Rebuilding Ruins (BOOK 1)

2. SHE'S SO OVER ME

FRANKIE

I'm sitting in a nice Thai restaurant just admiring the dark theme woodwork on there waiting for my brother to join me for lunch. I didn't suggest coming here he did. Why wouldn't I agree when he's the one paying. Wouldn't make sense now would it. I see a group of women a few tables from mine staring at me.

"What?" I glare at them and they quickly look away.

Look I know I look like a hobo in a work shirt smeared with grease, uncombed hair and neglected beard but I don't deserve the treatment I'm getting from those women. Just when I'm about to go over there and tell them a piece of my mind my brother takes a seat opposite me looking the opposite of me in a suit.

"What got you looking like you're about to murder somebody?" he smirks.

"Why did you bring me to a place with snobs?" I clench my jaw.

"Cause I was hoping you'd dress up and look nice but I guess not" he half shrugs.

"It's just lunch Lorenzo. Why would I bother dressing up"

"What if Lionel Richie walked in right now bro. He wouldn't want to take a pic with you"

"Dude I don't even like the guy" I scowl.

When the waiter comes we give him our orders and he leaves.

"Says the guy who has Lionel's CD in his car" he chuckles.

"Look if I wanted a pic with Lionel I would go to his concert or something" I call the waiter and when he comes we give him our orders.

Lionel Richie was one of my dad's favorite growing up and though my dad's not my favorite person I like Lionel a great deal. When I was younger my dad would come home every night drunk and beat my mother for no good reason and while she sat in a corner crying he'd play all the romantic love songs by Lionel. After a few minutes I'd see her crawling to his lap and they'd be cuddling like nothing happened. I guess she thought he beat her up because he loved her and she was so in love with him that she couldn't see he was abusing her. It was disturbing I can't lie. My mother was the perfect wife but he seemed to have a problem with everything she did.

When I turned eleven he had came home and hit her like he usually did and when my brother and I had tried defending her like we had planned earlier that day he had beat us so bad that I had passed out and my brother broke his rib. He had grounded us and made our lives a living hell. A month later my mother disappeared off of the face of the earth and took my little sister with her leaving me and my brother with her monster husband. I mean seriously who does that, who leaves an abusive alcoholic man with her children. Oh I know, only a s**t mother would do that. To make matters worse my father would go drink all his money when he got paid and come home empty handed and we'd go for days without food so it was either we went to bed hungry every single day or get a job and we both chose the latter.

"Is that girl checking you out bro?" Lorenzo says when we're in the middle of eating.

"She's probably just staring" I don't bother checking to see if the girl is really checking me out.

"You should go there and ask for her number" he looks at me.

"No I don't"

"You need to let her go Frankie" he gives me a concerned look.

"I don't know what you're talking about" I clench my fists hoping it numbs the pain I feel.

It always hurts when people bring up my ex. She's married now and has two more kids with the guy but whenever we meet I see her love for me in her eyes, but then again that could be wishful thinking. Maybe I was hoping she still loved me and would somehow come to her senses and come back to me though I had nothing to offer her that will secure her future. I go on dates from time to time but never got into anything serious. I felt like if I gave another woman my heart she'd leave me like Natalya when she saw my true colors and I'm not okay with that. The only thing I need from a woman I always get. Why complicate things by having a relationship, getting married or having kids.

"It's been ten years man. Get over it already"

"I'm over her. Damn" I push my plate away. I've completely lost my appetite.

"Then get into a serious relationship"

"I'm good" I gulp down the beer in my glass.

"You're miserable. Just look at you"

"Are we here to talk about how messed up I am or to have lunch Lorenzo?" I tighten my grip on the glass.

"I'm worried about you Frankie. Everyone is"

"Well don't be. I'm fine" I assure him.

"Especially mom. She calls your neighbor every single morning just to make sure you didn't drink yourself to death" he says.

"Whatever" I roll my eyes.

"I'm telling you she's gonna worry herself to death. Is that what you want?"

"Man don't you have kids to worry about?" I glance outside the window.

I'm getting bored with this conversation. It's always the same with my family. They want to pressure me to move on and I always tell them I'll do so when I'm ready which is never.

"Maybe you should go for therapy. Father and I went for joint therapy and I confronted him. He apologized for everything" Lorenzo puts his elbows on the table waiting for my response.

