Trust

We gave it all

She knows what he wants. She gave him the idea, but she wasn't expecting him to take it seriously.

As the car moves Alex looks out, she's close to Bradley's Hotel. Maybe he'll be there. That surely would be awkward, Bradley, Mitch and Alex in the same room, that can't be good.

As the car stops Alex takes a deep breath and tries to put herself together. She gets out of the car and looks up, something tells her this is not a good idea, but on the other hand she has nothing to loose, so she makes her way up to Bradley's apartment.

Alex knocks on the door three times, and she can hear footsteps inside, getting louder, getting closer. The door opens to reveal Bradley looking at her, she's not smiling, they way she looks at Alex is one Alex has never seen, it's like Bradley feels sorry for her.

"Alex, please come in." Bradley says softly, using the tone you would use to talk to a frightened kid.

Alex gets in and just as she steps into the living room she sees Mitch. He looks at her and smiles,an apologetic smile, Alex can tell, she knows him better than anyone. He's apologizing for putting her in this position, but again, she gave him the idea.

Mitch stands up. "Alex, hi" he says that so awkwardly it makes her cringe.

Alex gets close to him, but neither of them know what to do. Everything changed. Before, they could just hug for a minute and nobody would have said anything, because it was ok, and they were friends. Now, they don't know how to act in front of just one person, everything they do will be judged and they are very aware of that.

Mitch makes the first move and puts his arms around her, squeezing her for a second, and she does the same. He is her comfort zone, and she is his, they both know it's wrong, but damm it feels good.

Realizing Bradley is there, probably feeling very uncomfortable, they separate and take a couple steps away from each other.

Alex turns around to face Bradley who points at the couch behind Mitch and Alex.

"Please sit down" Says Bradley and does the same, sitting on the seat across from them.
"I'm sorry for asking you to come here just like that Alex, but you know how important is telling the truth for me, and I feel like what's happening to you, what happened to you, it's not ok. People are being really unfair to you, and they are judging you, without knowing the truth, and I'm not gonna lie, I judged you too, and for that I'm sorry."

"Bradley..." Alex took a deep breath and closed her eyes before continuing. "I appreciate your intentions, and I have a very good idea of everything Mitch told you, but I don't want to hide behind false accusations just because I made a mistake." She looks at Mitch and he looks away, that probably hurt him.

"What do you mean?" Bradley asks confused. "I know this must be hard Alex, but it's ok to open up, it's ok to be honest about what happened. You can help lots of women, if you tell your story..."

"There's nothing to tell Bradley, I'm not one of Mitch's victims"

"Alex, I told her everything. How I seduced you when you were feeling bad, how I told you that I would crash your fundraising event if you didn't get in the car with me..."

"Mitch do you hear yourself? How come days ago you wanted your life back and now you want to do this to yourself?" Alex stands up and starts pacing around the living room.

Bradley just looks at them, she doesn't know the nature of their relationship, if Mitch is lying to protect Alex or if Alex is lying to protect Mitch.

"I just want to protect you Alex"

"So you lied?" Asks Bradley, but Mitch doesn't respond, instead he walks towards Alex.

"Just tell the truth" he says while looking right into her eyes.

"I can't" says Alex

"I will not force you to talk about it, I just need to know if I should do this interview, if this is the truth." Says Bradley

"I can't, it's not true." Say Alex to Bradley and the turns around to face Mitch. "I know you want to protect me, but there's nothing to protect anymore."

"So your are giving everything up? Just like that?"

"I'm not giving anything up Mitch, but I'm tired, I'm fucking tired of lying and pretending, of living a lie. I just want to live a life where I can actually be me, where I don't have to smile when I'm sad, or cry even if I don't care. I'm tired of saying the same sentence every morning at 7am, I'm fucking tired of wearing what everyone wants me to wear, and saying what everyone wants me to say. I just want to stop." When Alex is done talking tears are streaming down her face and she's looking right into Mitch's eyes.

"I'm sorry" Mitch says

"You always are" with that Alex storms out of the apartment, leaving Mitch and Bradley alone.

"You were going to make everything worse for you, just to protect her?"

"It's not JUST to protect her... I can't live with myself knowing that she's going through all of this because of me."

"You wanted everyone to pay for their actions"

"But not her Bradley, not her. She doesn't deserve this, she's worked her ass off to get here, when we started working together she had so much energy, she gave life to the show, she had this light that shined brightly, and we turned that light off, and I started making the mistakes I made, because I was tired of the routine, and she got used to everything that was happening. We both got used to it. All the energy and the life and the light turned into an endless cicle of 'what does the people like?' And 'don't be yourself, be what people wants you to be'. This show took everything from us. You may think now it's when it's taking our lives, but it took them long ago, and now we are left with nothing, because we gave it all, just because we wanted it all. So make sure you don't give everything Bradley Jackson." Mitch takes his coat and walks to the door.

"I won't. I don't want it all, I just want to deliver the news."

Mitch laughs.

"What's so funny?" Asks Bradley.

"That thing you said, 'I just want to deliver the news' that's the same thing Alex said when we started working together." And with that Mitch gets out of the apartment, leaving Bradley with a lot in her mind.

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AN

Thank you all for your support and your wonderful feedback! Sadly, I don't have much time anymore. Therefore, the next chapter will be the last one, and I promise to write a good ending for this story, even if it's not a happy one. I hope you guys understand. Right now I have to focus on my studies and my future. Again, thanks for everything and please stay safe during this hard times.

                   Zoé