eighteen: trust issues
“I’ve got some Let’s Be Honest questions here that we can do,” Jeff announced to the room and the rest of the city, “unless you guys wanna talk about something else…”
Rachel rolled her eyes, but she had heard from many a listener that loved the segment, so she was the first to agree. “Let’s Be Honest.”
“Let’s Be Honest,” Caleb concurred.
Nadia was the last to chime in, but she too knew that it was a fan favorite. “Let’s Be Honest,” she grumbled.
“Gee, don’t get too excited over there,” Jeff chuckled. “We all get crappy questions.”
“We’ll see.”
Smiling, Jeff pulled out everyone’s names one by one to determine the order. “So the order will be… Caleb… Me… Nadia… Rachel.”
“All right, let’s do this,” Caleb exclaimed. “Hit me.”
“Caleb, do you like American Idol?”
They all looked at one another, wondering if Jeff just had some random query before they got started, or if that was actually the question.
“Is that the question?” Nadia frowned.
“That’s what it says,” Jeff nodded.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me!” Rachel shrieked. “One of my last questions was ‘Which of your parents would you kill if you had to?’ and he gets ‘Do you like American Idol?!’”
“Hey. Don’t hate the player, hate the game,” Caleb reminded her.
“I do. I hate the game very much.”
“Temper, temper.”
“Well go on and answer the damn question,” Nadia pretended to be irritated. “And we all know your answer anyway.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Caleb, whenever we talk about Idol, you completely check out of the conversation.”
“Well… yeah. I like The Voice better than Idol.”
“Is this your final answer,” Jeff returned.
“It is.”
“All right then. So I guess that kicks it to me.” He pulled a question out of the jar sitting in front of him and smiled before reading out loud. “Going around the room, tell each person in the room what you admire about them.”
“I’m so glad I didn’t get this question,” Caleb commented as Jeff looked at each of the three of them.
“Yeah, instead, you get the easiest question ever,” Nadia shook her head.
Rachel was annoyed by the whole ordeal. “Ugh, just go ahead, Jeff.”
“Well then, I guess I’ll start with you, Rach. What do I admire about you…”
“There are so many things, I know.”
“Well. I know we give you a lot of crap about your relationship with Byron, but in all honesty, I admire what you put into it. Umm, you know, a woman taking care of a guy she’s not even married to is pretty uncommon. And we make fun of you and it’s all in fun, but I commend the two of you for sticking it out for five years, he’s goin’ through this rough patch and you take it all in stride. So… good on you.”
She smiled sincerely. “Thank you, Jeffrey.”
“Caleb. Dude, you are one of the smartest people I know. I mean, it would be great if you weren’t such an a-hole about it,” he laughed, “but I very much admire how knowledgeable you are… about everything.”
“I actually knew you were going to say that.”
“Don’t talk.”
“I knew you were going to say that too,” he joked.
“Anyway,” Jeff ignored him playfully. “As for you, Nadia, I have to say I had no idea what to expect when you joined the show. When we first met, I was like, there’s no way this hot ass chick is going to blend in with the rest of us, but I quickly learned that you are very easygoing, easy to talk to… when you want to be. And you are a perfect fit among us, so… I just like that you ended up being the opposite of what I expected.”
She winked at Jeff from across the room, flattered by the fact that he appeared to genuinely like her. “Thanks, buddy.”
“So there you go.”
“Good answers,” Rachel nodded, pleased. “Whose turn is it now?”
“I believe it’s on you, Nadia.”
“Hit me, boo.”
“Nadia. If you’re the reason your relationship eventually fails, what, exactly, would be the cause?”
Nadia’s eyes narrowed as she digested the question. Her first response was, “What relationship?”
“I wrote that one,” Caleb inserted proudly. “And ideally, it would be a romantic relationship, but it could be a friendship, I guess. It’s basically just, like, what flaw of yours would make someone break up with you.”
“Yeah, I got that,” she chuckled. “I just have no relationship to speak on.”
“You can go hypothetical,” Jeff suggested. “Or go by past experience.”
“Okay,” she sighed lightly. It looked like she was going to have to do a little bit of both. “Umm… if my relationship were to fail…”
“We know you’re perfect, but try to come up with something.”
