8. Gemma
EIGHT
GEMMA
Four years ago
If I want Aaron to notice me, it’s time to demand his attention.
I know he’s made comments about my body being prepubescent before, but surely he knows I have a pretty feminine figure these days, right? Even if I’ll never be thick, like the girls he usually goes for.
A deep sigh leaves me as I gaze into the mirror, wondering for the hundredth time if I can pull this look off. Terrified doesn’t begin to cover it. I am practically shaking from fear of being seen by anyone dressed like this, but especially by him .
It’s not that I want to wear nothing but boyfriend jeans and loose, old tees. It’s just become a routine. What’s comfortable. What’s close to hand. And trying to dress in the styles I actually like feels like a really drastic change for some reason. So I’m kinda freaking.
Was this a drastic pendulum swing? Sure. But if I can pull this off, the cute outfits I dream of wearing daily will feel easy.
I pull at the hem of these shorts nervously, admiring the flattering cut of them while also melting down about showing off my entire legs in them. Seriously. They cover about two inches of my upper thigh. It’s next-level scary.
Pretty sure my mom called them “hot pants” when I showed them to her after my last shopping haul. I just call them short shorts. They’re black, they look like leather, and I’ve never in my entire life worn anything like them.
I’ve paired them with this teeny little hot pink crop top that shows some serious skin, and it makes me wish I had more curves to fill out this outfit. Pretty sure this could look seriously great on the right body, maybe not mine, but I had to try something. I topped it all off with the single pair of heels I own, some four inchers I bought on a whim but have never had an excuse to wear before. And a full face of makeup (is it supposed to feel this thick?) for probably the first time in my life. Okay, definitely the first time in my life.
I look…different. I feel different. Sexy . For the first time in my life, I realize.
If I put on a push up bra and stick my butt out, you might almost confuse me for a girl Aaron would date.
The thought gives me almost enough courage to go out there and face him after one final pat down. Nothing else jumps out at me to fix, so it must be time.
Deep breaths, Gemma. You can do this.
I walk down the stairs in slow motion, because this moment is clearly being brought to you by Hallmark.
His deep blue eyes look up from his phone as I come into his view, and he’s visibly breathless from the sight of me, with my true beauty finally revealed.
His mouth works, moving silently, wordlessly, as he stammers. Finally, a lifetime later, when I make it to the foot of the stairs and stop directly in front of him, he speaks.
“You…you look so beautiful, Gem. I’ve been so blind. It’s always been you.”
He leans in to kiss me— I snap out of the reverie.
It’ll be just like you’ve been imagining, Gemma. Go down there and rock his world. You guys are meant for each other, and he’ll finally realize it.
Except when I come down the stairs of my childhood home, he doesn’t look up until I’m at the bottom. Thankfully, because I definitely almost ate it at least twice on the way down. These heels feel like they were meant to be worn in front of a mirror, not walking down the stairs.
And when Aaron stands from the couch to collect me so we can go to this industry party he got invited to, he stops still, just like I imagined he would all those times.
Then his hand comes to his eyes and he covers them dramatically.
I expected him to try to soak in as much of me as possible, but I guess he needs a second to compose himself. It is a lot more of me than he’s used to seeing, after all. Maybe my newly femme body is just too much for him to handle without breaking down into tears.
I alternate the way I’m distributing my weight on my legs, switching up my pose, popping one leg straight out in front of me to lengthen my physique, as the article online said to do, and put my left hand on my hip as I wait for him to hurry up and collect himself and sweep me off my feet.
After a small eternity— at least my daydream got that part right —he removes his hand from his eyes, peeling one finger back at a time until he can see me again. He lets out an actual squeak when he takes me in fully, realizing I’m not from his dreams, this is his real life.
And then the screaming starts.
“WHAT are you wearing?” I predicted the incredulity right, but I think I hoped for more admiration in his tone? That’s okay. I can work with this.
“Do you like it?” I've never heard my voice so sultry before.
“NO!” Aaron actually bellows, gesturing at me wildly, like he wants to push me out of his vision. Instead, he settles for covering his face again (this time with both hands) and turning around so he can’t see me.
I’m starting to rethink this outfit. If the way my stomach is hurting is any indication, I’m about to have diarrhea, and these short shorts are going to do nothing to hide that fact from the man I would do anything to be truly seen by. But this isn’t how any of this is supposed to go.
“What do you mean?” I’m just glad he can’t see my lip trembling from rejection of the first move I’ve ever made, because this stings .
Without turning around, Aaron swings one arm behind him wildly, gesturing up and down roughly at my body. “ That is not clothing, Gemma.”
“This is what half the girls there will be wearing, Aaron. It absolutely counts as clothing.”
He turns around, his hands now both sunk deep into his light brown hair, pulling at it from the roots, and I wish I were creating this reaction in him out of white-hot need, but this just feels like the worst kind of nightmare coming to life.
Those gorgeous blue eyes stay firmly locked on mine as he begins to berate me. Like he’ll get something contagious if his eyes dip below my chin. “No, Gemma. No. Absolutely not. You are not leaving the house like this. You look like a ? —”
My blood pounds in my ears, replacing every atom of embarrassment throughout my system with a fiery temper he almost never elicits from me. “Like a WHAT Aaron? Finish that sentence. I dare you. Like one of the girls you bring home?”
The glare he gives me in response to that could turn sand to glass.
“If male attention is all you want, then go by yourself. Or go on a girls’ night.” Apparently dressing like one of the girls he usually brings home is all it takes to make my happy-go-lucky bestie actually seethe . There’s a first time for everything, I guess.
