Page 70 of Apparently, I’m A B!tch

“You can practice law anywhere; you do not need to be here.” He opened my fridge and helped himself to one of the leftover pastries from Monday’s misguided lunch. They were stale by now, but my father was never one to waste food. He made a face as he bit into a hard and crunchy baklava.

“It’s been almost a decade, Dad. I have a life here, you know that.”

He grunted and didn’t say anything else. He did know it, but my relocation to Lower Manhattan had been an argument between my parents and me that existed years before I moved here for my college scholarship to Columbia. Practicing law in the heart of Manhattan was a dream come true for me and my dad knew that.

While I was growing up in North Chicago, he nurtured my fascination with the law as we spent our nights watching reruns of Law and Order, snuggled together on the couch, quietly arguing over which parts of the show were fake and which would hold up in a real case.

With him here, we fell back into old habits, and despite how much Tristan hurt me, sitting with my father on my couch while my mama practiced making baklava was the most content I’d been in a long time. My apartment was filled with familiar smells and sounds, the kind I grew up with, and it really helped.

“You don’t need to prove yourself, tigris,” my father said, pulling me back to our FaceTime call with my sisters. “What you need to do is learn to be happy with who you are and what you’ve done.”

I rolled my eyes up at him as he shuffled closer to Mama and me. “I am happy.”

My mother frowned. “Your sisters tell me everything, Nikki. And your father and I, we talk.”

Andrea grinned up sheepishly from the screen. “They know about the assholes you work with and what they say.”

“Andy!” I exclaimed, exasperated.

Elena leaned closer, not a whit embarrassed or chagrined. “We all know they make you feel like shit. Hell, if I was up there, they’d probably try and do the same thing to me. New Yorkers don’t get us, Nikki.”

Andrea nodded. “They don’t get that we’re just being honest.”

Mama spoke beside my ear. “Honesty might hurt to hear, but is better than letting people walk around believing lies.” She squeezed my shoulder. “You shouldn’t be ashamed of that.”

I wanted to complain and argue. I wanted to tell my sisters and my mother they were wrong. Here in New York, the truth had to be padded with flowery kindness or avoided altogether because of the way it could affect people. It was a skill I couldn’t seem to master, and as a result I was ostracized and alone. Everyone thought I was a bitch for telling the truth.

Everyone except for Tristan. He seemed to be the only person who could handle it, until I unleashed my personal brand of honesty all over him, the shop and his art. It still tore my heart knowing I did that, despite also knowing he concocted some underhanded plan to sleep with me while… entertaining another woman.

I thought I knew him. I thought we finally crossed that line from friends to something more. But this dishonesty was a deal breaker I couldn’t look past.

I didn’t try to explain how all of it wore on me, or how I questioned whether telling the truth, no matter how much it could hurt, was still the right thing to do. Instead, I made promises to my sisters that I would visit once my case was over, and we hung up with Mama declaring it was time I finally learn to make my own cheesy baklava.

“Especially since you won’t go back to that wonderful shop to see that handsome boy of ours,” Mama teased.

I rolled my eyes, ignoring the constant stab in my chest as I followed her to the kitchen. I pounded dough alongside my mother while trying to decide if it was time to let Tristan go.