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“My art is worth showing to the world.”
“Better.” Her best friend blew Everly a kiss, and Stanton followed up with a high five.
Ellis took his time selecting an object, finally settling on a wine bottle. “Mom.”
Everly made a face. “I can’t hit my mother with a sledgehammer.”
“But you can smash the way she makes you feel,” Stanton pointed out.
Everly blew out a breath. This one was harder than her own self-doubt. Her palms grew sweaty against the hammer’s handle, making her adjust her grip. She knew her mother loved her, knew that she wanted what she thought was best for Everly. But the years she’d spent buying her daughter baggy, dark clothes, placing her in the back of photos where no one could see her size, encouraging her to be quieter, smaller, had cut Everly down, blunted her edges, whether her mother had intended it to or not.
How did you tell someone that? How were you supposed to make it clear that they were harming you when they thought they were helping?
“Love shouldn’t hurt,” she said as she took a swing.
Everly was the last to choose an item. She found a tall stack of plates in the corner and cradled them among the shards of glass and plastic. “I don’t want to be afraid anymore.”
For too long now, she’d let fear determine every path she took. Quitting the Collective, living at her brother’s, staying in Monmouth Cove, working as a receptionist, never posting on theOTPSforums, never doing anything at all.
Her eyes skipped to Logan, and her heart danced in her chest when she found him staring back at her.
“It’s time to do things that scare me,” she said, and smashed the stack of plates to smithereens.
CHAPTER 8
Jazzy disappeared into the depths of the closet again. After some fumbling and muttering, she reemerged with a dozen shirts on hangers.
Everly sat perched on the corner of her bed. Over the last hour, her apartment’s beautiful honey-wood floors had disappeared under a thick layer of black and navy blue as Jazzy unearthed all of Everly’s clothes.
The host brandished the first shirt—a black, long-sleeved lace number—and waited for Everly to comment, one hand propped on her hip.
“My mother bought me that. You couldn’t pay me to wear it,” Everly said. She still couldn’t believe she wasinone of Jazzy’s wardrobe critiques.
Jazzy pulled it off the hanger and angled it against her own body, inspecting the top in the mirror. “I have nothing against a handkerchief hem or a lace shirt, but together—”
“It looks like the devil’s doily.” If they burned it, accompanied by the right spell, they’d probably actually summon him. It was that sinfully ugly.
“Accurate.” With a laugh, Jazzy tossed the top into the growing donation pile at her feet.
Somehow, the next two shirts were even worse. One was a loose navy camisole covered in enormous sky-blue polka dots. The other was a green-and-blue-camo-patterned hoodie with rhinestones encrusting the shoulders like epaulets.
Everly grimaced. “I had one of those days last year where after watching a bunch of oldOTPSepisodes, I decided I wanted to diversify my closet. But there’s slim pickings for plus-size clothing around here, so those were the best I could do.”
Jazzy waved the sales tags on the polka-dotted shirt. “You didn’t even wear it.”
“Do you blame me?” Everly muttered.
“It’s actually not horrible.” Jazzy laid the camisole across the bed and grabbed a gray cardigan from their tiny “keep” stack beside Everly. “If you pair it with a solid color like this, it will tone down the pattern.” She shook her head. “But I’ll never understand the obsession with polka dots in plus-size fashion. And the bigger the better, too. Just because I’m fat doesn’t mean I want to look like a walking case of the chicken pox.”
“Or a kindergarten art project.” Everly inspected the camouflage hoodie briefly before removing it from the hanger. “Embroidery and random bedazzling can’t save a shapeless button-up. It just makes it look like it’s been eaten and regurgitated by sentient art supplies.” The last time she’d stopped into Monmouth Cove’s thrift store, she’d seen a plus-size peasant top decked out in rhinestones, embroidery,andgigantic ruffles. She’d wanted to stand there and screamwhyat the top of her lungs.
She shook the shirt in her hand like it might offer her an answer. The second time, she put a little too much power in it, and the sleeve snapped against the lens of Logan’s camera. He grunted as it knocked into his face.
Gasping, Everly froze, her gaze cutting to Jazzy, who was stifling a grin. The moment their eyes met, they both burst into laughter.
Logan blew out a long-suffering sigh. Then he lowered his camera to inspect the equipment for damage. His free hand rubbed at his cheek.
Drama queen,Jazzy mouthed.
