Caring

VIII

This can be linked to the previous one shot titled V.

She looks around the familiar airport. The luggage on her trolley is being pushed in front of her, the bright pink suitcase laying on top of her black one. She shakes her head, thinking about the tantrums and tears before she finally gave in and bought the vile coloured creature. Just looking at it makes her stomach turn in disgust because she is reminded of him.

And the feeling transports Nadine back into a past, into the person, she has spent the last five years trying to forget.

•

The years flew by with James by her side. After the San Francisco fiascos of finally admitting their feelings for each other, they had tried to protect their relationship from the media – it was too precious to share, too personal to reveal and too risky to expose.

They had failed of course, because they just couldn't seem to get their eyes to hide the happiness they felt or stop their hands from automatically finding each other. Whether that be at events where James was vocal about the length of her skirt or at shoots where the two couldn't help but act like a couple madly in love – on screen and off. The fans began assuming and so did other people around them and soon it became silly to hide their relationship...but James still wanted to.

Nadine never understood why.

•

Thinking back on the first year of her relationship with James makes Nadine's knees feel like jelly. She has the urge to sit down because the numbing sensation gradually takes over her entire body and she finds herself loosing balance. Her hands clench around the luggage trolley, her knuckles going white.

She still kicks herself now, for giving in to him too easily, for trusting him so much and most of all, for falling deeper and deeper in love with him every day she was with him.

Oh how she wishes she wasn't so naïve.

•

After the first year or so their relationship had become tiring and truth be told, Nadine didn't want it to be a secret anymore, she didn't want to lie to the people she cared about. She wanted everyone to know that James had proven his love to her and that their loveteam was stronger than ever because of their real feelings.

But he was still reluctant, convincing her that their midnight drives and hasty make out sessions were the best way to do this.

They'll tell you that I'm no good for you. They'll make things up about us and I don't want to tarnish what we have, he had said.

And she had believed him.

She had given him everything in that first year, even something which she had never given her previous boyfriends – her virginity. It was unavoidable considering how he couldn't keep his hands off her. Years of built up tension had to be released somehow, and James knew exactly how.

They'd spend weekends off lazing around, semi dressed, in a rented condo, untraceable to either of them. Both had clothes and bare essentials at the private hideaway but for some reason Nadine couldn't call it their home. It was theirs, and they did sleep there (and with each other) on several occasions but it wasn't their home. And this just didn't feel right to her. She couldn't lose all her values for a guy, no matter how much she loved him.