Love Me for Me (8 page)

“I was big when I was a teenager.” No matter my size, I’d still been able to draw the wrong kind of attention from boys with the promise of what lay between my legs, but the fat had been a layer of insulation for me, a way to keep myself apart from the inevitable hurt that the rest of the world could bring to me.

“Lots of people are chubby until they hit puberty.” I saw that Kaylee was choosing her words carefully. I turned the bottle of shampoo over in my hand, and then back the right way again, weighing my words now that I’d let part of my secret slip.

“I was long past puberty. And... I wouldn’t have minded chubby, if I was healthy. But I gained the weight on purpose.” Daring her to argue with me, I looked right at her, my chin stuck out defiantly.

The Kaylee I knew was caring, but liked things to be light and happy and fun. I was more than a little bit shocked that she looked right back at me, her expression deadly calm.

“You’re not heavy anymore.” She turned a page in her textbook, and then another, though she wasn’t looking at the book at all.

“No,” I agreed. “I’m not. And I won’t let myself be ever again. That’s why I only take skim milk in my coffee. That’s why I got into yoga. And that’s why I run.” Not waiting for a response, I pushed out of the tiny dorm room and made my way down the hall to the girls’ bathroom, my heart beating frantically against my rib cage.

Mechanically, I moved into one of the shower stalls and stripped out of my running gear. Sliding my feet into my rubber flipflops, I turned the shower on and stepped beneath it.

I turned the heat as high as it would go, hoping to burn away some of the sudden vulnerability.

I’d never before told anyone that I’d gained the weight on purpose. I’d never wanted to.

Swallowing hard, I tilted my head back and let the scalding water run down over my face. I tasted the salt from my sweat and shuddered.

My mom had known that something was wrong with me almost as soon as my problems had started. But she hadn’t pushed, hadn’t tried her hardest to get the answer from me, the way I thought a mother should. Instead she’d packed it away neatly, as if it wasn’t real if she couldn’t see it.

I’d always wondered if she’d known, if somehow she’d guessed the truth but hadn’t been able to face it. Regardless, by the time I’d told her, I knew that she truly either didn’t believe me, or that she’d talked herself into believing that it couldn’t possibly be true.

She thought my weight problems, the way I hid behind long locks of hair, the rumours about me and so many boys were simply my way of expressing teenage rebellion.

I wasn’t sure I was ever going to be able to forgive her for that.

As I mechanically lathered citrus scented shampoo into my hair, my thoughts turned back to my roommate. My best friend.

I’d thought I’d known Kaylee inside and out, but the last couple of days had told me that I wasn’t the only one with demons in my nightmares. That meant that she’d understand if—and this was a big if—I wanted to talk.

As the shampoo suds swirled down the drain, I wondered what it would be like to tell someone who really cared. But if I told Kaylee, then I’d have no real reason not to tell Alex.

The disgust and disbelief on my mother’s face were seared into my brain forever. I didn’t truly think that Kaylee would react the same way, but I knew it would alter her perception of me forever, and I didn’t want that.

Alex, however...

I couldn’t let him think I was dirty.

As I toweled the moisture off of my skin, I looked at the silvery lines that striped my upper arms. Most of the time I was able to forget that they were there, but from time to time I caught a glimpse. The scars were like ghosts that could be beaten into submission, but never fully exorcised.

Unlike Alex, I hadn’t hidden my scars with tattoos. I needed the visual reminder to keep me from doing something self destructive.

Something like getting involved with a beautiful boy who would be disgusted if he knew how dirty I really was. And if I saw that disgust on the face of the one who made it all better, I wasn’t sure I could live with the resultant emotion.

I heard the hiss of the spray, saw the steam as someone in the next stall over started their shower. A moment later the scent of lavender hit my nose, soap or shampoo or something else innocuous, but it was enough to make me gag.

Suddenly miserable, I pulled my robe around me and scraped my sopping hair back into my hair elastic, then ran from the bathroom—from the cloying smell—as quickly as I could.

