Katie adored TV dramas. She believed real life could be just as vibrant as the screen—full of twists, storms of emotion, drama, and happy endings. But her reality was different—grey, monotonous, and dull. She lived in a tiny village near Leicester, and even marriage hadn’t brought the happiness she’d dreamed of in her youth.
Vince, her husband, had seemed loving and dependable at first. But after three years, he suddenly declared:
“I’m leaving. I can’t stay here anymore. It’s suffocating. I’m meant for a bigger city, Katie.”
“What do you mean? We have a good life,” she tried to reason.
“It’s good for you. Not for me,” he snapped, throwing a couple of shirts into an old bag before walking away without a backward glance.
Gossip spread through the village like wildfire. The women whispered:
“Vince left Katie, moved to Nottingham. Probably found some new woman there.”
Katie stayed silent. She didn’t cry or complain. She just carried on. There was no room for her at her parents’—her brother, his wife, and their four kids filled every last corner. She had no children of her own.
“Maybe it’s a blessing. Vince would’ve made a terrible father,” she thought, watching the neighbor’s children play.
Evenings were spent in front of the TV, lost in the latest episode—where characters cheated, loved, suffered. The plots seared her heart. Afterward, sleep wouldn’t come.
Mornings were the same—pigs, geese, chickens, and a calf named Charlie. He wasn’t kept with the herd; she tied him behind the garden. One day, a neighbor shouted:
“Katie, your calf’s loose—running wild in the village!”
She rushed outside—Charlie was butting the fence, digging his small horns into the neighbor’s gate.
“Charlie, please, stop,” she pleaded, waving a loaf of bread. He tossed his head and bolted, scattering a flock of ducklings.
As always, Victor—the tractor driver, her old schoolmate—stepped in. He caught Charlie, deftly looped a rope, and tethered him. Katie watched his strong hands, the muscles under his shirt. Suddenly, something inside her twinged—how she wished those arms would hold her…
“What am I thinking? I’ve gone mad,” she flushed. “Like a cat in spring.”
She felt ashamed. Victor lived with Sandra, a tall, broad woman who’d once stayed the night after a party—when he’d had too much to drink. She brought her daughter from a past marriage, and they’d stayed ever since, as if it were natural.
Katie divorced Vince the moment he vanished. Suitors came later, even proposed, but her heart stayed silent. Now, though—Victor, her old classmate, looked at her differently, with warmth. She felt his gaze like fire and feared Sandra would find out, spread rumors.
Yet Victor walked past her house daily, along the footpath he’d never used before. She rose early, pretending to weed the garden—really waiting for his footsteps. Their eyes met, and in his, she saw something Vince never had—gentleness, even tenderness.
Then Vince returned. Just like that, as if he’d never left.
“Take me back?” he asked with the same smirk.
“Why didn’t the city work out?”
But her heart stayed silent. No flutter. No love. Maybe there never had been.
He moved back in—she couldn’t throw him out, but he acted as if he owned the place. She barricaded her door at night, pushing a dresser against it, climbing in through the window. Victor saw—understood—Katie hadn’t taken Vince back.
One morning, steps appeared beneath her window. Someone had thoughtfully placed them there. Not Vince—he still slept and vanished as he pleased. Victor had built them in the night.
Then… Sandra came back. But she fell ill—suddenly, gravely. Her daughter was taken away by her grandmother. Sandra was sent to the hospital and never returned. She died.
Katie watched Victor shovel snow, not just at his own house but at hers—secretly. Come spring, she returned from work one day to find her door wide open. A plump woman sat at her kitchen table, sipping tea from her mug.
“Hello, love,” Vince smirked. “Me and Deborah live here now. The house is mine. You pack up and leave.”
That night, Katie pushed the dresser against the door again. By morning, she began carrying out her things. Victor approached, silently took a suitcase, and carried it to his home. Again and again—never asking, just taking. Vince and Deborah exchanged glances.
“So… you two in love now?” Vince sneered. “Well, good luck.”
Victor took Katie’s hand and led her away. She burst into tears—from joy, shock, relief. He held her tight, and the whole world spun before her eyes.
They married quickly. Katie’s expecting a child. Vince stood outside, watching them go, uneasy. But she no longer cared. Behind her now stood a real man—not in a TV drama, but in life.
