Welcome to Trainwrecks: Season 2 (2005-2006)! If you haven’t read Season 1, please start there! Trainwrecks is a free-to-read fiction serial that follows a group of six Seattle-adjacent friends from the year 2004 to the year 2015. Join Luna Cruz, Sebastian Velasquez, Dimitri and Victoria Hale, Duke Kingston, and Jasmine Nolan as they stumble their way from adolescence to adulthood, falling in love, making mistakes, overcoming their pasts, and staying together through it all.
For series introduction, character profiles, relationship charts, and general orientation, check out the Table of Contents!
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Victoria stared out the window of her New York City hotel. A forest of buildings and skyscrapers stretched as far as the eye could see, and down below, rivers of people and cars traveled in all directions. In her travels across Europe with her father, she’d never seen anything like it, but rather than intimidating her, it exhilarated her. There was so much to do, so many places to explore! Art and music and culture and life gathered here. All the time in the world wouldn’t have been enough to experience everything the city had to offer.
The hotel room’s silence was punctuated by pieces of her father’s conversation with her mum, who’d chosen not to accompany them on their trip. Victoria had incorrectly assumed that her mother had never been to New York City before since Dimitri had never been outside of Washington. Not only had Makoto visited multiple times for business, but she also had a list of people in the city who she hated—mostly editors and book reviewers.
“…can afford it between the two of us.” Her father paced back and forth, one hand in his pocket and the other holding his phone to his ear. “You and I could take a trip out to look at properties.” He smiled. “I assure you, I have the purest intentions.”
“Please don’t flirt with Mum while I’m in the room,” Victoria said.
“Sorry, love.”
She turned away from the window, slipped past her father, and checked her outfit for the umpteenth time. A long black velvet dress with sleeves, tights, and sensible heels. Her hair had been straightened, then curled at the ends, then pinned up into one of the elaborate hairdos her father had learned throughout years of taking her to piano competitions. She wore eye shadow, eye liner, mascara, and lipstick, and she’d brought her mother’s old leather jacket for comfort and for luck. The result was that she looked like she belonged to two different worlds: one elegant and high class, the other thrilling and powerful.
She could do this. She’d been preparing for her Juilliard audition her whole life.
“See you tomorrow,” her father said before he snapped his phone shut. He had also dressed smartly in a suit and tie, and had blended in so perfectly with the Wall Street crowd that Victoria had wondered how he’d ended up in a place like Seattle when he could have come here from the beginning. “Ready?”
Victoria nodded. Far from being anxious, she felt energized, like a fighter about to step into the ring. She’d always been that way: worried as she practiced, then excited for the actual performances.
Although their hotel wasn’t far from the Juilliard School, her father got them a taxi to keep her clothes and hair pristine. Her heart pounded as they walked into the main building, and she accepted her Juilliard Applicant sticker with bashful gratitude. Yes, this was it. This was the dream. Glossy halls dotted with serious artists on their way to lessons or performances, people who lived and breathed music, dance, acting. Her own passions flared inside her, begging to be unleashed in this world so they could reach their maximum potential.
She could do this. She could do this. She belonged here.
While she waited for her turn to audition, she listened to the other pianists, hearing where they made mistakes, where they could have done better. She held so still that her father had to remind her not to lock her knees so she wouldn’t pass out. Her fingers tightened around her sheet music.
On the other side of the continent, her friends were praying for her, had been sending her encouraging texts from the moment they woke up. She had their support. She had their blessing. Her mother’s leather jacket, which she would remove before the audition, wrapped around her like a loving embrace.
She was going to get in. This school was her future. New York was her future.
But was it her present?
Victoria stared at the floor as someone else’s audition piece ended. She thought of Luna, flouncing around in her finalized quinceañera dress like a princess the week before, asking her if she loved it. She thought of Jasmine, winking at her as she guided her through that ridiculous waltz. She thought of her brother, lifting her off the ground at the airport and dropping her just as quickly so she wouldn’t get mad. She thought of Sebastian, who’d had no shortage of praise for her when she performed her audition piece for her friends the previous weekend.
She thought of Duke, and how he used to smile at her, how he teased her and made her laugh and never hesitated to hand over his headphones when he heard a song he thought she’d like. How he’d wake up early to text her good morning before she went in for her piano practices. The warmth in his voice when they talked on the phone late into the night. The faces he’d pull in their music theory classes before he left music, left her.
How cold and distant he was now.
A door opened, and a blonde woman in dress pants and a pretty blouse smiled at her. “Victoria Hale?”
