When I just blinked at her, she continued, “I also had issues when we were putting the stairs in here,” she gestured with her thumb to where the stairs that led up to her bedroom were. “They initially wanted to put those industrial looking open-backed wooden ones in, but when I thought about it, I could see me slipping as I ran upstairs and getting wedged in between the steps. If I was lucky, I’d just bruise myself, but I had visions of getting stuck between the steps or breaking my leg.”
Looking over at the stairs in question, I saw they weren’t open-backed ones. I could also understand why she’d be worried about it. I’d treated enough patients who’d broken their legs or needed stitches because they’d done just that.
Reading the expression on my face, Ari blew out a breath. “I knew I was right.”
“Accidents happen.” That was an understatement.
“I also have a pantry that’s so full, I’m thinking of adding an extension onto my kitchen. Growing up with four brothers, we were always running out of stuff. Toilet paper, toothpaste, food, you name it, they always got there first. Because of that, I make sure I have a healthy stock of everything, so I don’t ever have the ‘what am I going to do?’ panic.”
Then I realized what she was doing. I’d made myself vulnerable to her with my story, and she was telling me issues some people might laugh about and not take seriously, making her equally vulnerable back to me.
“Thank you,” I croaked, unable to stop my voice cracking.
Instead of pressing me or confirming I was right in my interpretation, she smiled and shrugged. “Beats me telling you I had a boob job and rhinoplasty because I hated looking at myself in the mirror, or because the guys at school said they’d bang me if I had a bag over my head and the lights were off.”
That’s when my mood went from vulnerable to pissed way the fuck off.
“Repeat that…”
Five
Ariana
The words I’d just spewed hit me. Damn it, Ariana!
Stupid fucking mouth of mine.
“Ari,” he warned. “Repeat what you just said.”
If I was brutally honest, I’d rather French kiss a shark than repeat them, but if he could lay his soul bare, couldn’t I?
Then again…
“My story sounds ridiculous and dumb compared to what you went through.”
And this was something that I’d had to cover in therapy. Guilt.
My therapist had explained that a lot of psychology was based on guilt. Bizarre, right? Even in the worst circumstances that led to people needing therapy to face life, guilt played a huge factor. Victims felt guilt, along with everything else they went through. Hell, even Stockholm Syndrome ran on it. Sympathy for the victim’s abuser, understanding why they did it, love for them, and then guilt because they could get into trouble for what they did, so the victim then did everything to protect them.
When I’d first started seeing my therapist, I’d admitted that I felt guilty for being so hung up on something so shallow compared to what a lot of people went through. I felt guilty for having the thoughts I’d had. Guilty for even thinking it when I know what my family would’ve gone through if I’d actually done what I’d pictured in the shower. Guilty for the people who’d sustained damage to their faces or women who’d had to have their breasts removed, and here I was not even appreciating the ones I’d been given. Every angle I looked at it from, I felt guilt, which made my mental health even worse.
And here I was again, facing someone who’d been through hell, feeling guilty that I’d been so shallow. But I’d honestly hated myself, had felt physically sick looking at myself in the mirror and hearing what people had said about me…
“Ari, mental health, trauma, and life experiences aren’t a competition. Dale has a form of survivor’s guilt. Do you think that’s shallow in comparison to what I went through?”
“No,” I frowned. “That’s understandable.”
“Exactly, and if what I’ve just heard was what happened to you, then those words have the power to really affect someone. I just need and want to understand what happened to you.”
What he said was fair, but I was still thinking it was like one person losing a limb while another person cried over a papercut.
Facing him, I got why he’d needed to buy himself time by taking deep breaths and why he’d fidgeted so much. Baring your soul was fucking hard.
“It all started when I hit puberty. All my friends were getting boobs and were seriously beautiful, but I had nothing on my chest and was… I don’t know, like a slightly feminine version of my brothers.”
Parker frowned, no doubt trying to think of me during the time I was talking about.
“Anyway, I kept putting on weight, and no matter what I did, it wouldn’t go away. I started running and working out, but I became self-conscious about different areas of my body. First my stomach was big, then my thighs jiggled when I ran, then I had that flappy skin under my arms, so I started working on toning them. When I wasn’t at school, I was working out in my bedroom or running outside.”
“I remember you being into fitness early on,” he nodded, his eyes distant as he remembered it. “I was staying at Jack and Colette’s house when y’all came to visit, and one morning you got up when it was still dark and went out running.”
That’s how I’d hidden how bad it had gotten. I’d started doing a lot of my workout when it was still dark, and my family was asleep, so they didn’t know.
“Yeah, that sounds right.”
Either he could read me more than I was comfortable with, or he was more astute than most because he focused on my face and guessed correctly, “You were hiding it from them.”
“They’d been trying to get me to stop doing it as much as I was, so I did part of it when they were asleep so no one would know.”
“What happened next?”
