Doubt Me Not

This was the second time Ximena was returning to the dance studio, but it was the first for Sergio and Sasha. Unlike the café, the studio had been updated in every single aspect over the years. Beginning with the brand new shiny mahogany floorings underneath and ending with the fancy lighting system overhead. It wasn’t necessarily that Ximena disliked the new look, it was the fact that the studio no longer felt part of her past the way the café still did.

Sasha spotted the girls she had met earlier stretching towards the back of the large rehearsal space, and quickly made her way over.

“It’s different,” Sergio noted when Ximena didn’t speak and Sasha had already gone.
Ximena sighed and turned to leave, “Yeah well, so are we.”

“Mena? Mena Rodriguez, am I seeing a ghost?!” A voice gone hoarse from years of smoking broke the disconsolate silence as recognition lit up Ximena’s features.

“Aleyda, you look exactly the same, it is uncanny!” Ximena readily complimented as she fast approached the curvaceous woman to pull her into a hug.

Aleyda Franco was the owner of the studio. She had taken a liking to Ximena and offered her a position as a dance instructor after watching her dance when she had first arrived in Sevilla.

“Enough placating the old lady, you two tell me, how are my favorite love birds doing?” She laughed in return. As far as Aleyda knew Ximena had gone to Madrid with Sergio exactly as planned, and had simply allowed time and distance to get the better of her. She felt too old and too content to see Ximena pull her life together to carry a grudge.

“We’re good,” Sergio interjected, “You tell us, how is Alberto getting on?”

“He’s as cranky and sullen as ever, but he’s fine now that we changed his diet,” Aleyda grinned and waved off the reminder of her husband.

Ximena watched the exchange, guilt lit up in her as she realized that Sergio had kept in touch with her old boss when she hadn’t even bothered herself.

Sergio abruptly turned to face Ximena who had gotten caught up in her thoughts and missed the last minute of the conversation, “What do you think?”

She nodded her head anyway, and apparently she did the right thing because Aleyda all but jumped up into the air from the excitement as she pulled Ximena towards her to plant a kiss on her cheek.
“Excellent, now the party is nothing too fancy,” Aleyda readily downplayed the soiree she had spent months planning, “It’s outdoors, there’ll be great food, open bar, live music.”

“Sounds just like old times, we’ll be there,” Sergio accepted on behalf of the three of them.

Aleyda checked the time and quickly excused herself to start the class. She may be past forty, but she still knew how to move and her studio clearly remained to be one of the most popular in the city, Ximena noted to herself.

Sasha stayed behind with her newfound friends to try her hand at a dance lesson. She was curious, and Aleyda was more than welcoming. Sergio and Ximena bid her their ‘see you laters’ and walked back outside towards the car with the Spanish sun brightly shining overhead.

“So you never told her that I didn’t come to Madrid?” Ximena started, a strange tone wrapping around her words as she tried to come to terms with Sergio’s choice. It completely contradicted the callous way Fiona had depicted his reaction to her departure.

“Well, yeah I did, she needed to know that you were okay, and I just decided that sometimes it’s okay to lie,” Sergio explained as he threw her a wary, sideways glance, “What are you going to do, fight me?

“No,” Ximena hooked her arm through his and found his hand with hers, “No, of course not, I just wanted to say thank you.”

Sergio squeezed her hand, “You’re welcome.”

***

“We haven’t even been here a week,” Mena exclaimed, “How do you manage to have friends you would rather go with?”

“One of their older sister’s is a makeup artist, and she’s going to help us get ready,” Sasha pointed out with a small smirk and meaningful glance at a highly amused Sergio, “And anyway you locked down a footballer boyfriend, I mean, you’re not doing too shabby yourself, Xime,”

Mena threw her a dark look, and Sasha quickly backtracked, “Friend, I mean your footballer friend.”
“I don’t have to say it, do I?” Ximena gave in with a heavy sigh.

“I’ll find you by midnight whether you’re at the party or back here, I will not drink, I will not smoke, and I will not drive so I won’t have to worry about driving anyone over,” Sasha rehearsed her little spiel as if she had said it many times before.

“Music to my ears,” Mena answered as Sasha gave her a tight hug.

“I love you,” Sasha squealed.

“Yeah, yeah, you too, just don’t do anything I haven’t done,” She called after Sasha who was eagerly sprinting to her room to pull together her look for the evening.

“That doesn’t narrow it down much,” Sergio smirked.

“What she doesn’t know…” Ximena trailed off meaningfully.

“I’ll tell her,” Sergio finished with a toothy grin.