“Yeah right,” she scoffed. “I guess I have to say, generally speaking, I’m a bitch.”
“Why do you always say that?” Caleb wondered. “You’ve never been anything but nice.”
“Umm, I think there’s a difference between friendship Nadia and relationship Nadia. And relationship Nadia can be very critical, very stubborn, and very closed off. And I want to be better, obviously, but just speaking from past relationships, I know that when I get sick of someone, I’ll just ignore them. So… if my next relationship fails, it’s because I was being a bitch again,” she laughed.
“That is very honest,” Rachel nodded proudly. “I think you’re too hard on yourself, but I think it’s cool you recognize it.”
“Won’t do me any good unless I change it, but… I have no relationship at the moment, so it doesn’t too much matter.”
“You never know what the end of the day will bring,” Caleb prophesized.
“At any rate, I am sure Rachel is eager to get to her question, so let us move on.”
“You bitch,” Rachel whispered playfully. “All right, let’s get this over with.”
Jeff pulled one more question from the jar full of them and, again, laughed before reading it. “Who in this room do you least trust?”
“Oooohh man.”
“That’s rough,” Jeff shook his head.
“Because no matter what, someone’s gonna walk out of this room hating you,” Caleb confirmed for her.
“Thank you, Caleb. Because that wasn’t going through my head already.”
“I’m just sayin’.”
“But the question isn’t, ‘Which person do you not trust?’ It’s ‘Who do you trust the least?’” Nadia noted. “So no one should be offended.”
“I will be offended if you pick me,” Jeff noted.
“Okay. Honestly, I think I have to go with Nadia.”
“What! Why the eff would you pick me?!”
“Don’t hate me,” she pouted. “I’m being honest! And I just noticed when we were in the Hamptons, some things transpired that made me realize how secretive you are, I guess.”
“So you don’t trust me because I didn’t tell you? Rachel, what the hell?”
“No, it’s not that I don’t trust you! I just trust these guys slightly more.”
Nadia crossed her arms and sat back in her seat, not at all amused by Rachel’s answer. She considered her one of her closest friends, and sure, she liked her privacy, but she wasn’t secretive. She shared her entire life with the city of New York. Or most of it, at least.
“Nadia, are you okay?” Jeff had to wonder.
“I’m fine.”
“Nadia, you know I adore you.”
“You just don’t trust me.”
“That’s not fair, we’re supposed to be honest here.”
“Well fine, you want the rundown of the events that transpired in the Hamptons? I met Justin at the engagement party, we drove back to the city, got it on at his place, he didn’t call me. Kristin then told him to call me, so he did. Fourth of July, we drove back out there together. I hated him and then we had sex several times that weekend and then I didn’t hate him anymore. Came back to New York. Went on a date. Decided to be friends. End of story. Do you trust me now?”
“Nadia…”
Jeff and Caleb looked back and forth between the two ladies in the room, unsure of what to do with all this information. Kristin was headed towards them in a frenzy as the phone lines lit up and all the levity that was typically prevalent in the room had been replaced with stuffiness.
“Wait a minute, guys,” Caleb suddenly came to an epiphany. “That was Justin Timberlake that called in that day for Nadia?”
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Frustrated, for reasons she couldn’t quite explain, Nadia left early that day. She got through the last hour and a half of the broadcast, but she didn’t feel up to sitting through a post-show meeting and trying to pretend she wasn’t mad at Rachel. Instead, she just went home.
She, of course, didn’t realize that coming home early would mean coming face to face with Alex for the first time in weeks. They made an agreement that Alex would slowly, but surely, move her things out of Nadia’s apartment, and Alex had kept up her end of the bargain while also avoiding Nadia at all costs. When she could, she stopped by in the mornings, when she knew Nadia was at work, and packed up her entire life in order to remove it from Nadia’s.
“Long time, no see,” Nadia greeted the woman bent over before her.
“Sorry, I didn’t know you’d be home early or I wouldn’t have come by today,” Alejandra returned somberly. Nadia had broken her heart, and she had no plans on pretending otherwise.
“It’s fine,” Nadia smiled warmly. “It’s nice to see you.”
“Is it?”
