Blame Game

The following chapter is written in 3rd person POV following Viv

“Chef Nguyen? You have visitors.” Paige announces, peering through the slight opening of Viv and Becca’s shared office at their restaurant.

Viv signals to Paige to let them in, while she sits behind her desk in the office. Paige fully opens the door to reveal Celeste and Hal on the other side, before she gestures for them to enter. Once the couple are inside the not-so spacious office, Paige leaves the three to their meeting.

“So… Don Corleone, are you just going to sit there menacingly or are you too good for hugs now?” Celeste jokes, as the door to the office closes behind her.

Viv gives a half-hearted smile as acknowledgement of the joke, but just silently motions for the two to have a seat. Celeste is shocked at Viv’s seriousness, and looks towards Hal to see how he’s reacting, but Hal just gestures towards the seats as well. Celeste gives up on getting that hug, and decides not to go against the majority and takes a seat. She sits awkwardly, with both her hands on her lap as Hal takes the seat next to her.

The three of them sit in silence, switching glances between the two other people in the room in awkwardness, but none of the three seem to want to start the conversation. In the end, it’s Viv and Celeste who both can’t handle the silence and catch each other speaking at the same time.

“V…” Celeste finally mutters.

“So~...” Viv says at the same time.

“Oh, sorry.” Viv says upon hearing Celeste say something.

“Oh! Go ahead!” Celeste says in reaction at the same time.

The two girls look at each other silently, waiting for the other to speak again, before they both look towards Hal who’s eyes widen in reaction as if saying ‘don’t look at me to end this awkwardness’. Finally, Viv takes a deep sigh to signal to them both that she’s going to take control of the conversation if the other two weren’t going to.

“So, you come to me, on the day my restaurant is to celebrate its grand opening, and you ask me for a hug.” Viv says, doing an obvious impression of Vito Corleone from the Godfather. As soon as she finishes saying it, she immediately cracks and laughs at her joke. Celeste and Hal both laugh with her, though Hal is covering his face as he does as he can’t believe that that’s how Viv decided to start the conversation and cut the tension.

“We’re only asking for forgiveness, Don Nguyen.” Hal replies, continuing the joke.

“Oh shut the fuck up about asking for forgiveness from me. I’m the one who should be asking the two of you for that.” Viv immediately responds, breaking the Godfather facade instantly.

Hal and Celeste are both taken aback by Viv’s abrupt shift in tone, but Hal quickly understands what Viv’s trying to do. She doesn’t want to prolong this. Viv is still obviously uncomfortable being around the two of them at the same time. More specifically, she’s still uncomfortable around Hal and all the memories and mistakes that come along with him. So Hal decides to do the right thing and do what’s right for Viv, and jumps into what needs to be said.

“V, we’re the ones who fucked up.” Hal tells her, with Celeste nodding profusely in agreement.

“Yeah, there’s nothing you should be asking us forgiveness for anymore.” Celeste adds.

“Don’t.” Viv says commandingly, with her hand signaling the same. “Don’t do that. Don’t take the blame for the stupid shit that I did back then.” Viv continues.

“I’m sorry, V, but we’re not taking the blame for what you did.” Hal tells her, catching Viv by surprise. Both Viv and Celeste give him a look of confusion, prompting Hal to explain what he means. “We’re asking for forgiveness for what we did.” Hal adds.

“Yeah? And what is it that you’re asking forgiveness for exactly?” Viv asks, causing Hal to take a moment to phrase his answer. Viv doesn’t give him a chance to fully gather his thoughts though.

“You’re not the ones who got possessive and jealous. You’re not the ones who unrightfully made an ultimatum. You’re not the ones who ran away without explanation. You’re not the ones who avoided all communication. I was the one who did all those stupid things. I was the one who decided the best course of action was to try and forget my old life by haphazardly starting a new one. I was the one who was dumb enough to think that our friendship didn’t matter… that the two of you would give up on me if I left. I was the one who made those mistakes that put a divide in our friendship. I was the cause of all this. I was the ‘bad friend’… I... I was the ‘bad sub’.” Viv relentlessly lists down her perceived mistakes.

“That’s true. You did choose to do all those things.” Hal quickly replies, causing Celeste to slap him on the arm.

“But I’m the reason you felt like you needed to do all of that.” Hal then adds, taking Viv by surprise again.

“You didn’t—” Viv tries to defend her self-blaming stance, but Hal is quick to not let her.

“Of course I did!” Hal shouts, unable to control his volume. “I treated you like a toy!” Hal continues in a shout, unable to control himself from standing up and placing his hands on the table. However, it’s after hearing his admission of his treatment towards her that Viv begins to shed tears, but accompanied by a wide toothy smile.

Before anyone could voice their reaction to Hal’s admission, the door to the office opens.

“Don’t mistake this restaurant for Dorsia, Hal. This room wasn’t soundproofed for clandestine meetings. So I’d keep the volume to a minimum. I don’t want the back of the house to misunderstand and think they need to intervene on behalf of their boss.” Becca says from behind the door.

“Thanks, beytch!” Viv says, the elated mood in her voice easily noticeable.

