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We were responsible for our own actions. Noah might have told me to go on the date with Ryan, but I was the one who said yes. All because I was butt hurt that he was pushing me into the arms of a guy who wasn’t him.
I stared out the window for the rest of the journey, refusing to engage with Noah. It was bad enough he’d been the one to come and get me. Now he knew that I’d gotten upset. His white-knight routine wouldn’t let him stand down without some kind of answer, but I wasn’t sure I could give him any.
What Ryan said, the way his words affected me, was a deeply personal thing.
It was so easy for people to dismiss or invalidate other people’s feelings or extreme reactions to things that seemed so trivial. But until you’d walked in someone else’s shoes, you couldn’t truly know what it felt like to experience life through their lens.
I wasn’t the ten-year-old girl I’d once been. The girl who had stood in front of more than one photographer only to be told she was too big for their vision and to come back in a few months when I had dropped a few pounds. But I wasn’t healed either.
Because those kinds of scars ran deep. So deep that they became a part of you. A stain on your soul. And every negative interaction after that pivotal moment only served to deepen the cracks.
By the time we pulled up to the house, the air inside the truck was so thin I could hardly breathe. Shouldering the door open, I leapt out and hurried toward the house.
“Shit, shortcake, would you just wait a—”
But I was already gone, flying through the house and upstairs toward my room. I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want to have some big heart-to-heart with Noah only for him to reject me again. I just wanted to be alone. And maybe eat my body weight in ice cream and then hate myself for it. Because adding a little bit of self-loathing to the mix sounded about right.
I didn’t make it to my room though.
I didn’t even make it to the second-floor stairs.
“Not so fast.” Noah snagged me around the waist and pulled me into his strong, muscular body. “Talk to me, shortcake.”
“And say what?” I shrieked. “That it was a bad idea going out with Ryan tonight? That he’s just like every other guy out there? Or do you want to know how it felt to hear him telling his friend that I had porn star tits but looked like a thrift store reject? That I should be thankful I’m not a whale but should really try and work on my appearance so that assholes like him will find me more visually pleasing? Tell me, Noah, what exactly would you like me to say?” I stared up at him, tears clinging to my lashes, my chest rising and falling between us.
Noah’s expression darkened, the muscle in his jaw working overtime as he stared back at me. “He said that?”
“I… I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Tough shit, shortcake. Because I do, I want to know every single word that came out of that asshole’s mouth. And then I want to hear it again, so I can make sure I’ve got it right for when I beat the shit out of him for making you cry.”
“I don’t need you going around campus fighting my battles, Noah.”
“Maybe I want to.”
“This white-knight routine you’ve got going is cute and all, but I don’t need your help.” I yanked out of his hold and marched up the stairs to my room.
This time, he didn’t follow.
Why would he?
This wasn’t some fluffy romance novel where the hero had a sudden epiphany that he wanted the heroine despite two hundred pages of them bickering and arguing at every turn.
Inside my room, I made a beeline straight for the bathroom, slamming the door behind me. My clothes came off in a whirlwind of anger and shame. The stupid godawful shapeless t-shirt I’d worn. The shapewear leggings that did a bad job of disguising my thunder thighs and round ass. And my jacket… shit, I’d left my jacket behind.
Tears stung my eyes as I stood in front of the mirror in only my underwear, my gaze snagging on every flaw. Every single imperfection.
She’s not a whale.
But I sure felt like one. I slid my hands down my waist, the flare of my hip, my fingers snagging on the faded silvery pink streaks covering my hips and stomach.
I could vividly remember discovering them on my body when I was twelve. The shame I felt when my mom caught me checking them out in the mirror. She’d given me every skin product she could get her hands on to undo their appearance: bio oil, cocoa butter, retinol cream.
But nothing worked.
Nothing fixed them.
Because I was broken. Tainted. And my body had failed me.
