Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 122506 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 613(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122506 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 613(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
“The result of a French pastry chef.”
“Is he single?” I ask, pressing my hand over my still-moving mouth because, the flavors!
“You’re not.”
“What? Oh.” I appear to consider his answer. “Only for the purposes of this visit. But I think I could be really into a man who can cook.”
“Did your ex cook?”
I give a theatrical sigh. “He tossed salads.”
Fin appears to choke and, grasping his napkin, coughs into it.
“What?”
“What?” he answers, his eyebrows almost hiding in his hairline.
“What was that? What’s funny about tossing salads?”
“Nothing,” he says, more composed now.
“Because I did all the chopping and stuff, and . . . eww.” I pull a face as the penny drops. “You’re nasty!”
“Hey, I’m not the one talking about—”
“Nasty!” I repeat. Balling up my napkin, I throw it at him and half expect him to make me a tactless offer, when the tone of our conversation changes.
“Was he a chauvinist or just not very adept in the kitchen?”
I pause to consider this. “A chauvinist. No. He was controlling. Covertly controlling, I now realize.”
“How so?”
“His actions were stealthy.” My mind turns inward as I consider my lack of friends. I had friends before I met Adam, and I socialized with them in the early days of our relationship. And then I didn’t anymore, without even grasping what had happened. Granted, I had a lot on my plate with Trousseau and Baba, not that she was showing full symptoms of her illness. In the early days I put her erratic behavior down to quirkiness and just old age. I wasn’t living with her, so I suppose it was harder to spot.
“I don’t actually have any friends,” I begin again, ignoring the sharp poke of shame from my admission. “And that’s down to him.” My tone is pondering as I piece together my thoughts. “It’s not as though he ever said ‘I forbid you’ when I wanted to go out with them, because that would’ve been too obvious. He would’ve been rumbled, right?”
Across the table, Fin says nothing but observes all, his expression inscrutable. I press my elbow to the table and my chin to my palm.
“He slowly isolated me from them. Pouting and giving me the silent treatment if I made plans. Making comments about how great it was when just the two of us were cuddled on the sofa on Saturday nights, and how girls out together are only interested in the attention of men.” I shift uncomfortably in my seat . “I fell for it, like a Pavlovian response, and that’s why I have no friends. I just didn’t realize what was happening at the time.”
“Manipulators go out of their way to make sure you don’t notice. They’re experts at using guilt and manipulation. Gaslighting the hell out of you, making you question yourself. Don’t feel down on yourself,” he adds, probably reading my expression. “It’s because you’re a good person you didn’t realize how fucked in the head he is.”
“How do you know?”
“I was raised by a manipulator,” he replies, reaching for his glass.
“Oh.” That’s quite an insight. There’s obviously more to Fin than meets the eye. I mean, of course there is. But it doesn’t mean I should examine it—him—because this isn’t real. But still, being manipulated as a matter of course by a caregiver seems much worse. I might not have had the easiest time growing up, but at least I knew Baba put me and my well-being first. “It’s insidious, isn’t it, how it happens?”
“Manipulators are cunning.”
“He’d oh-so-subtly try to control me, bringing up my insecurities, making me feel horrible about myself. The things he said—the salad obsession and ‘You’re eating chocolate? Again?’—never came from a place of caring or concern. It wasn’t even about my health or fitting into my clothes. It was just to make me feel bad about my appearance.”
“To knock your confidence,” Fin adds. “Because he had to make himself feel better somehow, right?” He takes a mouthful of his drink and puts down his glass. “He was intimidated by you.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“People only put others down because they’re insecure. The smaller you feel, the less confident and competent, the better they feel about themselves. Your ex did a damn good job of making sure you wouldn’t leave him.”
“Ah, but he left me.”
“Then he did you a favor in the end.”
“I know that, but . . .” My chest feels tight, and I realize I’m fighting tears. “His timing could’ve been better, given he almost made me homeless. I feel so supremely stupid when I think of how I trusted him and how he treated me. Why did I put up with that?”
“Like you said, it happened without you realizing. And I’d like to correct you on one thing. You do have a friend. You have me.”
“My accidental husband,” I say, biting back an awkward smile. “I’m not sure our friendship will thrive, let alone survive this experience. You’re very annoying, you know.”