I should have known him bringing me here was to pester me about going to therapy. Man I'm sick of this.

"An apology won't change a thing Lorenzo" I throw my hands in the air.

A simple "I'm sorry" won't undo the emotional scares that fucker left on me.

"It'll help you move on bro. Trust me"

"Can we talk about something else" I bounce my foot on the ground feeling anxious.

"Okay so the guys from work and I want to challenge your colleagues on a baseball match" he smirks.

"You girls are in the mood to lose again?" I raise a brow.

"Shut up" he crumbles a serviette and throws it in my face causing me to laugh.

"Your colleagues are weaklings. We should triple the bet just for the fun of it" the corner of my mouth quirks up.

"You're are out of your mind" he chuckles.

"That's what a loser would say" I tease.

I'm baiting him and I know without a doubt it's working. He's always trying to prove he's better at something than me and it's been that way since we were little boys. When it's physical I'm always the winner but when it requires thinking he comes out on top at all times. Typical brother behavior I know.

***

I take my phone from my nightstand and go through my contact list and dial a number. I wait for someone to pick up when they do and I hear her voice I can't keep myself from smiling. I missed her.

"Hello" she answers.

"Natalya" I call her name.

"I'm going to go get Bianca for you" it's like she can't get off the phone fast enough.

"I'll talk to her when I'm done talking to you"

"What do you want from me Frankie? I have things to do"

"Why are you being cold. Can't you just say hi to the father of your kids?" I clench my teeth.

"Hi Frankie. How are you doing?" she sarcastically says.

"I'm doing good. How are you?"

"I'm good. I'm going to go get your daughter now. Bye" I hear her footsteps walk away.

I don't know why I try with her anymore. Natalya is my ex wife and the woman I loved once upon a time, well still do. She was my childhood sweetheart and we were crazy about each other in the beginning. The first time I Iaid eyes on her was when my friends and I crashed a party. She was a bit out of my league and even though I started a conversation with her I never thought she would give me the time of day but she did. We had exchanged numbers and kept in touch and after that we were inseparable. She was three years my junior but it was hard to tell as she was as tall as the girls my age. We were the perfect couple, at least that's what everybody thought. We were anything but perfect. Due to my not so good upbringing thanks to my s**t parents I had anger issues and I took them out on everybody Including Natalya. She'd break up with me when I'd say or do something horrible to her but she loved me too much to stay away for too long, she always came running back to me.

When she turned sixteen she got pregnant and since my father thought sending me to college was a waste of money after high school I had continued at the job I'd worked at for years. We got married and moved into my father's house but she moved back to her parents' when she couldn't deal with the constant fights between my father and I. My father and I had fights regularly whenever we were drunk. Natalya had asked that I seek help but it didn't seem important that I do at the time, I didn't see anything wrong with my behavior. I felt like he deserved to be the punching bag for ruining our family. Well of course he'd always win in every fight as he was way stronger than I was.

Natalya said I should stop abusing alcohol for the sake of our unborn child and I promised I'd stop just to get her off my back but when she saw that I wasn't making any effort to change she threatened to leave, knowing she'd come back just like she always does I never took her seriously. When she finally gave birth to our son Ashton she left the baby with her parents to go to college.

When she'd come back for the holidays I could feel she was slowly seeing me for who I am, she wasn't blinded by love anymore probably because of the long distance thing. I knew she was seeing other men when she went back to college but I never worried much about that as I messing around myself. We were hormonal teenagers after all. I could feel her slowly slipping through my fingers and it made me want to lock her in a room and refuse her to go back to college but I resisted knowing her father would have my ass. I couldn't bring myself to ruin this chance to better her life but I knew that when she graduated she was going to want a man on the same level as her not some guy with anger issues who barely made it out of high school.

I thought that if I got her pregnant again she'd be forced to stay with me. After she got done with college we moved into an apartment and a few months after giving birth to our daughter Bianca she got a job that's when s**t really hit the fan. She would constantly tell me to get a job that brought in more money but being a carpenter was all I knew. I started feeling like I was below her because she earned more money than I did and as a man my ego got bruised. I started spending most of my money on alcohol telling her that if she's not going to treat me like an equal then she should be the breadwinner since my money was like change compared to her salary.