Victoria nodded. She shrugged off her mother’s jacket and handed it to her father. “You’re going to do great, love,” he said.
The memory of her friends faded as the music came pouring back into her mind. She walked to the piano, her back straight, her head held high. She sat on the bench, arranged her music on the stand. Underneath the sleeve of her dress, she saw the ridges of the wooden bead bracelet Duke had brought her from Hawaii. She took a deep breath before she placed her fingers on the keys.
And played.
The notes spilled forth and filled every corner of the room. Her hands moved with very little thought on her part. She’d practiced enough that the pieces had become second nature, but even so, she tried not to let her confidence overwhelm the expression. She didn’t need to tell the judges she belonged there. Her performance was speaking for itself.
In that moment, she wasn’t a girl with a bad temper and a broken heart, she was a messenger. Her responsibility was to replicate the composer’s intent as accurately as she could. Later, perhaps, she would write messages of her own, paint vivid pictures with nothing but sound. But her story was still a work in progress. She was still a work in progress. And she was eager to see how she’d turn out in the end.
~*~
Their flight home chased the setting sun on its way across the United States. Victoria watched the Great Plains stretch behind and ahead of them, as empty as New York had been full. Duke had been right: nothing but flat farmland out there.
She’d been sorry to leave the city, but she knew she’d be back soon enough. As far as performances went, she couldn’t have asked for a better one, and she’d walked away from the room feeling every bit as confident as she had when she walked in. To celebrate, her father had taken her to a brunch restaurant, and they’d feasted on some of the most delicious food she’d ever tasted. Then she’d called her mum and Dimitri to tell them how the audition had gone.
It was strange to think that she’d been at Juilliard that morning and would be going to sleep in Seattle that night. In time, perhaps, the whole trip would start to feel like a wonderful dream. But for now, she savored every precious emotion.
She turned away from the window. “Father, may I get my nose pierced?”
He blinked in surprise. “You’ve never wanted to get your nose pierced before.” Her great aunts had tried to talk her into it when she hit puberty, spouting some rubbish about how it would lessen her period cramps, but Victoria had refused.
“I know.” She fingered the collar of her mother’s jacket. “But now I think it’d make me look cool.”
It wasn’t a very good excuse, and she thought for sure he’d turn her down, but he only laughed and stroked her hair. “Very well. I’d recommend waiting until the summer holiday. It’ll take time to heal, and Remington doesn’t seem keen on body piercings.”
She gave him a quick hug. “Thank you!”
What happened now, she realized, was entirely up to her. If Juilliard accepted her, she had the power to uproot her family, to change the landscape of their lives. Her parents would start their marriage over in a new state and city. Her brother would be left to his own devices. And she would have to make new friends, go to a new school, sacrifice everything for her ultimate dream.
Her brain knew what she ought to do. Her heart, however, had a different opinion.
She laid her head on the outside of the plane window, feeling the vibrations of their transport as it encountered a spot of turbulence. In the distance, a break in the monotony of the plains: the Rocky Mountains, rising out of the ground like a dividing wall, and the lights of a big city situated at their feet.
A city where a boy had once sat in an uncomfortable airport chair, talking to her for hours as snow fell all around him.
Author’s Note: This episode takes place on Jasmine’s birthday in-universe, but it’s being posted on Sebastian’s birthday in real life. Happy birthday, Seb! You’ll get the spotlight again next week!
I couldn’t resist the callback to my favorite of the S1 bonus stories. And if you’re not reading the bonus stories yet, consider this my semi-annual commercial. Did you know you can get an extra story each week for $5 a month or $50 a year? These aren’t necessary to understand the main story, but they do dive into character backgrounds or build on current events. Money earned from paid subscriptions gets reinvested into the story in the form of art (and maybe cooler stuff someday in my dreams?)! Please consider upgrading for a more robust Trainwrecks experience~! End commercial.
This episode was so beautifully written. I love how you showed us Victoria's growing confidence, it feels like she's ready to take flight! I'm so excited to see what lies ahead for her future and how she'll grow into herself but at the same time sad about the friends she'll leave behind. Change is so complicated.
I really, really loved this one. The writing felt calm and soft to reflect Victoria's mood, and the change of pace really blossoms among all the chaos that's been going down lately. I love how Victoria has quelled her anxieties and seems to be really coming into her own. And yet, there is a slight tinge of melancholy when she thinks of what she may be leaving behind... lovely work. I can't wait to see what's next for our girl. :)