Chapter 10 - The Dinner That Wasn’t Supposed to Mean Anything
Rachel was right about the soup.
It was terrible.
The bread, however, was good enough to make me forgive the soup.
We sat in a booth near the back of a restaurant called Miller’s, where the carpet looked older than both of us and the waitress called everyone honey without sounding insulting.
Rachel tore a piece of bread in half.
“So,” she said, “how does it feel?”
“To eat disappointing soup?”
“To be divorced.”
I looked at the steam rising from my bowl.
“Quieter than I expected.”
She nodded as though that made perfect sense.
That was one thing I liked about Rachel.
She did not rush to fill silence because silence made her nervous.
Natalie had once been like that.
The thought appeared without permission.
I let it pass.
“I should probably say something,” I told Rachel.
“That sentence never introduces anything fun.”
“I’m not ready for a relationship.”
She took another bite of bread.
“Good.”
I blinked.
“Good?”
“I didn’t ask you for one.”
I laughed.
“You invited me to dinner.”
“Yes.”
“That usually means something.”
“It means I was hungry and thought you might also be hungry.”
I studied her face.
She smiled.
Then her expression softened.
“Ethan, you signed divorce papers this morning. If you told me you were ready for a serious relationship tonight, I would assume you had suffered a head injury.”
“That’s comforting.”
“I try.”
She told me about opening the café eight years earlier with twenty-two thousand dollars, a borrowed espresso machine, and a business plan her ex-husband had called unrealistic.
That was the first time she mentioned him.
I did not ask for details.
She offered one anyway.
“He hated uncertainty.”
“Most people do.”
“He hated uncertainty he couldn’t control.”
There was something underneath the sentence, but she did not open it.
I recognized the courtesy of an unopened door.
So I left it alone.
When dinner ended, Rachel reached for the check.
“I’ve got it,” I said.
“No.”
“It’s fine.”
“I invited you.”
“We can split it.”
She stared at me.
“What?”
“You negotiate like somebody buying a used truck.”
“I negotiate like somebody who has been through a divorce.”
That made us both laugh.
We split the bill.
Outside, the November air had turned sharp.
Rachel shoved her hands into her coat pockets.
“Thank you for dinner.”
“You paid for half.”
“Thank you for half of dinner.”
I walked her to her van.
No kiss.
No lingering embrace.
Just two adults standing beneath a buzzing parking-lot light.
It was strangely peaceful.
Then Rachel looked past my shoulder.
“Do you know that guy?”
I turned.
A man stood near the edge of the lot holding his phone upright.
The moment I looked at him, he lowered it.
He was maybe thirty.
Baseball cap.
Dark jacket.
I did not recognize him.
“Probably nothing,” Rachel said.
Maybe.
But my body remembered cameras now.
I watched the man get into a sedan and leave.
“Do people still bother you about the video?” Rachel asked.
“Sometimes.”
“How bad was it?”
I hesitated.
She knew I had been involved in an incident during the end of my marriage.
She did not know every detail.
“Bad enough.”
Rachel waited.
I did not continue.
She nodded.
“Okay.”
Again, no pressure.
That should have made me feel relieved.
Instead, guilt tightened beneath my ribs.
Because if this friendship became anything more, she deserved to know exactly what I had done.
Not the internet’s version.
Mine.
The next morning, Luke called before seven.
“You awake?”
“I am now.”
“You need to look at Facebook.”
“No.”
“I’m serious.”
“I’m even more serious.”
“Ethan.”
Something in his voice made me sit up.
He texted me a screenshot.
A local page had reposted the old porch video.
Beside it was a photograph taken outside Miller’s.
Rachel and me.
The caption read:
PORCH PSYCHO MOVES ON FAST — LOCAL CAFÉ OWNER HIS NEW TARGET?
My stomach dropped.
The post had been up for forty minutes.
It already had more than six hundred comments.
Some people recognized Rachel’s café.
One person had posted the address.
Another wrote that women should be warned about men like me.
Someone else said Rachel deserved whatever happened because she was probably the woman I had been cheating with.
That almost made me laugh.
Almost.
Then my phone rang.
Rachel.
I answered immediately.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“This.”
“You didn’t post it.”
“No.”
“You didn’t take the picture.”
“No.”
“Then stop apologizing for things other people choose to do.”
I stood beside the bed.
Her voice remained calm.
But I could hear café noise behind her.
And something else.
A man shouting.
“Rachel?”
“I’m here.”
“What’s happening?”
“Someone came in asking whether I date violent married men.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“Do you want me to come over?”
“No.”
The answer came quickly.
Not frightened.
Firm.
Then she added, “But I do think it’s time you tell me the part of your story you keep avoiding.”
I closed my eyes.
She was right.
May you like
The internet had opened the door for me.
Now I had to decide whether I would walk through it honestly.
