Page 19 of The Book of Wrath

“My dad found this place back in the day. Are you ready to order?” He watched me flip through the menu as I took in all of the options, and the prices.

“I’m not sure what I want honestly, everything sounds so good,” I remark, the menu wasn’t huge by any means, but it had everything I loved on it which made it so hard. Chicken parmesan, steak and fries, barbeque chicken, bacon mac and cheese. Everything sounded so great, but also very filling.

“May I order for you?” He asks at my clear hesitation to order. I look up at him and slowly nod. I was used to being ordered for when I went out, so I relented and let him. My thoughts drifted back to having a salad ordered for me while Ryan would order steak and lobster. I needed to watch my weight, was always his excuse. Great, asshole is invading my thoughts again. I sighed and closed the menu, waiting patiently to hear what he chose for me.

“I’ll take the steak and potatoes, mid-rare for the steak. For her,” he paused and smiled at me. I forced a smile to my face as my thoughts kept circling the drain. “An order of bacon mac and cheese and the steak and potatoes as well. Is mid rare okay?”

My jaw half dropped to the damn table. Did this man just order me a steak?! I quickly had to gather my composure, so I didn’t look like a dumbstruck idiot. “Um, yes please. Can I do fries instead of the mashed potatoes?” I asked him.

He chuckles a little, “Well, you heard her, fries and mid rare. Can you make the fries the garlic parm fries. You’ll love them, actually can you make mine the same fries too?” The waitress smiles, nods at us, then heads off to the kitchen humming a little tune as she walks.

“You look like someone just flashed you. What’s going thought your head?” He cocks his head to the side, a half-smile on his face show s slight dimple I didn’t notice earlier.

“Just not used to that,” I sip my water before continuing, “I’m used to a salad with tuna or bland ass chicken being ordered for me.” The look of outrage that flashed across his face was brief but, I still saw it.

“Did you prefer a salad? I can always change the order,” he teased, regaining his composure. I scoff at the thought of that, which makes him laugh.

“Hell no,” I look at my glass of water and sigh. I should’ve gotten tea or something with some flavor.

“Everything okay?” His question was like an invitation. One I wasn’t sure I wanted to open. I could express that by one sentence he set my thoughts running rampant or I could lie and tell him it’s nothing. I decide the truth is better than a fabricated lie.

“When you asked if you could order for me, it reminded me of when I had no control over what I was allowed to eat when I went out with Ryan. I know I shouldn’t be thinking about it, and I was trying not to but, it was my life for the past several years. Certain things are going to trigger me, I just didn’t know someone ordering a fucking meal for me would send me mentally spiraling. I’m sorry,” I kept my eyes focused on a spot on the table as I spoke. I was very good at avoiding eye contact, eye contact was a warning a shot in the dark that would never end well for me.

“Megan, look at me,” he commands, my eyes still trained on a speck on the tablecloth. I couldn’t look him in the eyes. I knew he wasn’t Ryan but, it didn’t make things easier for me. I had trained myself to be this obedient fucking shell. “Look at me.” The command in his voice forced my eyes to look up, warning bells ringing in my head to run.

He looked disappointed in me, like I was supposed to be something different. He put his hands palms up on the table in front of him reaching toward me. “Let me see your hands.” I hesitated but did as I was told. His hands were rough, like he was secretly a construction worker moonlighting as a cop. They were rough, but they were also warm and gentle. “I understand the fear of something new. I understand walking on eggshells for your sanity and safety. I understand being with someone who has a fucking hair trigger for flying off the handle. I’ve been in your shoes. I let someone walk all over me. So how about this, I’ll tell you about my last relationship and you can tell me about yours, if you want.” He caressed the back of my hands with his thumbs. I take a deep breath and nod.

“Okay then. I told you about Sandra, but I didn’t tell you everything that happened. We were engaged, not that my family liked her. I was blind to a lot of the emotional damage she was causing. We had mutual friends and then there were her friends. My friends couldn’t come over, I wasn’t allowed to go to a guys night because that meant I was going to the strip clubs in Philly, when in reality all we wanted to do was go to one of the guys houses and play Call of Duty or Halo, sometimes we’d play Magic the Gathering. I’m a nerd at heart. Anyways, I would always have to say no. It didn’t matter what they were doing, she automatically assumed that I was going to cheat on her with someone else. God forbid I had a call where I had to deal with a woman. She would always be the female responding officer to all of my calls, then would come up with a scenario in her head that I was flirting with the woman. It was intense,” he pauses and looks at me. I can see that he’s worried about unloading it all on me, but I’m just trying to process the fucking insanity that this woman was.

