Rina moved out of the kitchen into the living area with the glass of wine, settling onto one of the white couches arranged in a circular form. At the head was a fireplace, surprisingly working despite the existence of a modern heating system. The fire crackled and roared softly, with the small embers of its flame flickering as far up as they could go. She tried to wrap her head around everything that had happened, from the call leading up to that very moment, and it all seemed planned only that it was practically impossible for Joel to have planned something like that.
Only if he wasn’t the same person she thought he was.
After waiting for a few minutes, Rina wished she had gone in with her phone. With practically nothing to do, she got off the couch and roamed the living room, looking at the art lining the wall. She realized what she hadn’t the first time she’d been in there, that Joel loved the middle line between modernization and archaic. Everything he owned seemed to be stuck in that moment of change, past the old times but never entering the new. He had chosen to be frozen in those times and it reflected everywhere she looked.
Rina’s gaze flickered to the open-plan kitchen at intervals, catching Joel taking his time to eat his meal. He acted like no one was waiting for him, casually tearing through the turkey while he laughed at something on his phone. After what seemed like an eternity, he got off the stool, leaving the island exactly the way it was, then sauntered over to the living area.
She fought the urge to roll her eyes as he approached, instead moving back to the couch where he joined her. Rina struggled with where to start, already put off by the fact that he made her wait for so long. There was no way it hadn’t been on purpose.
“You finished your wine,” he murmured like he hadn’t spent long enough to finish a whole bottle. “Let me get you a refill.”
Before Rina could protest, Joel got off the couch and walked over to the kitchen, grabbing the bottle off the island, along with his own used glass before returning to the living area. He grabbed Rina’s glass and poured her the same quantity as the last time, doing the same for himself.
“Can we talk now?” Rina questioned, tired of playing the long game. “I have to get home real soon. It’s late.”
“Really?” Joel looked up at the clock hanging above the fireplace before his eyes widened in mock surprise. “Damn! It’s already past 10. You could spend the night here, anyway, if you don’t have anything urgent to do tomorrow. And of course, if late-night driving isn’t your thing.”
Rina didn’t even bother considering it. “About the call,” she started, leaning over to grab her glass of wine. “What did you mean by that?”
“Exactly what I said.”
“Joel, we are friends, or at least, we used to be friends. One thing friends do for each other is communicate adequately before jumping to conclusions. If you had taken the time to really look at me after I left your company, you would have realized that I was being stepped upon. I had to fight for myself. Regina is just a bully and deserves to be taught a lesson.”
“That wasn’t what I saw,” Joel murmured, without even the slightest guilt in his tone. “It sure looked like you were the bully, and Regina was only suffering at your hands. Just like you did with me.”
“Joel, is this about the fact that I rejected your advances towards me? I told you. I don’t love you that way, and it would have only been unfair to you to have played along and fooled you in the process.”
He scoffed and shook his head. “Not everything is about that, Rina.”
“Then what is it?”
“You just complained about how you had to suffer at the hands of people when you left the fashion house. But the thing is, you didn’t have to leave and I communicated that to you. I pleaded with you to stay back, Rina, but you were so adamant about pursuing your stardom that you were willing to let go of every single person who helped you along the way.”
Rina got up, unable to sit still. “You are being unfair right now, Joel.”
“How so?” he asked, reclining into the couch and crossing one leg over the other. “Humor me.”
“I was already going through a lot even while working for you, so this isn’t about everything I’ve had to go through. You were there when I was booed at the fashion show, or how everyone immediately assumed I had slept with you to have gotten a position at your company. I didn’t mind the rumors, Joel, because that is who I am. I have a goal in sight, and I am not going to let what anyone says get in the way. I am an actress, and even though I am a model too, I love acting and want to be right there. You can’t give that to me, no matter how much you care for me. It is only right that you let me pursue that. It has nothing to do with our friendship. But that wasn’t even the reason I left.”
“So, why did you leave?”
“Don’t you get it? Your business was beginning to suffer a lot. Sales were declining really fast and you were going to do nothing about it because you wanted to protect me. But Joel, I wanted to protect you too, because that is what friends do for each other. You had worked too hard to get to that point, and I was unwilling to let some flimsy rumors get in the way of that.”
“It was not in your place to make those decisions,” he snapped.
“You were going to get boycotted.”
“And that would have been my cross to bear.”
“Has anyone ever told you that you can be selfish sometimes?”