She didn't like it at all. She was living with me but all the responsibility of two kids was on her and honestly I didn't care. We fought all the time and she'd talk down on me day after day. I reached my breaking point when she told me I was turning into my father which resulted in punching the wall scaring her. I knew she was right but hearing it coming from her hurt like hell. I left her crying on the floor and went to my dad's and stayed there for a couple of days. When I finally went back to our apartment I found everything belonging to her and the kids gone. I knew she'd be at her parents so I drove there but they wouldn't let me see my her or my children which infuriated me.

I tried following her to work but she always had a body guard everywhere she went who I found out a while later was hired for her by the son of her father's business partner. I couldn't believe she was going as far as hiring a body guard over me punching a stupid wall. When she finally gave me the chance to talk to her she told me that it was either I quit alcohol or we were done. Of course I continued drinking thinking she was just saying that to get me to live my life the way she wanted me to. I loved my wife and kids but I couldn't let a woman dictate my life.

I continued living life the way I wanted till I received divorce papers from her. I was beyond shocked and when I went to her she'd told me she'd been patient with me but she was done with me for real this time. I tried sweet talking her hoping it would buy me some time but she was really done so I signed those papers still hoping she'd change her mind about us but when the kids came to visit a couple of months later they told me there was a new man in their mother's life I was livid. Not only had she torn our family apart but she was moving on with her life which was unacceptable.

I went to her workplace that's when I met the said guy Sean. He was everything I'm not, he had money and seemed to be going somewhere with his life. He was everything Natalya wanted me to be. He told me to back off and let a man worthy of her make her happy if I really loved her so I did just that. I didn't want her to end up running off and leaving the kids with me just like my mother had done and I do a s**t job at raising them just like my father did with me and my brother. I could barely make ends meet all on my own, how was I to take care of two kids. Sean didn't disappoint, he did what he said he'd do. He provided her with everything she needed and whenever I'd bump into them somewhere without them noticing me I'd turn into a stalker and follow them around and see that she was really happy. It wasn't easy letting her go but I wanted her to be happy though I wasn't the source of her happiness.

"Daddy" my daughter Bianca snaps me out of my thoughts

"Bianca"

"Dad I told you told you to call me sweet pea or sweetheart. I like it when you call me that. Sean calls me that but it sounds better coming from you" my little girl says from the other line.

I clench my teeth at the mention of her step father, the man whom Natalya spent time with when our relationship was going downhill and his comforting arms turned to something more.

"I'm gonna remember that next time. How are you doing sweetheart?" I smirk.

"Oh I'm doing good. I really miss you" I can tell by the sound of her voice that she's smiling.

"I know sweetheart. I miss you too but the Christmas holidays are fast approaching. Maybe you could visit me"

"I sure will. We're all coming to visit grandma and grandad for the holidays. Maybe you too could come spend Christmas with us so we could spend Christmas as a family for a change" she says.

"If your mom is okay with it then I'm going to come"

"I can't wait" she squeals "Oh my God Ash is going to be so exited to when I tell him" she laughs excitedly making me smile.

My oldest son Ashton is in college now and all expenses are paid for by his mother I'm assuming. It's clear they've got the hang of things and don't need my help but I wish I could afford to contribute. Maybe if I had a better paying job I would have been able to. I'm proud of him because he's becoming everything I'm not and that is a better man.

"I can't wait too sweetheart"

"Dad you don't have to say sweetheart every time" she giggles.

"Yes I do sweetheart" I smirk.

"Daaaad" she wines and I laugh at how cute she is.

After hearing her go on and on about the latest pair of shoes her mother bought for her when she got an A in math and how gorgeous she's going to look when she goes to the dance we say our goodbyes. I'm dreading the day she tells me she has a boyfriend. I hope she becomes a Nun. I should suggest it to her. She might like the idea. Miracles do happen after all. I know I should change from this outfit I'd been wearing the whole day that smells of car fumes since I fix cars for a living but I don't feel like putting effort in my appearance. Hell I haven't bothered with the way I look since...I can't even remember when. Yeah it's been that long. My sister in law won't have me looking like crap when she invites me somewhere though. She'd offer to pick me up just so she can choose something nice for me to wear. She's the only one I let get away with telling me what to wear. She's the no nonsense big sister I never had. I grab my phone and leave the house I'm still paying mortgage for. Bianca had asked me to buy a house because she said she hated being cooped up in an apartment all day whenever she came to visit. I get into my truck and drive to my second job at the bar. Bad place for someone who abuses alcohol to work at I know but who cares.