Alex was a great guy, and I wanted him, wanted him more than I’d ever wanted anyone or anything in my life.

I wanted him enough that I didn’t want to taint him with my darkness.

My mind was made up. I wasn’t going to see him again.

***

The hoots and catcalls of Saturday night on campus were in full swing outside of my window. I lay on my back on my bed, my Social Psychology balanced above me.

It had been three days since I’d spoken to Alex. He’d texted, and he’d called, and I’d ignored both.

It was better this way.

My room was deadly silent, apart from the noises that filtered in from outside. Kaylee was at another frat party, not with Joel this time, but with some guy Joel had introduced her to. Normally I would have rolled my eyes and teased her good naturedly about being a man eater, but the joke didn’t seem so funny to me now.

Kaylee clearly had a problem that she wasn’t ready or willing to share with me, and that was fine—no one understood the need to keep a secret better than me. But at least she was living with it, was out having fun.

I’d moved away from home, had stopped my self-destructive behaviour, but was for all intents and purposes stuck in the mind of the teenage girl I’d been.

I thought of Alex and groaned. My hand crept up to run over my lips. They tingled with just the memory of his kiss, of the way his mouth had played over mine.

I wanted more. I wanted him.

I couldn’t have him unless I got my shit together.

Scowling, I tossed my book aside and sat up straight. I grabbed my cell phone, unlocked the screen, and opened my list of contacts.

Tentatively I scanned through the list until I found my mom’s.
Felicity
was the entry label—not Mother, certainly not Mom.

Feeling as though a great stone was lodged in the base of my throat, I pressed the number, then fell flat back onto the bed. As I listened to the rings on the other end, I pulled my hair in front of my face, and also arranged my two pillows so that one was on either side of my head. I was cocooned, hidden away.

Safe from harm.

“The prodigal daughter deigns to call.” I should have hung up the moment I heard the derisive greeting from my mom. I hadn’t been worried that Bob would answer the phone, because I refused to call the house, for that very reason.

“Hi, Felicity.” I made sure to keep my voice calm, though the very sound of her voice made me want to scream. “How are you?”

There was a pause, and I imagined that I’d caught her off guard. I rarely called her, and I certainly never asked how she was doing.

“Why are you calling, Serena?” She finally asked. “It’s Saturday night. I was under the impression that you were at least trying to live a normal life now that you’re in college.”

My teeth ground together, and frustration was the tightest of knots in my chest, keeping me from fully inhaling.

“I want to talk about something.” The pillows that had just seconds earlier been a safe haven now felt as though they were suffocating me. I shoved them off of the bed and sat up, shoving the flaxen strands of my hair out of the way.

“Do you need money?” There was a smugness in Felicity’s tone that made me want to throw something.

“No.” I ground the word out from between my clenched teeth. “I have scholarships. You know that.”

When I’d told her what school I was going for, and how I played to pay for it, she hadn’t believed me. Not with the ferocity with which she’d doubted my other, more important tale, but still, she’d needed some convincing, as if she couldn’t believe that I was capable of obtaining a full ride to a good school.

“Well, it can’t be that much money. It’s not like you’re an athlete.” This, I knew, was a thinly veiled reference to the extra weight I’d once carried.

“The scholarship is plenty, plus I teach yoga on campus for spending money.” I didn’t need to explain this to her, but said it anyway. Maybe I just, for once, wanted to win an argument.

Not that this was an argument—it was just a typical conversation because the woman who’d given me life and me.

“You do yoga?” The surprise was evident in Felicity’s voice, and I stifled a scream. I’d started practicing yoga when I still lived with her and Bob. I couldn’t count the number of times I’d run through the kitchen to the backdoor, telling her I was off to the yoga studio.

But that was Felicity, head buried under six feet of sand. She didn’t absorb anything that she didn’t want to, anything that might disrupt her perfect little world.

“I want to talk about Bob.” A great shudder racked my body as soon as the words left my mouth. The sudden silence on the other end of the line told me that I’d managed to shock my mom.

