Blind Love (Edited)

Chapter 14: At the restaurant

Bryan looked at Emileigh. He could see the pain in her eyes. It was the same pain he felt. He didn't know who she was, but he felt like he had already known her before. He couldn't explain it, but the feeling was there. Crazy...but true. The way he looked at him, the way suspicion and fear just overcame her, broke his heart. Emileigh looked like a strong young woman, but there was something behind her pain.She didn't talk very much. Bryan had tried taking up a conversation with her, but all she ever answered was yes or no. When he thought she would elaborate, Emileigh would stop talking and look away from him.

I wonder what it was that hurt her, he thought. He was going to ask but it was better not to. He thought it through and if she hadn't told him or been able to open up herself to him, even with the simple questions, there was no way that she would ever confide in him for the more personal questions. Instead, he sat across from the table eating his fries and looking around, pretending that he wasn't even a bit interested in Emileigh. As far as Bryan could tell, it was as if Emileigh chose not to notice him. But the thing was that he wanted to have a conversation with Emileigh. So he started with a simple question.

"So...um... Emileigh. Uh.how do you spell your name?"

Emileigh looked at him, a little doubtful. But she answered the question. "E-m-i-l-e-i-g-h."

"That's interesting. Most Emily's I know spell it with a y at the end. Pretty unique spelling."

"Yeah. It was either between Emily and Leigha. So my parents decided to combine them."

"Well. I think it's pretty cool. I, personally, will never forget your name. It's special in it's own way."

At his words, Bryan saw Emileigh wince. He didn't know what happened. "I'm sorry, if I said something wrong...I...I didn't mean to."

Emileigh stayed quiet. She was still looking at him but she wasn't saying anything. She thought about it more and then decided that it was better to say something than to let him feel guilty. Guilt, Emileigh thought, something my ex-boyfriend certainly lacked of entirely. "No....don't worry, Bryan. It has nothing to do with you. I'm fine."

At Emileigh's words, Bryan relaxed and he wasn't so tense anymore. "Like I said, I'm sorry for whatever it is I said."

"It's okay, Bryan. Really. Thanks for caring though."

"You say that as if others wouldn't care." he pointed out.

"Well, maybe sometimes it seems like no one cares. Sometimes everything just doesn't seem to make sense, everything else seems to be against you."

"I understand you better than you know. Sometimes I wonder if life was ever supposed to be easy and happy for me. So far it just hasn't been."

Emileigh was taken aback by his words. She looked at Bryan with curiosity written in her features. She waited for him to answer but he didn't say anything else when he spoke next. Instead it involved the food that he was eating.

"Ummmm....do you want fries?" he asked avoiding her gaze. He felt that he had given too much about him too soon. He felt as if he was telling her his whole life. His life wasn't perfect. He had had amazing parents and an amazing sister, but that didn't mean everything else was perfect. At school, he had been bullied. He had always been the shy one, and he was always smaller than all the rest of the guys. Of course all the other guys took that as a weakness and they took advantage of that to bully him. He always expected someone else to help him, to stand up for him. But everyone else looked away, pretending as if nothing was happening. When he went home, he would act as if nothing would happen. He literally had no friends. But it all changed when Landon was born. Bryan now had someone to take care of, to keep safe. And in a few years, he would have a buddy. Something that he never though he could find in anybody else. That was when he began to fight back. Landon needed someone to take care of him in the first few days, or at least that was what Bryan had thought. He was going to fight back, to show the bullies that he wasn't weak. And amazingly, that did the trick. He was six then and it was something that he didn't have to go through, but he had. Then in middle school and all of high school, the bullying came back again. By the time he was in high school, the bullying was to an all new high. This time, he started working out and he became strong. One day when he was walking home from school, one of the bullies followed him and he started to hit him. Bryan instinctively started punching him. At one point, Bryan's fist connected with the bully's jaw and the bully went down. Bryan took this moment as his moment for escape and that is exactly what he did. He ran, not directly to his house, but he ran as fast as he could. He ended up in a park, where he hung out until he was sure that the bully wasn't looking for him. Then he walked home. After that incident, the bullies never touched or made fun of Bryan again.