It shouldn’t have bothered me as much as it did, I admit, but it somehow managed to sting more than her stupid comments.
He had a past, I knew that, and I couldn’t feelanythingabout it. Even if our relationship had been real, it wasn’t fair to get mad because he didn’t even know me, had no relationship with me in any way, when he met any of them.
And still, I didn’t like that he knew her name.
“You thought otherwise last year,” Clara said, almost sounding like she was getting upset. “In fact, if I remember correctly,yousuggested doing it again this year. We had fun, didn’t we?”
Eden’s grip on my shoulder tightened as he took a deep breath. Then he turned back around. I didn’t.
“Didn’t I puke on you?” he asked. “Like, ten seconds after you were undressed?”
Clara let out an embarrassed, forced laugh, attempting to play it off. “That was only one time, Eden. And you know I can handle a little vomit.”
Now, that was pathetic. Guess Eden drew the same conclusion.
“I’m good, really. Actually, you know, I’d rather not throw up again upon seeing someone naked. And I don’t know about you, Clara, but cheating on the love of my life really isn’t my thing, so, I’ll stick to my girlfriend.”
That said, he turned back around, giving me a quick wink and a smirk before flicking his gaze back to the front of the class.
The love of my life… Yeah, in a whole different universe maybe.
25
ALANA
After today’s lectures, I didn’t want to do anything but hide in the confinement of my home and take a deep breath before I had to get through another day of people staring at me and havinghugeopinions about me.
While I got a bit better at being confident in my own skin over the past weeks, it was still difficult to ignore all those comments all the time. It was draining.
However, I made—in my humble opinion—great progress, so I wasn’t going to give up now.
Eden probably wouldn’t have cared if I told him I no longer wanted his help, had I offered to still help him with baking. After all, it was all he wanted, right? But Iwantedto be more confident, and I was starting to realize that being thrown into situations was somehow really helpful.
It still made me anxious, for sure, but the more I went out in clothes that weren’t what I’d normally choose, the easier it got. I liked my old style, but I’d always longed for something more fashionable. My only problem was that I couldn’t bring myself to wear whatever I wanted. I always felt like I was being judged for wearing other clothes. That Ihadto hide.
And I really liked my new clothes, though I was still wearing my old ones, too. Like on days when I couldn’t even bring myself to fake being confident.
And while wearing something slightly out of my comfort zone and only sometimes feeling way too self-conscious about it might’ve not been an enormous thing, it was huge to me.
Eden barely even paid attention to it anymore anyway, but it didn’t matter becauseIchose to dress differently these days. He didn’t decide for me.
Anyway, today was one of those days where, suddenly, I felt like hiding. All because of fucking Clara.
Eden must’ve noticed because he spent all day trying to keep my head occupied. And when I asked him to push baking lessons back to another day, because I’d rather be at home, he said we could bake at my place.
We didn’t go to my place though, because his kitchen was bigger, and honestly, when it was just Eden and I, I felt a whole lot better about myself, so it wasn’t that big of a deal.
For the past hour, we’d been making cupcakes. All this time we’d been talking about the most random stuff. I’d never laughed as much as I had with him all day.
It was kind of strange.
“Seriously, Eden, how come you have such a big understanding of business?” I asked, genuinely wanting to understand. Anyone who grasped whatever our professor talked about during lectures was a magician to me.
Perhaps I, too, would’ve understood more had I been interested in the subject at all.
Eden dusted off his apron, chuckling. “Ally-Bear, my dad owns like ten restaurants.” He looked up, meeting my gaze. “Growing up, he was on a lot of phone calls when I was in the room. Or he talked to my mom about them. He took me to his meetings a bunch of times. And I mean, there’s also animportant business side to my mom’s job that Iconstantlyheard about. I simply picked up on a lot of things. If you grow up with business owners around you, I guess you justknow. And it’s easier to understand certain things if you’re surrounded by it.”
“I guess,” I said, nodding as I carefully poured the last bits of batter into the cupcake liners. “I wish I had that kind of exposure growing up.”
