motivations: trust

Sorry it took two weeks to get this going - I hope it's not disappointing (though it may be a little confusing.) Hopefully parts 6-8 will be better :)

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Trust

The semester was finally nearing a close. She had an interview that day for a summer internship in New York. She didn’t really know why she decided to apply for the position, except that she knew she had to keep herself busy. And perhaps explore a new city.
She leaned her head against the train window and closed her eyes slowly, the soft lids like a heavy blanket to her tired vision.

Things would have been easier if he had just found another girl.
But he didn’t. And she wasn’t even able to watch him every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday going about his normal lecture routines anymore, so she couldn’t mentally match him up with someone else and hate on her instead. It was slowly draining her. It just would have been easier to hate him if he had moved onto another girl – she would at least have reason to call him severe names and burn all their pictures.

“Excuse me, is this yours?” a woman asked. Allison’s eyes flew open. The woman was gesturing to a green umbrella on the seat across from her.
“No,” she answered, briefly scanning the design and returning to closing her eyes.

Two weeks after their separation, he had asked her out to breakfast – bagels with cream cheese and coffee, just like they used to.
“How have you been?” He had peered over at her from his paper coffee cup.
“All right.”
“Have you been eating well? Sleeping well?”
“Relatively so.”
“How was your paper?”
“Pulled an all-nighter for it.”
“Mmm.” He took a bite out of his bagel, wiping his mouth afterwards to get the cream cheese that lingered at the corners.
“And you?”
“I’ve been doing well. Studying.”
“That sounds good.”
“I’ve been going to the gym a lot more, playing basketball with som-”
“I’ve missed you.” She couldn’t help herself. It was the truth.
He had let out a slow sigh and pushed back his hair.

“Sorry to bother you again,” the woman asked. She looked around in her purse a bit. “Do you happen to have change for a ten?”
“Um.” She pulled out her wallet and pulled out two fives, dropping a sheet of sticker pictures in the process.
“Oh,” the woman bent down to grab the miniature pictures, “let me get that for you.” She took a brief glance at the row of silly, love-struck photos before handing them back. “I’ve never done one of these,” she said, a half-smile appearing. She exchanged her the ten-dollar bill. “Thanks.” She got up to catch the food cart that had already passed.

He had looked down at his nails for three seconds before looking at the shelves of coffee mugs behind her. “Yeah.”
She stared at his eyes, beckoning him to look up at her. “You…haven’t?”
“No, I mean, yeah. I mean,” he sighed again, “it’s been tough, yeah.”
“So…”
“Allison.” He finally met her gaze. “You can’t just say those things to me.”
“It’s true though.”
“However true it may be, you can’t say it like you mean it or anything.”
“So you can’t mean the things you say?”
“You can’t say the things you mean.”
“And what do I mean, Derek?”
“You’re saying it like you want us to get back together.”
“And if I mean it?” She didn’t know if she did.
“That’s why I said you can’t say things like that.”
“So, you don’t want to accept the truth.”
“The truth is that I loved you, but now is not the right time for either of us.”

The woman came back with a pastry and a bottle of orange juice.
“Thanks again,” she said, taking her seat again. Allison watched her take a bite out of her pastry, then dab the corners of her mouth delicately. “So, why New York?” she asked suddenly.
Allison’s words caught in her throat. She coughed, then replied, “I have an interview for a summer internship.”
“Yeah?” the woman responded, raising an eyebrow as she sipped her coffee. “What do you study?”
“I’m a communications and psychology double major.”
“Sounds fun. I took some consumer psychology classes in college – they were fun.”
“Yeah, they sound pretty legit.”
“What kind of internship is it?”
“Advertising.”
She paused before answering, sticking her tongue in her cheek. “You’re not Alexandra, are you?”
“Allison, actually.”
“Right, Allison.” She pulled out her Blackberry and began scanning. “I think you’re supposed to be interviewed with Luke, right?” She paused again. “1:30?”
She started. “Um, yes.”
The woman smiled and stuck out her hand, saw frosting on her fingers, and thought better of it and retracted her hand. “Sorry, I’m Natalie Mitchell,” she wiped her fingers on a napkin before reaching out to shake hands again, “Luke’s boss. Nice to meet you.”
Allison shook her hands tentatively, worried about the prospects of a premature impromptu interview.
“Don’t worry,” Natalie said, as if reading her mind. “I’m not really in the mood for work right now.”
“That’s…good,” Allison tried to laugh off.
“Yeah, it’s been a long week.” She finished the last of her pastry, then smiled politely. “Let’s change the subject, shall we?”

