Present - 2

The sun had already set, but the pastel color in the sky still lingered. A gentle breeze swayed. The olive trees positioned by the road darkened under the impending shadow of night. White candles burned in the center of the table, illuminating their faces as they ate our dinner. Neither one of them spoke but sometimes she wondered why he wanted me to join him when he clearly didn't care about having company.

"How was work?" She broke the silence.

"It was fine." His answers were clipped, like always.

"What do you do there, exactly?" She didn't know what his work was. Sometimes he worked at home, and sometimes he was gone all day.

"A lot of paperwork. A lot of overseeing." He replied.

"You can't pay someone else to do that for you?" She asked.

"I can't do that. It's important to make an appearance regularly. Keeping everyone in line. Keeping them honest."

She remembered the way the time he shot one of his workers. That man couldn't move and died on spot, but that didn't matter to him. He shot him in the head anyway.

"I have centers all over the country, so I have to visit each of them randomly. When they don't know when I'm coming, they behave themselves. I could pop up at any moment." He further elaborated.

"It sounds like you don't trust them." She said. He swirled his wine before he took a drink. He licked his lips then returned the glass to the table.

"I don't trust anyone." He told her to do the same. And he was right. Her own boyfriend sold her into a life of sexual servitude for his own greed. She trusted that man, lived with that man, made love to him, and told him she loved him. But he stabbed her right in the back.

Regina promised herself to never make that mistake ever again. She would never let anyone into her heart. That journey showed her people were innately evil. Jason put down his fork even though he wasn't finished eating. He usually had small servings that were gone when dinner was over.

But that night, he abandoned his plate, lacking an appetite. His gaze locked to her, and he searched her deep and wide. Sometimes he could read her thoughts just by looking at her.

"I'm disappointed in you." He suddenly commented.

Regina somehow felt worse than when he stormed into her room and told her to get over it. It was more painful.

"Yes, I'm a human being with feelings and emotions just like everyone else. I can't be a robot like you, purely mechanical." She couldn't get over something that devastating overnight. It would take her some time.

"I'm disappointed that you have lost your fire. And I'm more disappointed that you let that piece of shit put it out. That's not the woman I first saw in that club. That's not the woman I met."

She held his gaze and felt something similar to joy radiate through her veins. He gave her a compliment and those were very rare. She was now feeling that she let him down. But she also simply wasn't strong enough to pull herself back up. "You'll never understand how I feel. You'll never understand that kind of betrayal."

"I understand a lot more than you give me credit for." He threatened her with his eyes, refusing to accept anything less than what he wanted.

"I loved that man. I lived with that man. I trusted that man The fact that he sold me into a lifetime of slavery just to pay off his greed..." She shook her head and stop herself there without saying anything further. It was beyond despicable. It was hurtful just to think about it. It was because of Jason that she was in this situation. It was because of him that she was viciously raped by so many men. Everything that happened was entirely because of him. She could not get over that so easily, probably she would never get over it.

"Don't think about it." He kept his voice firm, unbreakable. "Don't stress over something you can't change. Don't live in the past when you're in the present. What happened to you was terrible, I know that. When I saw you that day, I was in a furious mood for at least a week. But you aren't going to let it define you. You aren't going to let it push you down. You're going to get back up on your feet and push on. You're stronger than this."

"You still didn't get it. I'm not just hopeless because of what he did. I'm hopeless because there's nothing for me now. I don't have a family searching for me. I don't have a best friend who is worried sick over me. Jason was the closest thing I had to a family. And he..." She swallowed the lump in her throat. "Now I have nothing."