“Please don’t call me that, Vivian.” Becca says before closing the door, but then opening it again just as quickly. “Also… I’m glad to hear that you’re taking this conversation well.” Becca adds, before closing the door again.

“Uhh… not that I’m not glad you are taking this well, but why?” Celeste asks, now that the three of them have their privacy again.

“Because it means she wasn’t crazy.” Hal, who’s back to sitting down, answers for Viv. His answer just makes Viv’s smile grow even wider, showing both of them just how accurate Hal’s answer was to Viv’s own reasoning.

“Everything you listed off was my fault, V. I’m not blind. I saw the signs… but I intentionally ignored them. I knew you were catching feelings for me, but I just let it fester because I was afraid of losing you if I told you the truth.” Hal admits.

“And because I didn’t face it head on, I was to blame for your jealousy towards Celeste. I was to blame for not addressing your needs as a sub. I treated you like a prop for Celeste’s enjoyment. My sole focus was for her to enjoy herself, and I didn’t care if you were. You weren’t a ‘bad sub’, V. I was just a bad dom.” Hal continues his apology.

“I-I have to apologize for my part in this too. I’m sorry for—” Celeste starts to apologize as well, but Viv cuts her off.

“C, you have nothing to apologize for.” Viv tells her. “Tell her why, Hal.” Viv says commandingly.

“Because despite knowing what I knew, I didn’t tell you.” Hal explains to Celeste. “I was afraid of how you’d react if you knew or if you saw it too. I didn’t want to potentially make you choose between Viv and me. So I acted as if everything was normal. I acted like Viv wasn't hurting.” Hal continues.

“But I did that too, Hal. I was pretending I was okay too. Because at the time, I didn’t want to lose what we had too.” Viv points out.

“And what good did either of us pretending ‘everything was normal’ do?” Hal asks with a chuckle, making Viv chuckle as well.

“You know, I was honestly afraid of having this conversation with you.” Viv shares.

“You were afraid I was going to keep pretending I didn’t have a part in what happened?” Hal asks, to which Viv nods as her initial response.

“Well… yeah.” Viv answers. “When Celeste first scheduled to talk to me a couple of weeks ago, I knew nothing’s changed. You even asked me to be your girlfriend like that would fix what happened.” Viv tells Hal.

“I’m sorry for asking Celeste to do that. I just…” Hal apologizes, before taking a pause.

“You just didn’t want to admit to Celeste that you knew and didn’t tell her.” Viv finishes the thought for Hal, and Hal nods to confirm that’s what he wanted to say.

“So you’ve known all this time?” Celeste asks.

“No.”, “Yes.” Viv and Hal answer simultaneously. “Wait, who were you asking?” Viv asks Celeste.

“I was asking you.” Celeste answers. “You knew that he knew?” Celeste clarifies.

“No. I didn’t. Or maybe I did, but I was just pretending so hard that he didn’t know what I felt that I fooled myself into believing that was the case. It was only after Brooke told me ‘no one’s that good of an actor’ that I started thinking it was impossible for Hal not to have known. And that if he truly didn’t, then I was right to have left the way that I did.” Viv answers.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, love.” Hal then apologizes to Celeste.

“It wasn’t your job to tell me my best friend was hurting.” Celeste points out to Hal. “I’m not freeing you of blame, and we definitely need to talk about that later. I’m just not freeing myself of that same blame either.” Celeste adds.

“Let’s just all agree that we all fucked up in our own ways and leave it at that. Otherwise, the three of us won’t stop trying to one up each other in this blame game.” Viv says.

“Just like that?” Hal asks.

“No, not just like that. It took all of us a long time to get to this point, and this one conversation doesn’t fix what either of us did. I’m just saying that we won’t fix anything if all we end up doing is trying to win who’s the most to blame.” Viv answers, with Hal and Celeste nodding in agreement.

Viv stands up from her seat behind the desk, to which Hal and Celeste stand up to mirror her. Viv makes her way around the desk to get closer to both of them, before finally giving the two of them the hug Celeste asked for at the start of their conversation.

“I really did miss you guys.” Viv admits, as she tries to wrap the couple in her arms despite her limited wingspan. Hal and Celeste return her hug, and allow for their moment of healing to extend for as long as Viv wanted it to.

When Viv decides to break away from the couple, not a single eye was dry from all three. The two girls poked fun at Hal for being a ‘baby’ about it, but they were all happy that they all finally took a step in the right direction for their friendship.

“Before you guys go, I just have one more thing to ask.” Viv tells them. “What finally made you admit it, Hal?” Viv asks.

“Half of it was knowing you’ve moved on. That you were in a relationship that you’re happy in.” Hal answers.

“Half?” Viv asks about the particular detail.

“Yeah. The other half was hearing Stella’s story earlier. It hit too close to home, you know? Her knowing the right thing to do was to not pretend? She told her truth, despite knowing it would hurt her best friend… Because pretending otherwise would just cause both of them a lot more pain in the long run.” Hal adds.

“Wait…” Viv says in confusion.

“WHAT HAPPENED WITH STELLA AND CASSIE!?”