Allison had stayed silent at his last comment, trying not to become emotional again.
“Let’s just change the subject,” he had said. “I don’t want to drag this out.”
“Okay, what should we talk about?”
“What are you thinking about doing this summer?”
“What do you mean?”
“Are you traveling like last summer? Or getting a job or something? Taking classes?”
“I haven’t decided. What about you?”
“I think I’ll be staying here, catch up on some classes. Might go on a mission trip to Louisiana with my church.”
“Sounds like a productive summer. I’ve been wanting to – ”

“Get away as far as possible,” she answered.
“I can see it in your face,” Natalie agreed. “Anything else you want to do in New York?”
“Maybe see some museums, take some good photos in the city.”
She nodded. “Sounds like a productive summer.”

“But why a mission trip?”
“I guess I just want to get out of this city at some point. And it’ll help me to clear my mind a bit, just serving others instead of myself for once.”

“It should be fun.” She neatly tucked her used napkins in her cup before handing them to the passing trash cart. “Sometimes, I feel like I don’t ever take time for myself.”
“But it’s kind of a trademark of the working world, right?”
“Maybe. And then, sometimes, upon reflecting, I realize that I work six days a week for myself. So, in the end, I think maybe I just do everything for myself, so I have nothing to complain about.”
“Well, who else would we do it for, you know?”

“Honestly, I think I’ve been ignoring everyone but myself lately.”
“I think you’ve been doing okay.”
“I mean, I’ve been ignoring God, too.”
She scoffed. “He ignores us, it’s not a big deal,” she joked.
“No,” he tapped the table twice. “He never ignores us. We just don’t trust that he’ll be there, so we forget to care.”

“How’s your boyfriend?”
“Excuse me?”
“The one from the pictures, I’m assuming?”
“Oh.” She fiddled with the hair tie on her wrist. “We broke up.”
Natalie’s face lost a bit of color. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“It’s okay. I’ve had time to recover.”

“How can you trust someone you’ve never seen?” she asserted. Her voice then had dropped to a whisper. “I can hardly trust people I see everyday.”
“Isn’t that what faith is? Being able to just trust without sight?”
“Is that what love is?”

“I don’t know.” Natalie stared out the window in thought. “I left someone behind to come to New York, actually. It was a clean break-up, no hard feelings.”
“Did you…”
“Love him? Maybe.” She sighed, fog forming on the window where she had exhaled. “Yes. I don’t think I realized it until this trip.”
“Oh.”
“I visited him briefly. He’s doing very well – it was good to see.” She patted the tightly coiled bun on her head a few times. “I think…it was good to trust him to be okay without me. Is that love?”

“He knows that you can’t live without Him, so even if He can’t be there for you physically, like we so want Him to be, He wants you to trust that He loves you nonetheless.”
“I don’t know, Derek. There’s no way you can really know. There are more than six billion people in this world – why should I matter, when I can hardly mean anything to someone two feet away from me?”

“But you know, you have to trust that he loves you, no matter who you are and what you’ve done.” She looked back away from the window. “Or rather, because of who you are and what you’ve done. That’s the key.”

“You want unfailing love." He lightly pressed her hand, then got up. "But that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s visible to you at first.”

“Sometimes, love that slips underneath the radar is the strongest kind.” She smiled. “Plus, romance is unreliable, so don’t trust in that kind of love.”

The train slowed to a halt. The two women packed their things silently and headed towards the exit.
“Good luck with your interview, Allison.”
“Thank you. It was great meeting you.”
She handed her a card. “My number’s on there. Let me know if you ever want to go see the Met together.”
Natalie smiled and slipped into the crowd.
Allison hesitated, then took her first firm step.

© 2009. Sarah R.