Almost

chapter 1

The first time Victor saw Beatrice as Edmund’s wife, he felt something shift inside him. A slow, silent ache—one he wasn’t sure he wanted to acknowledge. She stood beside his cousin, her hands wrapped around a delicate teacup, smiling as if nothing had ever existed between them.

Nothing had, really.

Victor had been supposed to ask for her number. He had been supposed to take that first step. But before he could, fate had intervened. Some astrological misalignment, something about the stars saying no. And just like that, Beatrice had slipped away, not with heartbreak or hesitation—but with a quiet acceptance that told Victor she had never truly been his.

She had never loved him.

Yet here she was, perfectly at home in the family he had once imagined her joining in a different way.

“You look well, Victor,” Beatrice said, her voice warm, effortless. She met his gaze the same way she always had—without hesitation, without weight.

Victor nodded, keeping his hands in his pockets, as if holding himself together. “You do too.”

Edmund turned to his wife with a gentle touch on her wrist. “Didn’t you want to show Aunt Miriam the garden?”

Beatrice smiled. “Yes, I almost forgot.” She set her teacup down and excused herself, her presence as graceful in leaving as it was in staying.

Victor exhaled. Edmund was watching him.

“You never talk much around her,” Edmund noted. His tone was light, but his eyes were sharp.

Victor forced a chuckle. “She’s your wife.”

“That didn’t stop you before.”

Victor looked away, his jaw tightening. There was nothing to say. Not without revealing what had festered inside him since that day—the day he was supposed to ask, the day everything slipped through his fingers.

His twin brother, Adrian, had once told him, She never loved you, Victor. She only wanted to be part of the family.

Victor had laughed it off then. But now, watching her move so effortlessly in a life that should have been unfamiliar, he wondered if Adrian had been right.

And if he had been, then what was this ache still lodged in Victor’s chest?

Perhaps it wasn’t love at all.

Perhaps it was just the weight of what could have been.

And that, he realized bitterly, was far heavier than love itself.