Doubt Me Not

Sergio held open the door to the café that Ximena hadn’t set foot in for nearly ten years with an expectant look on his face.

“Oh my God,” Ximena’s words flew out low and in immediate, stupefied awe. Absolutely nothing had been changed with the interior of the cafe, stepping inside was the equivalent to stepping into the past.

“I know, right?!” Sergio readily agreed as they stepped inside further and he noticed Ximena leading the way towards the same exact booth at the back that they had always occupied back then. This was the same reaction he had when he had stepped inside after keeping away for nearly a decade.

“What?” Sasha interjected, completely missing the romance, “It’s a café, a particularly ancient one at that, seriously who even uses stained glass lamps anymore?”

“We technically had our first date here,” Sergio elaborated.

Sasha wrinkled her nose, “Seriously, this is the place you chose? I am judging you so hard right now.”

“Ximena chose this place actually,” Sergio smirked.

With that admission Sergio and Sasha both glanced towards Ximena who shrugged without taking her eyes off of a particular painting of a woman in a red dress that she always found herself distracted by, “It was a convenient location; the dance studio is right down the block…you know in case he turned out to be a dud. Or, you know psycho.”

“Look, it’s still here,” Sergio waved Ximena over to his side of the booth, and sure enough etched via knife was their initials.

“We were so cheesy back then,” Ximena’s half grimaced, half giggled.

“Yup, those were the days,” Sergio chuckled and Ximena picked up a darkness to the sound; especially when she noted the lack of a smile on Sergio’s face.

A waitress came and went, food, coffee, juice all came and went in quick succession as Sergio’s thoughts were pulled back to the accusation Ximena had flung out the night before.

Sergio laughed, the sound bounced around the half-filled café. More than a few heads turned towards his booth. After doing a double-take, a few bystanders not so surreptitiously snapped a picture of the famous footballer. Sergio seemed oblivious to the impromptu photo session going on around him as he locked eyes on Ximena, “So you know tabloids have been known to lie, right?”

Ximena had paused their conversation from the day before because she did not trust Sasha to leave Sergio’s mother alone for more than a few minutes. She more or less pushed Sergio out the door before his mother could return. She knew she shouldn’t have been so surprised about Paqui’s less than happy reaction upon discovering her return, but still it hurt.

Sasha noticed Ximena clam up when Sergio kept trying to broach the topic of his alleged engagement so she sighed and came to her feet and collected her things.

“You tell me everything anyway, but fine, if you want to pretend to be private for Sergio’s sake, fine,” Sasha theatrically gasped, “Oh my, look at that, I just realized I have this super important phone call I need to make.”

“She doesn’t want you to see us fight,” Sergio offered, “Which we won’t, but you know in case we do.”

Sasha scoffed, “You have high hopes there buddy you might want to bring them down a notch.”

“I’ll give you the highlights,” Ximena promised.

After Sasha went outside, the footballer didn’t take too long to delve into the topic. He had spent the whole night sleepless and confused until if finally occurred to him that she must have read the news of his supposed engagement off of a gossip site, and that must have been why she had kept her distance from him all these years. Somehow he managed to distract himself with a morning jog and shower until it was an acceptable time to return to Ximena’s apartment to finish their conversation. He had also warned his mother to stay out of the mess he was trying to clean up himself. Safe to say, mother and son weren’t exactly on the best of terms.

“I didn’t get it from a tabloid,” Ximena informed and poured her third packet of sugar into her coffee and stirred with unnecessary voracity.

“Then where?”

“I got it straight from someone close to the source. I even saw the engagement ring, bit gaudy for my taste, and oh my god,” Ximena pressed her face into her hands, “That is so completely not my point. My point is you are affianced and you should not be kissing long, long ex-girlfriends.”

“I have never claimed to be engaged, nor have I ever shown you a gaudy ring, and just so you know you sound just like a bullshit tabloid article right now.” Sergio returned, miffed. The term ex-girlfriend left a bitter taste in his mouth even though he wasn’t the one that had said it.

“Your fiancée’s personal assistant informed me of the happy news. She also mentioned that you guys were playing it close to the chest for the time being. She showed me a picture when I mentioned I was an old friend, and I noticed the ring on her left hand, obviously you didn’t mention this; no you were far too preoccupied with kissing me,” Mena elaborated dully as she feigned a calmness in her voice that she did not feel.

