Chapter 6 #2
“My oldest brother’s wife helped. They’d just had a baby and wanted me as a sitter.
I got there after school one day but my brother was still at work—and I just asked her my questions.
See, she wasn’t someone from our church and, even though my parents weren’t happy about it, they accepted her with loving arms. Before my brother got there, I told her about Matt.
I didn’t tell her I’d lost my virginity to him—and the religious guilt I felt over that is another story—but she knew how much my parents had grown to like him, especially because he’d started attending church occasionally.
Not to learn or understand, but to keep tabs on me, I’m sure.
Anyway…she never told me to leave him and I didn’t ask, but I asked her what her vision of the future was and why she’d married my brother.
She was in the role my parents wanted for me—and hearing it through her words really hit home.
Her intent was to make me see what a wonderful life she had, but from my point of view, it felt like a prison.
She wasn’t even twenty-five and had a baby and didn’t want to work… like she wanted to be a fifties wife.”
I grew silent and cut off a corner of my calzone. Braden asked, “So what did you do?”
“It took me a while…but I wound up talking to my psychology teacher about it after class one day. Not directly. I said it was about a friend, but I think she knew I was actually talking about me. And I decided that I had to be honest with myself. If I played the good little girl, I was going to be miserable my whole life. But it was my life, not anyone else’s.
Finally, a week before graduation after spending almost four years together, I finally found the courage and I broke up with Matt.
I didn’t have much money, but I’d been saving from all the babysitting I’d done—not just for my brother and sister-in-law, but for other church members.
And the day after graduation, I told my family I loved them but that I was going to explore the world—and I rode a bus to Billings and got a job waiting tables.
I wasn’t there even a whole year, but I bought a motorcycle and got the endorsement on my license.
Nobody knew me there, so I made friends and figured out what I actually loved.
By the time I moved to L.A., my family was talking to me again…
and I knew what I wanted to do. At first, I thought about being a roadie—”
“No kidding.”
“No kidding! I discovered how much I loved hard rock and metal music because of the themes. Like…you know the song ‘Numb’ by Linkin Park?”
“Sure do.”
“That wasn’t the only song, but it was like they were singing it for me, like about my whole life.
I was streaming rock music because I’d only been exposed to it a little bit, discovering what I loved about it.
I started listening to everything hard and heavy, realizing I loved that kind of music.
And then when the words spoke to me? I was in heaven.
Like the first time I heard ‘Break Stuff’? ”
“Limp Bizkit?”
“Yeah. Wow. But there were so many…like ‘Damage Inc,’ um… Dio’s ‘Stand Up and Shout,’ ‘People = Shit,’ ‘Scream Aim Fire,’ Three Days Grace’s ‘Riot.’ I could go on and on, but let’s just say I’d found words to voice what was inside.
I had a Spotify account and put together a playlist—and I devoured it all, old and new.
” I took a breath, pulling myself back to the present.
“Sorry. I just took us on a long detour.”
Braden grinned. “I enjoyed it. I had no idea, Roxy.”
I couldn’t help but smile back. “Yeah. Kinda crazy, huh? But, believe it or not, I was trying to make a point before I got sucked into nostalgia—and it was just to kind of echo what you’d said.
There’s sometimes a huge difference between being good and being honest. If I hadn’t chosen honesty, I literally would not be here today. ”
When he nodded, I could see something in his eyes, but I couldn’t quite interpret it.
And I didn’t need to. I felt like our souls were in some kind of communication that I couldn’t fully understand.
Finally, he said, “I think I can say the same. Talking to you…that was choosing to be honest, but on my own terms.”
“Thank you for that.” I hadn’t been eating much, so I focused on my salad. “What do you think about the food?”
“Great suggestion. It’s really good.”
“I’m so glad you like it.” After a few seconds, I asked, “Do you have any favorite restaurants on tour?”
After swallowing a bite, he said, “Just a few. I usually just go wherever everyone else wants to go…and, a lot of times, it’s for fast food. But, once in a while, I go somewhere by myself, to a restaurant that I’d researched beforehand. That’s just…for me.”
I could feel that but I still couldn’t voice my emotions. Instead, we simply ate in silence for a while—but it wasn’t awkward, not at all, and I didn’t feel the need to fill that gap.
Neither did he.
It wasn’t until we’d finished our meals that we finally spoke again.
My voice was soft. “You really are a good guy, Braden—but not the way you’re portrayed.
And, um…I wanted to thank you for sharing that part of yourself with me.
” I almost followed it up with telling him I was honored that he’d done it, but that would have been way too over the top…
something I never wanted to be, especially with this man.
“So are you. Not a good guy…but a good woman. And not in the religious way.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Thank God for that.” We both wound up laughing, but no one else could have heard us, not in the cacophony of sound and music wafting overhead. When we stopped, I said, “Thank you.”
In his eyes, I could see that maybe, as relaxed as he’d been, he knew his secrets here were safe with me.
He’d been able to be completely genuine and honest, and I’d appreciated him for who he was at the core.
But was he reading that in my expression?
Because his brows furrowed as he pushed his plate to the side. “I don’t really trust myself anymore.”
Wait—what?
Holy shit. That could only mean one thing. Was he feeling what I was? That…that pull? Some underlying attraction to the real person underneath?
And it would have been easy, so easy, to simply invite him back to my apartment, to give in to all those emotions. If we did, what would happen?
I wasn’t willing to sacrifice my heart and I sensed that he wasn’t either. And so, that night, even though he’d insisted upon paying for both our dinners (“I make way more than you—and that’s not meant to be shaming, but it’s why I want to do this”), we parted ways after a lingering hug.
But as he stood on the curb, pulling up his Uber app, I fought against what I knew was right and said, “Let me give you a ride. It’s the least I can do after you bought my dinner.”
To that, he said okay.