Ximena gasped and playfully hit his arm, “You would not dare!”

“Yeah, you know what, I probably wouldn’t.”

“Alright, I’m out,” Sasha called, her heels clacking against the parquet.

“Well that was quick,” Ximena suspiciously observed as she walked past the kitchen, “And those are my shoes in your hand.”

“My ride’s outside, I’ll be careful with your precious-es,” Sasha shouted excitedly, “You two behave! I’ll see you guys there!”

Ximena scrunched up her nose and tilted her head with a wavering look in her eye. Sergio immediately shook his head already trying to convince her to not flake on the party.

“She already added us to her seating chart, that makes it set in stone,” Sergio reprimanded, “It’ll be fun.”

“No, you’re right, we already said yes, even though technically I wasn’t sure what I was saying yes to,” Ximena rambled as she came to her feet.

“I should probably go and get ready too,” Sergio announced.

Ximena nodded, sad to see him go. She hadn’t really been alone with just her thoughts in a long while, and the sudden change was unnerving. She felt weird about asking him to come back quickly, so she bit her tongue and waved goodbye. She turned on music to rid herself of the stifling silence, and set about getting ready for the evening ahead of her.

Less than an hour later, Sergio returned dressed in pressed dark jeans and a black button down shirt. He carried a case of beer in one hand and a bouquet of pale pink peonies in the other. Ximena grinned and grabbed for the beer, leaving Sergio to situate the flowers himself.

“Still not a fan of flowers,” Sergio noted.

“I have yet to find the one,” Ximena returned, touched that he was continuing on with his experiment. Every once in a while he would bring a new type to gauge her reaction, he was so certain his persistence would pay off, and she would finally find her favorite.

“I just need to slip on my dress, and we can get going,” Ximena called as she returned to her room to change while Sergio searched around for a vase. She had packed a mustard yellow maxi dress with a slit on the front left side, and she was glad to have it handy now.

“You don’t have a vase,” Sergio observed, unsurprised.

“No, I don’t,” Ximena answered as she made her way back to the living room.
Sergio glanced up and teased, “Come on, give us a little spin.”

“Shut up,” Ximena bashfully looked away and noticed the peonies. She did find herself pitying the bulbous flowers.

“You want to have a beer before we go? We can use the empty bottle as a vase,” Sergio suggested when he noticed where her eyes had wondered.

“I’d love that actually, I have nerves that need settling,” Ximena answered.

Time soon began to drip away as their beer supply began to hit drastically low levels. Sergio leaned back against the cushy, heather gray sofa with a bottle of beer in hand, laughing at yet another goofy memory he recounted to Ximena that involved a romantic weekend away to Malaga. Ximena sat with her legs curled under her and watched Sergio animatedly recount so many little details that she had more or less allowed herself to forget.

“This feels so normal compared to the last few days we had it’s strange,” Ximena commented lightly as she stared ahead at the black TV screen.

Sergio snorted, “We’re dressed for a night out, yet we’re sitting on a couch drinking beer, how’s this normal? We don’t even have music on…when did we get so old?”

Ximena snickered as she handed Sergio another bottle to open, “Um, but seriously I think it’s time you take off the rose-tinted glasses, my friend.”

“What?” Sergio handed the bottle back, opened.

“You’re too kind about the past,” Ximena specified.

“No, not at all, you’re the one being way too pessimistic.”

“Sergio, stop, we hated each other when Fiona first introduced us for one thing,” Ximena reminded and stifled a laugh at his seemingly genuine confusion.

“Are you thinking about the night at the bar?”

“You completely terrified those guys off! I was furious with you; of course I’m talking about that night! I still marvel at the fact that you didn’t get arrested,” Ximena exclaimed, momentarily lost in her strange nostalgia.

“You were drunk and they were trying to take advantage, I did what I had to do,” Sergio insisted and Ximena definitely picked up on the smug pride ringing in his words.

“I was tipsy not drunk; I wasn’t going to leave the bar with any of them anyway. I was bored in a new city,” Ximena returned, “I wanted entertainment and free drinks which they were providing.”

“I entertained you better than they could have,” Sergio gloated.

“You’re so in love with the past,” Ximena observed.

“I was happy.”

“You’re not happy now?”

“I was happier than, less lonely, I guess,” Sergio specified.

“Oh, so you haven’t…” Ximena wished she hadn’t started her question. It wasn’t her business. Not anymore.

“I have, but nothing stuck.”

“Oh.”

