The Day My Ex-Fiancé Humiliated Me at the Grocery Store, a Stranger Brought Me the Other Half of My Father’s Compass

He said he had not expected to fall in love.

Then he winced at the phrase, perhaps realizing how cheap it sounded coming from a man who had cheated and threatened me.

‘You were good to me,’ he said.

‘Some of that relationship was real.’

‘It was real for me,’ I answered.

‘That is the part you don’t get to redefine now.’

He stared at his coffee.

‘I know.’