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“Honey, Pepper is all curves,” she reminded me with a grin. “And she’s not letting that stop her. You should give yourself a chance.”
“I’ll look around while you’re trying your dress on,” I promised, though I didn’t mean it. The sooner we ended this conversation, the better. This wasn’t easy for me.
How do you ever plan on finding a boyfriend when you have such a fat ass?
Even after all these years, I could still hear his voice. It was so loud, so clear, that I actually turned around, expecting to find my nightmare of a father standing nearby.Impossible.He did us all the favor of exiting this world. Of course, he’d had made sure he caused as much grief as possible before he ended his useless existence.
What a shame he’d taken more than himself.
He has no power over you. Every single therapist I had ever visited—and that was a lot, mostly at my brother’s insistence—used that exact statement. My father had no power over me. He had been dead for years. The terrible things he’d said and done were entirely his. I didn’t need to claim them as my own.
That was so much easier said than done. While I knew they were right in my heart, it wasn’t easy to explain it to my brain.
It was like Julia Roberts said inPretty Woman—the bad stuff was easier to believe, especially after years of having it on repeat, day and night. The man made it his mission to hurt and humiliate me. Like when he’d grab a handful of my thigh or my side and moo like a cow as I walked past. That did things to an adolescent girl’s head.
These beautiful, privileged girls wondered why I didn’t take to things like shopping as naturally as they did. It was almost funny. As far as I knew, they understood the challenges I dealt with on a daily basis. They knew about my injury, my therapy sessions, but it was one thing to know about something and another to understand what it meant to go through it.
How something like that changed a person.
How it could put miles of cold, empty space between them and the people around them. Even nice, sweet, wonderful people.
The fact was, there was nothing in that store for me. I could play the part all I wanted. I could giggle, have fun, and even loosen up a little after a couple of glasses of wine or champagne. But there would always be part of me watching from the outside. No matter how desperately I wished I could, I would never feel part of their world.
“Connor is going to freak when he sees this!” Pepper flung open the curtain and did a dramatic pose, one hand on her hip, the other trailing down her throat while she pouted her lips like the bombshell she was.
I whistled, nodding in approval even as jealousy threatened to eat me alive. “Freak? The man is going to throw you to the floor and have you in front of everybody when he sets his eyes on that.” It was red, fitting snugly to her every curve, and she looked like a million bucks. She also had the confidence to pull it off, which went a long way. If I ever tried on something like that, I would look foolish.
Lourde poked her head out from inside her curtained-off room, gaping in wonder. “You better be careful, or you’ll go home pregnant.”
“Lourde!” Pepper squealed before dissolving in giggles. “Don’t you use your pregnant lady juju on me.”
“Like it would be the worst thing in the world. I want a niece or a nephew, woman!”
“You’re going to have to learn to be patient.” Lourde stuck her tongue out, and Pepper did the same. By the time they closed their curtains again, they were both laughing.
Out of sight, I took a seat in a plush, velvet covered chair, stifling a groan of relief. My brother always worried about me. He had gone as far as arranging physiotherapy appointments for first thing in the morning before most of the group was even out of bed during this pre-wedding week. Usually, my appointments left me feeling better—looser, with less pain and easier mobility.
Today, that wasn’t the case. Maybe it had to do with all of the walking we’d done along Main Street. Maybe it had to do with me leaving my cane in my room. Let’s face it. Nobody wanted to be the only girl in the party who needed a cane to walk.
It seemed like my pride was coming back to bite me in the ass.
After a few more minutes of the girls chatting, gossiping, and laughing over how crazy they would make their guys, I went to Lourde’s private room, poking my fingers beyond the curtain and wiggling them to get her attention. “Hey. I think I might head back.”
Right away, Lourde yanked the curtain aside, holding a dress in front of her. Her wide eyes and open mouth told me how distressed my announcement left her. “No, really? Are you in pain?” she whispered, wincing.
“My appointment really took it out of me today, and it has been a lot of walking.”
“I’m so sorry. We can all go back.”
“Absolutely not,” I argued, and her eyes widened at my flat refusal. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it to come out like that. But I’m not going to spoil anybody’s good time. I just overdid it, that’s all.”
“But you wanted to go to the bookstore.”
“Maybe I will stop in there,” I suggested with a shrug. “It seemed like I was the only person really interested, anyway, so it’s probably better if I go alone. No worries,” I insisted with a grin. “If I’m going to have it all together for the bachelorette party tonight, I should get a little bit of rest, come to think of it. I plan on getting drunk on a boat.”
Her bright smile brought me a measure of relief. “We’re going to have so much fun!”
“Just do me a favor?” I dropped my voice to a whisper. “Don’t tell Barrett. I don’t want him to worry. You know how he gets.”
