat.
The worst part was that, whatever truth Dakota held, their relationship had never truly belonged to only them. The world had observed them from afar since the first time they'd met—magazine covers, blurry hallway photos, speculation printed in bold letters. The public had already decided what Dakota and Viktoriya were to each other years ago. Viktoriya had spent so long trying to keep it quiet, trying to keep at least one piece of her life private, and somehow it had slipped into the open, anyway. Even now, with half her life missing, strangers seemed to know the parts of her life that she couldn't remember.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
November 28th, 2022.
— Dakota Sanchez apartment. Detroit, Michigan.
Viktoriya stared at the door from across the room as it opened. Anger flashed through her, and she couldn't even plaster a smile onto her face as Dakota asked her how her day at home had been.
Dakota had her back turned as she hung up her winter coat into the entryway closet and kicked her boots off. She was rambling about something, but Viktoriya was definitely not paying attention to a single word.
She stood, with the phone in her hand. She'd been waiting hours for this moment, and now she didn't know what to do with herself. What to do with her hand. So she clutched her phone. Clutched it so hard her knuckles were turning white.
Her rival stopped just past the doorway to the living room, her movements turning cautious, like stepping onto cracking ice.
Viktoriya stayed silent for a moment before lifting the phone with the glittery case between them.