“I still wasn’t growing a chest, and when I say I was flat-chested, I mean I could run for eight miles in the morning without wearing a bra and not have any problems. I only just filled an A cup when my friends were all a B or C. I also became overly fixated on my nose. On my brothers, it looks great because it fits their faces. On me? It was just too much. I was looking up makeup tips for contouring around it to make it look more feminine and pretty, but I couldn’t get it right. All it looked like I was doing was coloring in a huge frigging schnoz.”
“Did anyone know you were going through this?”
Pulling at the hem of my top, I remembered my parents' faces when I’d come down to breakfast in the morning. They never pushed us to talk about things, knowing we’d open up to them. Well, unless it was terrible, and then you’d think we were at a confessional with all the shit that came out of us at once. At that stage, it wasn’t as bad as it had ended up being. The day I’d had the thought of killing myself, that’s when I’d told them all of it.
“They knew something was going on with me that centered around my chest and nose. You couldn’t miss the makeup or the way I was stuffing my bra, but my parents are really in tune with their kids, so they also couldn’t miss that it was something deeper.”
“But they never asked you about it?”
“Oh, they asked,” I chuckled, the noise sounding as fake as it was. “They would approach it from different ways, but I’d just tell them I was stressed or trying out a new look. I was always the least expressive one,” I admitted, struggling to find a way to describe how I’d been. “I kept more to myself and acted like nothing was wrong. Mom and Dad knew if they pushed me that I’d clam up even more, so they didn’t ask or mention what I was doing outright. They tried to get around it by asking about something slightly relevant to it, but not quite the issue itself. Does that make sense?”
Parker nodded thoughtfully. “A bit like when you’re driving, and the road you want has a diversion on it. You go a different route to bypass the area of the road, then rejoin it to carry on the original route.”
“Exactly. Anyway, I’d spend
so long doing my makeup in the mornings that I started being late for school all the time. Mom took me to a makeup artist who taught me how to contour and do my makeup to help me. She thought it would help to have someone show me how to do it properly. When I told the lady about my nose, she showed me the art of using makeup to minimize and change the appearance of it, and for a short time, it worked.”
“But makeup has to come off again, right?”
“Yeah,” I sighed, thinking back to the emotions I’d feel when I had to do it. “It got to the stage where I’d freak out and dread picking up a makeup wipe to remove it, and I’d avoid the mirror when I was washing my face at night. Christ, first thing in the morning, I’d have my shower with a towel over the mirror.”
“Jesus, Ari. I’m thinking back to when you were a teenager, and all I can see is a pretty girl. I think Dale even had a huge crush on you.”
Rubbing my face with both hands, I knew we were approaching the crux of the story, which would either make him run for the hills or hate me for being so shallow.
“One day at school, I heard a group of like thirty guys talking at lunch. It was summer, and the air conditioning had broken down in the cafeteria, so we were all allowed to eat out on the football field. They were saying they’d fuck me if it was dark, and I had a bag over my head. Apparently, I had a great body until you got to my upper half.”
“Fucking pieces of shit,” he hissed, clenching his jaw like he knew what those words would do to someone going through what I’d been.
“I became even more aware of how I looked and started… considering things.”
Leaning over, he pulled my hand away from where my fingers were attacking the bottom of my top now. “Like the surgery?”
Slowly raising my eyes, I shook my head. “Like suicide.”
The whispered words made his head jerk, and his eyes open wide.
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah,” I rasped, licking my lips nervously. “I hit an all-time low. I guess I was in a repetitive cycle of self-hate. I hated how I looked, I hated how the guys felt about me, I hated that I couldn’t be happy and grateful for what I had, I hated that I couldn’t just tell my parents, I hated that I was even thinking of doing something that would cause them pain for the rest of their lives. It was bad.”
“How did you get out of it?” he asked, his eyes scanning my face. I’d expected to see disgust, but instead, I saw understanding, and that shocked me.
“I had a shower one day, and the towel fell off the mirror. I saw the parts of me I didn’t look at. I remember thinking I couldn’t even look at myself, and that the only way to make sure that happened…” I swallowed awkwardly. “Was to kill myself. I had my razor in my hand because I’d been shaving my legs, so I lifted it to my wrist.”
Parker skimmed his thumb up the inside of the wrist of the hand he was holding and stared at my other wrist to see if there was a scar.
“I couldn’t do it, though. I knew it wasn’t worth killing myself over and putting my family through. Which was weird—almost like impulse versus logic, you know?”
“That’s exactly what it’s called,” he nodded, still stroking the inside of my wrist. “We all have impulsive thoughts in our brains, but for a lot of it, logical reasoning takes over as we do quick risk assessments.”
Clearing my throat, I tried to get comfortable on the couch cushions, but it felt like every muscle in my body was locked up. “I dropped the razor and went through all the options that were better for me. After that, I started researching surgeries and what my perfect nose and breasts would look like. It was like having heartburn and taking Pepto Bismol for it. I’d been so fixated on hating myself, I hadn’t looked at a way to be me with those areas fixed. Anyway, I went to my parents and told them about everything, and they made me an appointment with a therapist who was the shit. I was diagnosed with depression and something called body dysmorphia.”
“I thought that might have been the case.”
