NALA POV
Well, I didn’t an it.
Okay. I actually did an it but I didn’t realize my breasts were peeking out of the low v of my unbuttoned shirt when I said it and right now I feel like an ungrateful snub standing in the middle of a room full of broken glass and tension I personally created.
And I miss my fucking brother. I miss Ethan. I’m not functioning right, I know that, I know it might be toxic and I know people who love would say good riddance but he’s still my brother and I would rather be dealing with his toxic ass in the real world than stuck underground in so hideout with strangers I know nothing about.
Asides Nova and her kids of course. They don’t count as strangers anymore.
The broken bottle on the floor was still looking back at like a reminder of my clumsiness and how quickly I could unravel so I went looking for sothing to sweep it up with before soone got hurt or before soone used the ss as evidence that I was the problem.
"Uhm, hi, here is a mop and broom, do you wanna..."
"Thank you, thank you" I took the broom and mop from the stranger before she even finished her sentence. I wasn’t sure she was one of the faces from the car when we arrived earlier but sothing about her felt really familiar.
Not threateningly familiar, it was sort of soft like I had seen her sowhere in a different version of my life and forgotten to file her away properly.
I started sweeping the bottle shards into a pile and she stayed standing there, watching with this soft expression like she had sothing to say but was running the risk and reward of saying it through her head before committing. I’ve seen that look before. People do it with a lot.
"I’m Nalayna. Nyla. And you look familiar but I’m pretty sure we haven’t t before."
She smiled and damn, she was fine. Like genuinely fine. The kind of fine that lives on your explore page with good lighting and an aesthetic feed and a following of people who just want to look at her face. But she wasn’t giving off that energy in person, she was giving off sothing quieter and more careful and I couldn’t figure out why she was nervous.
"I’m Elena. I go by Lena."
"Nice to et you Lena but your na isn’t ringing a bell so where do I know you from?" I kept sweeping while I turned it over in my head. It had to be online. People who look like this don’t just walk into my physical life, I encounter them through screens and comnt sections and shared posts.
"Does Lena Calloway ring a bell?" She smiled nervously and tucked strands of her blonde hair behind her hair away before continuing. "I was a small ti influencer while I was in college. I was friends with Nova before the scandal."
"Ohhh. Lena fucking Calloway. The bitter bestie that leaked her friend and her dad’s sextape."
The words were already out before I could do anything about them. I winced internally but I didn’t take it back because I didn’t lie. I watched her smile shift in real ti, moving from nervous into sothing that looked like old regret being pulled out of storage, the kind of regret that never fully gets put away no matter how many tis you fold it.
"I’m sorry Lena, I mostly talk without thinking, please don’t take it personal." I said it genuinely and then I took two small steps back and put so distance between us just in case she decided to reach for one of the bottle shards still scattered near the wall.
I’m not being dramatic, I’m being logical. Soone who leaks her own father and her best friend’s private tape is operating on a different emotional frequency and I didn’t know where she was sitting on that scale today.
There was nobody else in the room. It would be her word against mine. That is if I made it out alive to give my word. I shook my head hard to scatter that image before it finished forming and she spoke almost at the exact sa mont, which startled enough to drop the mop entirely.
I am fine. I am completely fine.
"I know what I did is unforgivable. I was stupid and I’m not trying to push the bla onto anything or anyone. My therapist told it’s okay to feel the weight of it sotis but that I shouldn’t let it flatten , so overall I’ve been working on myself. Working on being a better big sister to my siblings, being better for their family. It’s not easy and I regret my decisions every single day but I’ve learned to stop punishing myself every hour of every day for it. It’s nice to et you Nala. If you need anything while we’re stuck in this depressing hideout I’ll be glad to help you." She left the room after that like she could feel my discomfort from across the floor and was doing the courtesy of removing herself from it.
I stood there for a second just holding the mop.
Okay. Maybe I was being a little judgntal. But when that whole story went viral years ago we all had our takes and mine was that Nova was a gold digger who had maneuvered her way into her best friend’s family for access and status.
That was the narrative that spread and I accepted it because I didn’t know Nova then. eting Nova in person and watching her with Ivin and seeing a relationship that wasn’t a random hookup or a mistake but sothing real with multiple weddings and children and the kind of love that reorganizes a whole family around itself, I’ve done a full one eighty on where the bitterness actually lived in that story.
One soft and probably rehearsed speech from Lena in a dim underground room wasn’t going to move back.
I went back to sweeping.
I hate pampered daughters who walk through the world like everyone else is furniture in the backdrop of their story. Who treats other people like accessories or obstacles depending on what’s convenient. Speaking of which, Giulia, or whatever Nova had called her, strolled into the room with her nose angled up like the air near the ceiling was higher quality than the air the rest of us were breathing. Like being underground and being hunted was a backdrop she had specifically arranged for her own entrance.
"Finally playing your true role in life." She smiled at the way a bored queen smiles at a peasant she’s decided to acknowledge, slow and deliberate and designed to make the other person feel the gap between them.
"And here I thought being caged underground would make you less miserable." I dropped the mop and squared up because I was absolutely ready to beat the entitlent out of her if this went anywhere near the direction it was heading.
"Coming from the help that’s..."
"Think of a more original line. Help doesn’t cut it."
She looked at for a mont and I watched her recalibrate, deciding whether to push harder or co from a different angle. She ca from a different angle.
"Alright. But before I deign your words with a real response, I have one question. Are you actually Ivin’s girlfriend or are you just a cheap wannabe playing the part?"
The room went quiet in a way that had nothing to do with sound.
Now I had to decide. I could claim my independence, tell her I’m nobody’s girlfriend and I’m here as my own person, which would be true. But it would also an explaining why I was actually here and what I owed Ivin and how I ended up in this specific hideout with these specific people. So the real question was not what I wanted to say.
I looked at her and for the first ti in weeks I actually did think before I opened my mouth to speak.
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