I never wanted to talk about Bob—never wanted to see him, or hear him, or listen to anyone else talk about him. Because of that, she knew exactly what I was referring to, and I knew it.

“Felicity?” The silence stretched on, thick and tense even through the phone line. A tiny sprout of hope began to unfurl inside of me.

Was it possible... would she maybe listen this time?

“I hope you’re not referring to what I think you are.” When she finally spoke her voice was covered with a thin layer of ice. That ice was clear, had no scent or taste, but stood between us as it had for so long, an impenetrable barrier.

The sharp cold pounced on that tender little bud of hope. I watched helplessly as it withered and died.

“What else would I be talking about?” I noted with a start that my voice didn’t sound so different from hers—bitter and angry.

I’d fight like hell before I wound up like her, though.

“You need to stop.” Felicity’s voice was angrier than I’d ever heard it before, sibilant, pitched low and full of hate. Though I’d told myself that she couldn’t hurt me anymore, I felt a great choking sob well up in the depths of my chest.

“Stop what? What have I ever done?” I hated the anguish that I could hear in my words, hated showing that weakness when I’d spent years trying to become strong.

I hated that, five years later, it still felt like my fault—just the way he’d told me it was.

“I’ve never understood why you made up this story, Serena Jane, and I never will. But you’re an adult now, and you need to
get over it
. Whatever warped little reasons you had for trying to destroy this family, it’s gone on too long. I won’t take it anymore.” Felicity’s voice shifted from low to shrill. I pounded my fist onto my bedspread, the frustration filling me until I felt as though I might split in two.

It is not my fault
.

It is
not
my fault
.

For the first time since I was seventeen, I opened my mouth, and the sound that came out was a scream.

“Just because you refuse to believe me, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen
!” Mashing my finger down on the screen to end the call, I threw the phone as hard as I could at the wall. I heard the sharp crack of the screen as it splintered, but didn’t care.

I stood in the middle of the room, my hands fisting then unclenching mechanically, over and over again. I couldn’t move, felt frozen in place, with so much emotion inside of me that I was paralyzed.

I needed to get some of it out.

There was only one way that had ever worked, but I’d sworn never to do that again.

I took one halting step towards my makeup bag, then another. Then I lunged for it, collapsing on my knees as I frantically scrabbled at the zipper.

My hand closed around the slender pink handle of the simple Bic razor, and a dark pleasure slithered through me. It was almost sensual, calling out my name, promising to relieve my pain.

The insides of my body were a solid block of ice. My movements jerky, I yanked my T-shirt up and over my head, then crossed my left arm in front of my torso.

The razor was bright pink and cheerful in my right hand, a splash of color in a world that had suddenly faded to shades of grey. I lowered it until it hovered just over its target.

The skin of my arm was pale, threaded through with lush amethyst veins. Raised lines of silver striped the limb, a map to the release of my pain.

It would be so easy, so simple. Use the razor to part the skin, watch the crimson blood flow out, and with it, the pain that was consuming me.

So easy to let the blood keep flowing.

I don’t know how long I crouched on the floor, the blade a whisper from its goal. I crouched until my muscles burned and cramped from staying still.

No. This wasn’t who I was anymore. And no one, not Bob, not Felicity, no one could make me.

Slowly I replaced the razor in my makeup bag, then did up the zipper. I fell to my knees, and crawled to the bed.

The throw against the wall had cracked the screen of my phone down the middle, but it still worked. With trembling fingers I opened a text conversation that hadn’t been touched in days.

I stayed as I was, kneeling against the bed, phone in hand, until the reply came in.

No wondering why I hadn’t been in touch, no guilt. My body sagged with relief.

I bit my lip and watched the dots on the screen that told me he was typing a response. Our relationship was so new that normally I wouldn’t have been so forward.

But Alex made me forget. He was the one who could wash the bitter taste away.

My phone vibrated, displaying his reply.

That was when I finally cried. I had never wanted to get close to someone in the way that I was getting to know Alex.