Ximena waited for Sergio to ask about her own relationships from the last ten years, but he didn’t.

“And anyway, the beginning doesn’t matter,” Sergio pressed on instead, “Point is, we were good to each other towards the middle and the end – that’s when it matters most.”

“Apparently not enough because things did end,” Ximena spoke the words and immediately regretted it with one look at Sergio’s face.

“That was because of you,” Sergio accused with a rueful look and finished his beer.

“I left, but I didn’t end things,” Ximena reminded.

“But you did end things by leaving, how do you not see that?” Sergio scoffed and came to his feet.

“Maybe I really was naïve to believe we could make things work from such a distance, you’re right,” Ximena agreed scornfully.

“Distance had nothing to do with it, you left Spain, apparently the entire country for another man, that’s why things didn’t work out,” Sergio snapped and paced.

“What other man?” Ximena stared up at Sergio.

Sergio shook his head, “Forget it, we’re running late as it is, we should get going.”

“What other man?” Ximena repeated and didn’t move.

“The man that you wrote about, the man that you left me for,” Sergio voiced, and he could feel his patience begin to wear thin once again.

“I don’t know what you’re on about; I didn’t leave for another man.”

Sergio shook his head, “Then you were lying then or you’re lying now, so which is it?”

Ximena placed the bottle on the table and got to her feet, “You know what, you’re right, let’s just forget it. We’re running ridiculously late as it is.”

“No,” Sergio gripped her shoulder, holding her in place, “No, I changed my mind; I want to talk about what happened tonight. I don’t want to wait until we’re in Madrid. I can’t pretend to be okay anymore. I thought I could for one more night, but I can’t.”

“What are we supposed to do? What the fuck kind of protocol is there for a situation like this where nothing is what you thought it was?” Ximena earnestly questioned, “I don’t want to fight with you, and it seems as if every time we talk about the past we argue.”

Sergio smiled; there was no joy on his countenance. He held onto his longing for the past even tighter because even with Ximena back in his life things would never go back to the way they had been.

“I loved you, you know, and a part of me obviously still does because you’ve been making nothing but excuses to avoid admitting the truth and I have obliged you every single time, but enough, Mena. I’m done. Either speak up now, or don’t bother coming to Madrid.”

The front door opened seconds after Sergio made his ultimatum known, and Sasha walked in with an uncertain smile stuck to her lips; completely unaware of the relationship unraveling between Sergio and Ximena.

“Perfect timing,” Sergio remarked with a dark, little laugh.

“You’re back early,” Ximena rubbed a stray tear off her cheek, only now noticing that it was half past seven. She hadn’t even realized she had begun to cry until Sasha’s arrival.

“You guys never made it to the party,” Sasha greeted, noting the signs of distress on Ximena’s expression, “I guess I got worried.”

Sasha noticed that they both were physically uninjured so she stayed mindful of her words and actions, adamant about not jumping to conclusions.

“You guys good?”

Ximena nodded, “We’re fine.”

“I’m going to call it a night,” Sergio muttered.

“Sergio, wait,” Ximena called as Sergio made his way to the door.

“Are you sure you guys are alright?” Sasha repeated.

“Just give me a minute, I’ll be right back,” Ximena promised and followed after him outside.

“You can’t just say something like that and walk away, it is not fair!” Ximena shouted to Sergio’s back as she ran in her heels to catch up to him.

“Fair!” Sergio yelled back, a scornful laugh ripping out of his throat as he whirled around to fast approach her, forcing Ximena to take a startled step back, “None of this is fair, none of this seems to make any sense, and you are just taking this clusterfuck we’re trapped in and making it so much worse.”

“I’m just confused, Sergio, there’s so many things that I can’t wrap my head around,” Ximena returned, “I wasn’t expecting any of this to happen.”

“It is not your turn to be confused; it is not your turn to be wide-eyed and asking questions and acting as if you have a fuck to give about the fact that you haven’t seen me in ten years. Like it or not, you fucked up when you left and you stayed gone for this long. You have to answer for it, not me, not Fiona,” Sergio hissed.

“Okay,” Ximena finally conceded her eyes never leaving his, she was never the one to back down from a tense situation, but she knew when she had made a mistake, and right now she had made a particularly big one, “Okay, ask me.”

“No, go check on Sasha, she looked freaked out, come back, and let’s go for a walk,” Sergio countered, his voice had yet to soften.

“I’ll be two seconds,” Ximena promised and broke into a sprint back to the apartment building. She hadn’t even realized how far off they had strayed not just from the apartment but from their own shaky ceasefire.