She was disappointed to learn that Sergio was capable of doing that to the person who he had promised to marry. The realization had her picking up her spoon and stirring around the contents of her mug as she stared down a bewildered Sergio.

“I am so curious to know who my fiancée is,” Sergio answered and reached across the table to stop Ximena from stirring the sugar in her coffee as he whispered, “Relax.”

“Are you kidding me?” Ximena snapped and immediately moved her hand out of his hold.

Sergio laughed, as he shrugged his shoulders, pretending not to feel hurt by her response, “I honestly have no idea what you’re on about right now because I am not fucking engaged.”

Ximena rolled her eyes, “Fiona, Fiona Flores, her assistant, Bea, told me you two were engaged last summer when I came to Madrid. Apparently, you’re not the only one that’s become a hotshot in Madrid.”

“You came to Madrid and you saw Fiona? That’s not possible, Fiona would have told me,” Sergio quickly replied.

“Oh good, at least you’re not claiming you have no idea who Fiona is. Finally, we see some progress.” Ximena retorted, “But no, technically I didn’t actually talk to Fiona.”

“Of course I know Fiona, she’s my friend, and she was also your friend too before you disappeared. You had her give me your letter. She moved to Madrid around the same time I did,” Sergio answered, “But she most certainly is not my fiancée.”

Truth be told, Sergio and Fiona had been dating off and on since they had both arrived in Madrid, but it had never become anything serious, at least not for Sergio. Fiona Flores was a struggling actress turned successful TV journalist in sports news. She ran in the same circles as Iker Casillas’ girlfriend Sara Carbonero. Fiona was a quick, casual, and convenient date or night in when he needed her. He had been dating other women on the side and he had never bothered to hide the fact from Fiona. Although, one look towards the woman sitting in front of him, and he decided against mentioning any of that just yet.

“Bea told me you two were engaged, and then made me promise not to tell anyone because she wasn’t supposed to let people know either,” Ximena recalled and now it was occurring to her how suspicious it all seemed.

“When exactly did this even happen?” Sergio demanded as he leaned forward.
He couldn’t think of a single valid reason why Fiona’s assistant of all people would have thought to make that absurd claim. Especially because Fiona herself knew how hung up Sergio was over what happened, “That’s…no, it’s not possible…where did this even happen?”

“I had gone to the Bernabéu with Sasha last August, it was the first game of the season, you guys were against Cordoba I think, and I saw Fiona from far away. I went closer to try to talk to her, but was stopped by a security guard. Then Bea came around and she let it slip and showed me a picture,” Ximena recalled the painful memory with a pensive frown.

Even then she knew she should not have been so surprised that Sergio had moved on, and with Fiona too, because it did honestly make sense. Barring the displaying of the photograph, Ximena couldn’t bring herself to ask for more details. She no longer felt the inclination to play catch up when two of her friends had moved on together without her. Ximena had been nervous enough about showing up in Madrid out of the blue to try to see her ex-boyfriend who had dumped her through a middleman so many years ago. The news that he had gotten engaged to a mutual friend, or anyone for that matter, had just been an insurmountable obstacle for her.

Sergio pulled out his phone, but Ximena stopped him from placing the call she knew was meant for Fiona, “I want to talk to her too. I want us to talk to her together face to face.”

Fiona had been her friend just as much as she had been Sergio’s when they had all lived in Sevilla. Ximena felt her insides go hollow as it finally, irrevocably occurred to her that the person that she had considered such a close friend could have possibly caused the huge misunderstanding between her and Sergio.

He agreed with Ximena’s suggestion, and he rather liked the prospect of Ximena showing up in Madrid. He was relieved to know that she hadn’t completely forgotten about him after all. She had tried to see him, and he knew that had he been in her position he probably would have done as she had. But of course what he liked the most was that it meant that he would continue to see more of her, “That means you’re coming to Madrid.”

“I need to get to the bottom of this so I need to talk to Fiona, I feel like with every question answered two more pop up to take its place,” Ximena complained; her words in perfect tandem with Sergio’s thoughts.

Sergio and Ximena walked outside to search for Sasha. They saw her standing under the shade of an oak tree with a pair of girls laughing and exchanging phones. When she spotted the pair watching her, Sasha waved goodbye to her new friends to rejoin Sergio and Ximena.

Ximena was quite enjoying her walk down memory lane and she stopped her brisk walk towards the Mini Cooper to turn and face Sergio and Sasha.

“You guys want to go check out the dance studio with me?”