The Wine Was Red

Daily Inspiration

We sat at a small table near the back of the restaurant where the candles flickered, and the shadows leaned long against the wall. She had dark hair that curled at the ends, a laugh that came quick and easy, and eyes that looked at you like you were the only man in the room.

I ordered a cabernet. She matched me glass for glass. That made me smile.

She told me about her daughter and how she cried in the mirror over a nose job. She blamed her ex-husband, said he filled the girl’s head with doubts. There was bitterness in her voice, but it was masked in a grin. I nodded. Everyone has their past, and some carry it heavier than others. I didn’t judge.

Outside, it had started to drizzle. Inside, the lights dimmed just a little more.

She leaned in then, fingers wrapped around the stem of her glass like it was something delicate. “You know,” she said, “making money’s never been hard for me. I just know how to get people to do what I want.”

I thought I misheard her. The words were smooth, but the meaning landed rough. I smiled a little, waited, thinking maybe it was a joke. Maybe she’d laugh and say she didn’t mean it. But she didn’t. She swirled her wine and looked proud.

“I mean, people are easy,” she said. “You just figure out what they want, and then you twist it.”

There was no tremble in her voice. No shadow of regret. She said it like it was charm, like it was clever, like I should have been impressed.

I sipped my wine. It tasted bitter.

You learn a lot in silence. When someone says a thing that changes the air around them, you sit with it. You let it echo.

I asked her a question about her work. She talked. I watched her mouth move, but I was somewhere else now, somewhere outside the glow of the candles. I was looking at the road that ran between her words and the truth beneath them. And that road was cold. Empty. Paved in the kind of quiet you don’t forget.

We finished the bottle. I paid the check. She touched my hand as we stood, and I didn’t pull away, but I didn’t lean in either. Outside, the rain had picked up. The drops hit the pavement like slow applause.

She said we should do this again. Her smile was practiced. She was already picturing the next time.

I said I’d be in touch.

That night, I lay awake listening to the rain tap the windows. Her words replayed, not the sound but the weight. I thought of her daughter, crying in front of the mirror. I thought of a man who maybe once loved her but now lived as a cautionary tale in her stories. And I thought of the pride in her voice when she spoke about control.

Some people wear their masks so well they forget they’re wearing them.

In the morning, I texted her.

“Thank you for the evening. I don’t think we’re a good match, but I wish you well.”

She never wrote back.

And that silence felt more honest than anything she’d said the night before.

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Discover the heartfelt stories of John Rinaldo—author of Remi’s Journey, Rediscovering Vancouver, and Dancing Letters. Each book inspires hope, healing, and wonder. Available now on Amazon.

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There are men who chase danger because it makes them feel alive. I’ve been that man. I’ve stood too close to the fire, thinking I could control the burn. But the thing about fire is, it doesn’t care. It just consumes.

She was beautiful. That wasn’t the problem. And she was smart. Sharp as glass. That wasn’t the problem either.

It was the way she looked at people—not as people but as steps. Like each one was a rung on a ladder she was climbing to somewhere. And she didn’t care who got stepped on.

I’ve known manipulation. We all have. But most people do it in defense. They twist a little to survive. But not her. She did it for sport.

There was a time I might have stayed. Tried to understand. Dug deeper. But I’ve learned that not every story is mine to fix. Some you walk away from before they bury their hooks in your skin.

I walked by that restaurant a few weeks later. The candles were still flickering. The shadows still leaned. Maybe she was inside, telling someone else how easy people are. Maybe he was smiling, thinking he’d found something real.

Maybe he hadn’t heard it yet—the sentence that changes everything.

People talk about red flags like they’re loud, like they wave high in the wind. But some come quiet. They hide in the middle of sentences. They dress up like charm. They don’t scream. They settle.

But once you’ve seen one, really seen it, you can’t unsee it.

That was hers.

And I’d learned enough to know that when someone tells you who they are, believe them the first time.

I walked home that night in the rain. Didn’t hurry. Didn’t think much. Just let the drops fall and the silence stretch.

You don’t always get closure in words. Sometimes you get it in quiet mornings, in knowing you made the right turn at the right time.

There’s power in walking away without slamming the door.

There’s peace in letting things go before they fall apart.

And there’s strength in choosing honesty over hope.

Even when it comes wrapped in a beautiful smile and a glass of red wine.

Especially then.

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Inspiration for This Story.

The inspiration for this story lies in that moment of quiet realization—the instant when someone reveals their true nature, and you choose to walk away, not out of fear, but out of clarity. It’s the kind of encounter that seems ordinary on the surface—two people, wine, soft light—but beneath it, there’s a deep current of self-preservation, intuition, and quiet strength.

This story draws from the universal experience of seeing a red flag not as a warning you ignore, but as a truth you honor. It’s about trusting that small voice inside that says, this isn’t right, even when everything else looks perfect. The deeper meaning lives in what’s left unsaid—in the pause after a sentence, in a glass left half full, in the rain hitting the pavement after a goodbye.

Sometimes, the bravest thing you can do is nothing at all—just nod, pay the bill, and leave before the fire catches. That’s the story beneath the story.

—John Rinaldo

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