“New York can be lonely sometimes,” she shrugged. “It’s good to be amongst friends sometimes.”
“Friends.”
“We’re friends, right?”
“When you’re mad at your ‘real’ friends, apparently, we are.”
Nadia frowned at her biting tone. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I heard the show…”
“And what does that have to do with you?”
“I’m not stupid, Nadia.”
“No, you’re gonna have to explain this one to me, Alex, because I didn’t have a single clue that you’d be here when I got home. So enlighten me, what are you salty about?”
“The fact is, if this were any other day “ a day where you hadn’t gotten into a fight with Rachel or whoever “ you wouldn’t be being nice to me right now. You would have gone upstairs, pretending you didn’t even see me, and not come out until I was gone.”
“I don’t think that’s fair to say.”
“Well you’ve done it before, so…”
“Maybe I’m just not… mad at you anymore.”
“You, mad at me?” Alex laughed. “You’re more ridiculous than I thought if you truly believe you have any cause to be mad at me.”
“You’re not perfect, you know.”
“You have made me well aware of that, Nadia.”
“I never claimed to be either.”
“No, you’re right. You didn’t. You just act like you are.” Alex threw the last of her kitchenware into the box in front of her and arranged the flaps into a makeshift close. “I’ll see you around.”
“Please don’t leave like this.”
Ignoring her, Alex continued for the door, knowing it would take every ounce of strength she had to keep going.
“Alejandra!” She threw down her purse and headed out the door in hopes of catching her. She was relieved to see her standing at the bottom of the steps. “Alex.”
“What do you want?” she asked without turning.
“I’m sorry.”
She closed her eyes, memorizing a moment where Nadia Maraj managed to apologize to someone. “You’re sorry?”
“I say things without thinking. And it’s been a weird day, and I know that doesn’t excuse anything, but I just need you to know I didn’t mean to lash out at you. And quite honestly… I miss you.”
Alex finally faced her, and for the first time in weeks, was able to look her in the eye. “I miss you every day,” she admitted.
“I was mean to you, and I shouldn’t have been.”
“You’re a bitch,” she shrugged. “I don’t know why it still surprises me, you always have been.”
Nadia smirked. “Where are you staying?”
“With my mom,” she nodded sadly. “I’ve been transferring my shit up to the Bronx one box at a time, so… sorry it’s taking so long.”
“It’s no rush.”
“I know you like your space.”
Nadia moved down the steps so that they were next to one another, and she took Alex’s hand into her own. “I want us to be friends.”
“There’s that word again.”
“I mean it.”
Alex knew she meant it, but she wasn’t sure it would be so easy to put her own feelings aside just yet. So she moved in and left a soft, sweet kiss on Nadia’s lips. “I know you do.”
Nadia stayed silent for a moment, staring into Alejandra’s mesmerizing gray eyes. It was almost hard to believe how beautiful she was sometimes. “Alex, I ““
“Hey, you two.” Their moment was abruptly interrupted by a voice neither one of them were prepared for in that moment.
Nadia turned quickly, rattled by the sight before her and immediately dropped Alex’s hand. “Justin. Hey.”
“Hi.”
She hoped he hadn’t seen any of that, but her nerves had already decided that he did. She was suddenly fidgety. “W-w-what are you doing here?”
“Hello,” he spoke to Alex before focusing on the question at hand. “I, um… heard you on the show this morning. And you weren’t answering your phone, so I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”
“I’m fine,” she nodded.
He nodded as well. “That’s good to know…”
“Umm… I think… Alex, you were just leaving, right?”
Alex only stared at her, while Justin’s eyes darted between the two of them. She had yet to acknowledge Justin’s presence, and she was so through with Nadia that she didn’t dignify her question with a response. She just left.
Nadia let out a shaky sigh and her fingertips grazed her forehead as she tried to think of a way out of the conversation.
“What was that about?” Justin wondered. He had a pretty good idea, after seeing the two of them kiss, but he was curious as to whether Nadia would be honest with him.
She wasn’t. “I have no idea.”
Author's Chapter Notes:
I love you guys. Really, I do. I'm posting this next one super fast because I have about 90 things to do, so I apologize for any glaring errors. And seriously, thank you for reading!
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