“I was prescribed antidepressants and had therapy for a while. Then when I stuck fast to wanting the rhinoplasty and breast augmentation surgeries, my parents helped me organize them.”
Parker’s expression turned thoughtful again. “How old were you when you had them done?”
“Nineteen. I think Mom and Dad thought I’d want to have a lot done, but I didn’t want a drastic change, just slight adjustments. I opted for low profile implants under the muscle that took me to a moderate C cup, so they still looked natural, and I had my nose made slightly narrower and smaller.”
“And how do you feel now? Do you still feel like there are parts of you that you don’t like or want to change?”
“No,” I shook my head, a genuine smile growing on my face. “When I was about to have the anesthetic, I told the doctor that any change was an improvement for me. Then, after it, when I saw the bandages, bruising, and swelling, I freaked slightly and was scared I’d ruined myself. The bruising and swelling went away and, even though it takes longer for your nose to heal and all of the swelling to disappear, I was blown away.
“My issue was just those two areas, and they were better than I’d imagined. I have no problems with the rest of my body and have no intention of changing myself again, but I’m also not blind to the fact things change. Accidents happen, so I can’t say definitively that I’d never have plastic surgery or something done again. You just don’t know what could happen.
“Before I had the surgeries, I’d started to cut back on my workouts and had gotten into a fitness routine that kept me healthy but wasn’t so over the top. My therapist had pointed out I was overdoing it—I was working out roughly seven hours every day—and that a fitness specialist could help me find a healthier workout and would work on the areas I wanted it to. I found a female fitness instructor who’s a genius, and every month she gives me a new routine to work on. Running relaxes me, so I still do that, but I’m not so intense about it. After I’d healed and was able to come home—”
“Wait, what do you mean come home?” he asked, interrupting me.
“I had the surgeries in California, so my brothers wouldn’t find out.”
Parker’s mouth dropped open as he absorbed this fact. “How could they not find out? Ari, you had your nose and chest changed visibly.”
Shrugging, I started to pick at my thumbnail now, needing to let some restless energy out. “They’ve never mentioned it, so I’m assuming they don’t know.”
Groaning, he scrubbed both hands down his face, leaving the hand of mine he’d been holding feeling cold without his heat. “Baby, I think your family’s the shit—like seriously, they’re the most awesome people I’ve ever met—but I kind of want to hit your brothers right now. How do you not notice something like that?”
I had no answers for that question, so I just lifted a shoulder. “It’s not the type of thing we’d discuss. Anyway, after I came home, I went back to my therapist and continued working on the problems that’d caused me to get the surgery done. I thought that because I’d had the problems fixed that I’d be fixed, too,” I tapped my head to indicate what I meant, “but that wasn’t the case. It was just the beginning.”
This he understood. “Yeah, it takes more than that. And how do you feel now when you look in the mirror?”
“Few people love everything about themselves, Parker,” I snickered. “But I’m genuinely content with what I see in the reflection. I run to burn off steam and stress, workout to challenge myself and my body, and I guess it’s made me want to heal people when I know they have problems that they don’t want to talk about, too. I’ve discussed it with my parents, and it’s almost like all the bad stuff I went through has made me desperate for other people never to feel like they have no other options.”
That’s how I’d felt when I’d gotten to know Bonnie and Beau at school, and then Sadie recently. I knew Beau and Bonnie’s stories, but Sadie hadn’t shared a lot of hers yet. It took time to dig deep down to pull the words out and gift t
hem to people. No, mental health and the consequences of trauma weren’t a gift you gave people, it was the trust that it took to share them that was the gift. Many people nowadays didn’t see this, and the amount of gaslighting and betrayals I saw online were sickening. Once someone gave you that trust, it wasn’t your story to share. Ever. Unfortunately, social media and the internet provided some people with a feeling of power to do and say whatever the fuck they wanted, not realizing the consequences their actions had.
I’d recently discovered gaslighting was something to do with psychology—I thought it was just people being assholes. No, it’s far worse, and that’s what’d happened to Beau. The psychological manipulation of gaslighting is sickening, and the person involved had basically questioned her and fed her misinformation that’d led to her doubting herself. They’d also fed it to other people, which had ended up with her completely distancing herself from almost everyone except for Lily. She’d been polite and cordial to us, but that’s as far as it went. Because Lily was married to my brother, Tate, Beau had slowly let us back into her world and was regaining her ability to trust other people.
Sadly, Bonnie had suffered from gaslighting, too, but hers was slightly more complicated than Beau’s story. Her entire family had been the victims of many gaslighters and ignorant bigots, but she hadn’t distanced herself from her friends. Instead, we’d been able to take her back repeatedly our whole lives and had done everything we could to shield her from them.
I often thought about the theory that like attracted like, and wounded souls flocked together. That’s what we were. Before I’d had the surgery, I focused my attention on Bonnie and what she was going through, protecting her in any way I could. I’d recognized the pain and suffering in Beau, but she wouldn’t let us get close, so I’d had to look out for her from a distance as best I could.
Forbidden Gold (Providence Gold Book 5) Page 7
