Codependent

Chapter 48

When I was in the bathroom I took some water, cleared my head and took a minute to catch my breath, I really wasn't going to have a panic attack in the ladies room as they call it. I kept thinking to myself things like 'it's going to be okay, you're okay, take a deeeeep breath, think happy things' and I wasn't completely okay, but good enough.

I was just overwhelmed once again by being in a crown sitting when not working, or like, killing people, I tried to have my guard down a little but a lot of people meant a lot of thoughts and emotions in the background in my brain and body. Definitely not as bad as in the beginning but still.

I walked back and saw that the food was just being laid on our table so I just waited a few seconds to wait until she was done so I wouldn't have to crawl around her when she was working. I sat down and smiled at Stephen and thanked him for ordering for me, but he said it was no problem at all.

"How is it?" he asked when I took a bite out of some kind of fancy potatoes with a sauce and lots of spices and vegetables.

"It's good thank you," I responded and looked at the full plate in front of me, I never ate that much, but leaving food on the plate must be rude to the restaurant, and hell to Stephen, he gave me this and I'm not finishing it, that's a no?

"Are you good?" he asked snapping me out of a stare into the plate questioning my life decisions. 

"Yeah, sure, yeah," I responded

"Did you have a panic attack in the bathroom?" he asked, well more like stated. "No..." I responded taking another bite but he frowned.

"I can recognise the physical signs," he informed me, but I didn't have a panic attack... I was just stressed... I thought?

"Hm, can you recognise that I don't want to talk about it?" I said softly and as non-insulting as possible. He just nodded and we continued to eat.

"You still didn't drink anything," he suddenly said after 5 minutes of silence or small talk.

I looked at the glass of white wine next to my plate, but I didn't want to drink, what if I lost control? wow, I knew making me drunk was basically impossible, only with Asgardian shit, but I still didn't trust it.

"I took some water in the bathroom," I responded. After we ate for some time I became really full of all the food, I was wishing I didn't have had any breakfast and started to get stressed about what I should do.

"I can't eat all of this, it's really good, but I'm also really full," I said smiling awkwardly and he just looked up to me questioningly.

"I thought you didn't eat anything else today," he simply said. "No, but I just don't eat that much, how rude is it to give back a not empty plate?" I asked nervously.

"It's not, the people here don't care about sending anything back for it to end up in the trashcan," he responded smiling easing my mind a bit. So when he finished his dinner and the waitress came to pick up the plates she didn't even look at me nastily.

--------Time skip-------

"Thanks for taking me out, it was fun getting to know you," I told Stephen as we were walking back, we were 5 minutes walking from the sanctum back from the restaurant, I was finally beginning to feel less full so that was a relief.

"Could say the same for you," he responded and I guessed that he was actually a pretty lonely man, it wouldn't surprise me if he would eat there more often on his own.

I guess sharing a simple version of our story did make me trust him more. I had put on a leather jacket for the cold outside since it was starting to become cold by the time we left the restaurant.