It was a quiet evening, just dinner with a man I\u2019d been seeing for a few weeks. Everything was going perfectly \u2014 the wine, the laughter, the way he looked at me like I was the only person in the room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then the waitress came back with the bill. Her smile had faded.
\u201cSir, your card was declined,\u201d she said softly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He looked confused, embarrassed even, and began searching for another card. But before he could, she said quickly, \u201cDon\u2019t worry, it\u2019s all taken care of.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We left, and as I stepped outside, the waitress followed us out the door. She caught my arm and whispered, trembling, \u201cI lied.\u201d<\/em> I unfolded it as we walked to the car. On the bottom, written in hurried, shaky letters, were just two words:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGet out.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n My stomach dropped. I looked up at him \u2014 the man I thought I knew \u2014 and something in his eyes made my blood run cold. They weren\u2019t warm anymore. They were empty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I mumbled something about forgetting my purse and ran back inside. The waitress was waiting by the door, pale as a ghost. That night, I drove straight home \u2014 shaking the entire way. And I\u2019ve never gone on a blind date again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It was a quiet evening, just dinner with a man I\u2019d been seeing for a few weeks. Everything was going perfectly \u2014 the wine, the laughter, the… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3087,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Then she slipped the folded receipt into my hand and hurried back inside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHe\u2019s been here before,\u201d she whispered. \u201cWith different women. Every time, they never come back.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n