I move over to the corner of the lot to sit on the bench and check my messages.
Brookie: Bitch, guess what!?!
Me: No clue. What?
Brookie: Chicken butt.
I roll my eyes. She’s ridiculous.
Me: Ha. So funny.
Brookie: I know I am. It’s one of the million reasons you love me.
Me: Are you sure about that?
I glance over at the dogs as they chase each other’s tails.
Brookie: And if you truly love me, you’ll come out tonight. Drinks are on me.
I smile at her message. We both know she’s as broke as I am, which means one thing. We’re going to Enzo’s.
Me: I’ll meet you there after work.
The back entrance opens, and the family that is considering adopting Rufus and Smiley follows Zixuan Li under the back awning near the fence gate.
“You have a visitor at your desk,” he tells me as I approach him with the dogs now on their leashes.
I don’t have to ask who it is. I already know.
If filing for a restraining order would amount to something I’d do it in a heartbeat, but when your ex is the chief of police’s son no one cares to listen and they damn sure don’t believe you when you say he’s abusive and controlling. Abuse isn’t always physical. It has many forms.
“Thanks, Zixuan.” I hand him the ends of the leads.
“Outside,” I growl the word at Alex. He knows I hate him just showing up at my work any time he wants to. How he pretends like nothing has changed. Like he still has a claim on me.
“I just wanted to make sure you were okay. Do you want to stay at my place for a few days?” Alex holds his hands up in surrender as I cut him a gaze that is colder than the air this morning. “I’ll stay with Rordin or my folks. A guy was murdered at your building. I worry about you being on your own.”
“Thank you for your concern, but we’ve talked about this. My safety is my concern. Not yours. We broke up six months ago. You can’t keep doing this.”
He nods like he gets it, but deep down we both know he will find another excuse to insert himself into my daily life. If I were smart, I’d leave town and change my number. But even then, he’d use his connections to find me. Alex isn’t going to let me go. Not until he finds someone else to torture, and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Not even the floozies he cheated on me with. When Alex is good, he’s great, but when he doesn’t get his way, you become a monster to him, and he will do anything to paint you the villain while victimizing himself.
Everyone here at my work thinks he’s this perfect man and they can’t understand why I won’t take him back. He puts on a show for the world, but in private I know the real him. How the charm quickly fades and morphs into trying to tell me who to talk to, what to eat, what to wear.
No, thank you. I fell under his spell for two years, then I woke up. The veil slipped and I’m never going back. If he truly loved me, he wouldn’t have been cheating on me. I found his dating profiles. They were very active, and he would have continued to lie and cheat had I not caught him. He’s not sorry he hurt me. He’s sorry I saw him for who he truly is.
He’s not worried about me. Deep down, he hates that he can’t control me.
At least I can say I never fucked him. In the beginning he said he understood that I was saving myself for marriage. He loved that I have never been intimate with anyone.
Sure, we fooled around some, but I guess that wasn’t enough for him.
“At least let me treat you to lunch.”
“It’s not even noon yet and I’m not hungry.”
“Come on, Ruby. Throw me a bone here. I’m trying. Really trying.”
“It’s too little, too late. Save the performance for your next victim.”
