AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You protected him, you mean.” Noah’s jaw clenched, anger rolling off him in dark angry waves. “He should know—”
“He knows. Some of it, anyway. I… uh… in seventh grade, I was in a bad place. My body developed a lot quicker than other girls in my class, and I couldn’t handle it. I hated myself. I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror. I started restricting what I ate, my mood plummeted, and leaving the house gave me this intense feeling of dread.”
It was a bad time. I was withdrawn, fixated on my changing body, and stuck in a vicious cycle of crash dieting and binge eating when I didn’t see the results I wanted.
And I never saw the results because my body was supposed to be curvy. Despite Mom’s better judgment, I was supposed to have boobs and hips and a plump ass. A fact that had taken me a long time to accept.
“Austin tried to talk to me. He tried to figure out what was going on. But I lied. I always lied. I ended up in therapy, but I never told him the real reason.”
“Did it help? The therapy, I mean?”
“Somewhat. I was diagnosed with anxiety and something called OSFED. Other Specified Feeding or Eating Disorder.”
I watched Noah’s reaction, wondering if I had gone too far. But it was like a floodgate had opened, and everything began spilling out.
“We don’t have to talk about this,” I said, suddenly feeling stripped bare to this gorgeous, popular, funny guy who could do so much better than me and all my emotional baggage.
“I want to know, shortcake. I want to know every—”
A loud whirring noise started up, and Noah touched his head to mine, letting out a long breath.
“What is that?”
“That is the Zamboni,” he said, pointing to the far end of the rink. A man in a Lakers cap opened the gates, and the machine appeared.
“We should probably get out of here,” I said.
“Yeah.” Noah hesitated. “But this conversation isn’t over.”
“Okay.” I nodded.
We slipped out of the rink and walked hand in hand down the hall, back toward the rear exit. When we reached the end, I tugged my hand free and looked up at him. God, he made my heart race. I’d only had this feeling twice in my life, and how Ben made me feel was nothing compared to how I felt when Noah looked at me.
It terrified me.
Made the scared young girl inside me panic. Because she knew what it was like to be ridiculed and hurt by people that were supposed to care about her.
People who were supposed to love her.
Ben had been so convincing when we first started dating. He’d been kind and supportive and patient. He’d been exactly what I’d needed. And I’d fallen for it.
I’d lowered my guard, and, in the end, he’d crushed me.
“What?” Noah asked as I gazed up at him.
“My heart is telling me to give you a chance. But my head knows better.”
Noah didn’t date. He didn’t do girlfriends or sleepovers or romantic gestures.
Except, he had… with me. And I wanted to believe it meant something, that I was different. But how could I be?
His expression darkened as he crowded me against the wall. A small gasp escaped my lips as he caged me there, his hand going above my head. The air crackled between us as he stared at me, his eyes drinking me in, the invisible thread tugging deep in my stomach.
Noah had the power to destroy me. Wreck and ruin me. But I’d promised myself when I came to Lakeshore that I wouldn’t let life pass me by. How I felt about myself and my body would always be a work in progress. There would be setbacks and bumps along the way, but I could survive them.
I could.
Because my appearance—my body shape or weight—didn’t define me. It didn’t make me more or less deserving than anyone else. It was a part of me, but it wasn’t my entirety. I knew that.