“Yeah, Aaron. I’ll go out with some of my many girlfriends.” I wave my hand dramatically to gesture at all of my imaginary friends, like my options are limitless. “Maybe you haven’t noticed. YOU’RE ALL I FUCKING HAVE.” That last line was definitely yelled with a little more sorrow than I normally let show. Seriously though, does he not understand that we’re it for each other? We’re all we’ve got, and we don’t need anyone else, either.
“Well I’m not hanging out with you all night and watching men drool over you. Go change.” He points to the stairs, like I’m his daughter trying to sneak out without permission. And I’m over this.
“Is it that you can’t believe a man would look twice at me that you don’t like?”
His chest rises and falls with his deep breaths of annoyance. Surely he knows that I’ve had partners by now. We’re twenty years old, ffs. But this level of irritation out of him is supremely rare, and I can only imagine that he’s never even considered me as a sexual being before.
“Or is it the fact that you never have?”
His jaw clenches in frustration, the words he isn’t letting himself say being held back within it. There’s a muscle or tendon or something that’s twitching as he grinds his teeth, and I pat myself on the back for getting so deep under his skin. Mostly, though, I just want to cry until I vomit, then hide under my covers for the rest of time. How am I supposed to face him again, knowing that my body disgusted him so much he couldn’t even look at it?
“Go. Change.” He breathes each word like it’s taking considerable effort to get them out, and I decide to listen to him on this. I can’t remember another time we had a blowup like this, and my insecurities are telling me he might be right. I don’t have what it takes to pull something like this off, and it’s not worth rocking the boat of our friendship over.
It’s taken me nearly eight years to make a move on him, and I think we can all agree this was quite the epic fail. I doubt I’ll be strong enough or brave enough to take another shot with him again. If anything is ever going to happen between us, it’s going to take him making the first move, because my ego may never recover from this. I know we belong together, but he doesn’t even see what’s right in front of him. If he would just look , we could have it all.
I turn around to head back up the stairs and get back into a “normal” outfit for me, so we can go to this party and try to schmooze some big shot producer who’s working on some huge upcoming film Aaron is absolutely dying to get cast in. I’m just going to have to pretend this humiliating ordeal never happened.
But the hairs on the back of my neck tingle the entire way up the stairs, like I’m being watched, maybe even being seen. I don’t look back to confirm whether my perception was correct. My heart can’t take another let down from this man.
Alex insisted on taking me shopping for my big date with Spencer. Even though it’s supposed to be totally low key, casual, no pressure, I’m definitely feeling pressured.
She also insisted on taking a few pics of me in some of these new outfits she helped me pick out, and she totally took over completing my Tinder profile, coming up with something witty for my bio, cause I would’ve left it blank. Luckily, she let me add in one little bit there at the end, so I felt better about the witty words she’d chosen for me.
I run my fingers over the expensive denim material in one of the bags as we weave through city traffic, on our way to the suburbs where we both reside. She’s got the roof down and the doors off her matte black Jeep, so we’re just soaking up the warm, late spring breeze as we fly through the lanes, headed toward the distant mountains. A laugh escapes me at a move she pulls, paired with an epic one-finger salute to a driver who’s evidently been pissing her off, and if I hadn’t driven with her a dozen times before now, I’d definitely be shitting myself.
With how much responsibility she shoulders on the show, she doesn’t have too much free time for about nine months out of the year, but I’m hoping in that short break she gets this year, we get to spend a lot more time together.
Now that Aaron’s cozying up with Kayla, it’s become painfully clear to me how little else I have going for me in life, and that’s something I want to work on. More things for me .
Starting with these cute outfits I’ve never been brave enough to try pulling off. Ever since that disastrous time I attempted to wear something a little more strip club than night club (okay, I can admit that I may have gone a bit overboard), my desire to branch out beyond comfy jeans and a loose tee has been zilch. Well, not my desire, per se. I definitely have still wanted to feel and look cuter than I generally do. But have I been willing to face that kind of humiliation and rejection again? Definitely not.
It took Alex probably two hours of constant hype-up in the dressing rooms of three different stores she’d dragged me into to convince me that these things didn’t look ridiculous on me. She used all sorts of descriptors I’m not used to hearing (fire, smokeshow, hot as fuck—basically, she made me feel flammable), and eventually I almost started to believe her. I got comfortable enough to buy several of the outfits, at least. And I’m definitely giving valid consideration to exploring a new look, with her guidance.
We all have our insecurities. My appearance happens to be a big one of mine. I don’t want to dress in clothes that hide the few assets I do have, throw my hair up and leave the house bare-faced, without using any of the gifts science has given us to make myself look a little cuter, but I’ve just never figured out how to do anything differently in that department. And my one attempt at switching that up went so spectacularly horrible that it kept me from venturing into the realm of experimental style again. But Alex is making me think I might be able to pull something a little classier off. Something that feels a little more Gemma . I just need to figure out exactly what that is.
We pull up to her absolutely adorable bungalow, which is crawling with live plants—literally, her front porch is covered in hanging macrame planters, vines, and a dozen potted varieties I couldn’t name even for a chance at a date with a fictional man—and hop out of the Jeep.
Alex is going to help me get ready for my date tonight, to help launch me into my new life with the proper amount of confidence, so she says. My arms are weighed down with these fancy paper bags full of new clothes, and I marvel at the fact none of them are plastic with the Target logo on them. Maybe I’m in for some new experiences all around.