Lost In Paradise

|Chapter X• Fancy Car & Fine Wine|

It was impossible for me to take my own self seriously in that moment. Markus sat in front of me on the end of the table, a red coloured social-like shirt covering his broad upper body, his strong yet good fragrance around the atmosphere, his pearled smile in between our conversation and sips of white wine. There was a handsome lad in front of my eyes, and all I could think of was Gusion Collins. His words, to be precise.

The fact that two days prior from now he joked about my date with Markus, and everything being spot on, just made me wanna laugh. I wasn't expecting anything gracious or out of normal, but living what was probably a very regular cliche made the entire situation funny in my eyes.

It was a bit awkward for me to be in a restaurant, but I was having a good time regardless. Mark was a true gentleman the entire time, every now and then throwing me a compliment as we chatted on about us. I found out his parents got divorced when he was twelve, but they have a normal relationship as friends; He's the youngest son, his older brother lives in New Jersey with his two years old nephew and sister in law; He was about to start an intensive training in order to become a professional football player, and he couldn't live without plain pizza.

The more we talked, more interesting he became to me. Most assumptions I could possibly have made about him in the past, were being proved wrong at the restaurant's table. All things Dan always said about him were being doubted.

"D'ya want another dessert?" He asked while taking a sip on his drink, cutting me off of my thoughts.

In a subtle blink I looked down at the plate in front of me that had a dark chocolate brownie and a scoop of vanilla gelato on it, but was now empty. How greedy he must think I am for that?

"I think I'm getting another one, and it seems like you enjoyed yours." He gently smiled, no offensive tone in his voice.

Though he was just trying to be kind, I couldn't help but feel bad about it. Chances are that I was stuffing my face like a pig and didn't even notice, and that made me way more self conscious than before.

"I'm satisfied, thank you." I softly smiled at him while standing up, "Just gotta go to the toilet, be right back."

For a second I was scared that I made my struggle with eating too obvious, he didn't need to be aware of my difficult relationship with food and think I was some problematic person.

I looked in the mirror and thought for a second, realizing I haven't kept track of my eating the entire evening, and if he didn't mention anything about it, I would not notice. My reflection was three times wider than it was in the morning, it looked heavier, fatter. It showed me I had lost control like I've always done, and regret took over me.

"I've been exercising hard, it's fine..." I thought trying to convince myself it wasn't a big deal, but it didn't seem to work. It was a huge deal for me. Irrational thoughts kept crowding my head making me feel even worse, I felt stupid for not being able to control them, and also feeling and looking like a disgusting piece of crap.

I took a deep breath as I walked in one of the cabinets, putting my purse aside on the floor while getting on my knees. My eyes shut as I held back my hair and stuck a finger down my throat, forcing all those worries and insecurities to come out of me.

***

After I recomposed myself, we left the restaurant and went on a short walk. Soon we were back in his red car, and like usual, I felt a discomfort while sitting on the passenger's seat, not for being just inside a car, but because it was a red one. My father's car was a red one, and after the accident were I lost him and mother, it took me months to get in a car without panicking, but the red ones specifically still made me anxious and a tad uncomfortable.