“She sounds like a basket case,” I huff. He laughs a little, I’m not sure I want him to continue to bare this to me. He shouldn’t have to relive it. “You don’t have to relive this if it’s too much.”

“It’s okay, I want you to know the baggage I carry. Sandra and I had been on again off again since high school. I wanted to settle down and finally have a family since I am getting older. I thought she was the one, never really considering that she was far from it. Anytime I dated someone when we were off, she would show back up in my life like a fucking tornado and the girl I was seeing would leave me. So, I figured if I can’t find someone else, that she was definitely the one. My dad told me I had Stockholm syndrome and needed to get as far away from her as possible. When I proposed, my dad said he wouldn’t come to our wedding because it would be the biggest mistake of my life,” he let out a deep sigh. “Sandra didn’t care what bridges got burned in my life, as long as she was the center of my attention. Towards the end of our relationship, she would get mad at me over a dream. She’d dream of me cheating, so that was a sign that I was. I woke up to her trying to choke me out because of it one morning. I never struck her or got violent with her. But that was the second to last straw. I couldn’t go on living with someone who blamed me for everything they did. I called my dad and told him I was going to break it off after my shift. That day, however, I lost my partner Ronnie.” He took a deep breath.

“We had been partners for three years, friends for five. We got a call for a domestic violence occurring at a residence, we didn’t know it was a set up. We were the first on the scene, gunshots rang out before we even got our doors closed. Ronnie got shot and died on the scene, I tried to save him, but with bullets flying it wasn’t easy. Backup got there shortly after, but it was too late for him. My captain gave me the rest of the day off to grieve.” He paused to look at me. Gauging my response, which I’m pretty sure was not a good one. I could feel the hot tears slowly sliding down my cheeks. This man has been through so much.

“I went home after calling my dad and telling him what had happened. I was hoping just once she would give a shit about my feelings and care about me. Joke was on me though, I got home, and her partners car was in front of the house. I thought he was there to tell her that I was involved in the shootout. Instead, he was there fucking her in our bed. To say I wanted to kill them both is an understatement. I kicked her out right then, tossing her clothes and uniform on the front lawn and locking the door. Clearly I had to let her back in because she was a resident and I had to formally evict her, but I haven’t looked back since. However, she’s trying hard to get me to take her back, not fucking happening,” He took a sip of his drink, and the timing couldn’t have been better. The waitress came over with our food and set the plates down.

“Do you guys need anything else?” She asks us, politely ignoring me batting away tears from my eyes. This poor woman probably thinks I am bring dumped right now.

“Can I get a sweet tea please?” I say, then look at Max. “And a shot of Jack for him please.” She nods and heads off.

“What’s that for?” He asks me looking puzzled by my order.

“You just spilled your guts about your crazy ex, and you don’t think you need a shot?” Hell, I might need a bottle when I’m done. I didn’t like Sandra from the first time I met her. The way she talked to him at the hospital set me skin crawling.

“Why didn’t you get yourself one? I can’t be the only one taking a shot,” his teasing came so easily, and I didn’t mind it.

“I’ll get a shot when I’m done. Want to eat before I open my luggage and lay it out for you?” I try so hard to be funny but, it just sounds so cringy. He just laughs a little, which makes me feel so much better about it.

“How about we eat as you talk, unless you don’t think you’re up for it,” this man is too good to be real.

“I can,” I take a deep breath to prepare myself for the onslaught of emotions about to come bubbling to the surface. I can do this. “Well, Ryan is definitely not my high school sweetheart, and I curse my friend Gwyn for introducing us to this day. To be fair, she met Ryan through her cousin, and Ryan played the nice guy really well. She had no idea he was the way he was until much later on.” Max’s gaze focused on me, the look on his face questioning my friends sanity. “She feels bad for ever introducing us so don’t give her shit if I ever let you meet her.”

“I make no promises. I may give her a little shit,” he retorts while shoving a piece of steak in his mouth. I popped a French fry in my mouth, holy shit! This is fucking heavenly! Savory with just the right amount of parmesan cheese, okay he was right.

“Anyway, I didn’t give Ryan the time of day at first because I was in the throughs of grief after the death of my soul mate,” a twinge of pain flicked my heart as I thought about Matt. I probably should’ve chosen my words a little better, I watched Max’s face drop when I said the words soul mate. “Look, Matt was my life. I thought I was going to marry him. We planned out wedding, my parents loved him. One night he went out to get us dinner and never came back. An officer came to our door a few hours later to tell me he was involved in a robbery gone bad. Someone stabbed him several times and left him bleeding in an alley. We still don’t know who did it.”

“What was his last name?” Max’s only question, short and sweet.

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