Chapter 6
Chapter Six
EDEN
It had been a few days since Nona worked a miracle on my hair, and I still wasn’t totally used to it.
I hadn’t worn it down in so long, and it was strange to feel it brush over my shoulders and down my back.
But every time I caught my reflection in the mirror or another shiny surface, I did a double take and smiled a tiny, secretive grin to myself once the surprise wore off.
There was still a lot that needed to be done when it came to Mission Make Over New Eden, but I was getting there.
I wasn’t a big fan of exercise in most forms, but I knew I needed to be more active if I had any chance of losing weight, so I’d started taking walks around the neighborhood, sometimes venturing a bit farther out to explore my new town.
I found that surrounding myself with the beauty of nature made it much more tolerable.
On the days the weather wasn’t very agreeable, I’d ordered some yoga DVDs to do at home, but my preference was the outdoors.
Hope Valley was just too stunning not to want to take it all in.
The one thing I wasn’t all that concerned with working on was my makeup.
I was a minimalist by nature. After all, working from home didn’t really require any, and after witnessing my mother caking it on in order to hide what a hard life had done to her looks, I’d been turned off by the idea of using more than the bare minimum.
Drinking, drugs, and an all-around bad skincare routine—passing out drunk in her hooker makeup every night and never washing her face—aged her by at least a decade.
Because of her, I’d gone to the extremes in the opposite direction.
Since hitting the age of twenty, I’d started a skincare regimen that consisted of nightly masks, moisturizers and eye creams, and a weekly deep pore-cleansing facial.
I loved how it made my skin soft and glowy, and at thirty-four, I’d been told on more than a few occasions that I barely looked thirty.
Shutting off the blow-dryer, I tossed down the round brush I’d been using to try to get the same smoothness and volume Nona had at the salon. I hadn’t quite nailed the technique yet, but I was getting better, and fortunately I’d managed to do a good enough job for The Tap Room.
Unfortunately, it had taken me three times as long as it had taken Nona, and a quick glance at the clock showed it was already a few minutes to seven.
With my eye shadow done, just enough to add a hint of shimmer and color, the rest wouldn’t take too long. In a hurry, I grabbed my mascara and leaned in, quickly swiping it across my lashes just as a knock sounded on my front door.
“Shit!” I yelped, jumping in place and nearly stabbing myself in the eye. Abandoning my task, I rushed to the front door and pulled it open. “Sorry, sorry. I’m running a bit behind, but I’m almost ready!”
Nona stepped inside and closed the door behind her. “Don’t sweat it. The band doesn’t start ’til after eight anyway.”
My shoulders slumped in relief as we started down the hall to my room. “Okay, good. I just need to finish my makeup real quick and find something to wear.”
Nona’s voice followed me as I reentered my bathroom. “You concentrate on the face, I’ll handle the wardrobe. Sound like a plan?”
“Perfect,” I replied, renewing my work on my mascara. Two coats, a bit of blusher, and some pink-tinted gloss later, I was done.
When I stepped out of the bathroom, I jerked to a halt at the clothes Nona had laid out on the bed for me. No way in hell I was wearing what she’d chosen.
“Uh, no offense, but I can’t wear that.” The bootcut jeans hadn’t fit right in so long that I wondered why I hadn’t thrown them out yet.
The top was a splurge purchase, and a huge mistake at that.
The shimmery cream sweater draped off one shoulder and had a weave so open it required something beneath to keep from showing everything off.
However, the thin-strapped gold tank it came with hugged me tighter than I liked, and hung far lower than I was comfortable with, showing off more than just a hint of cleavage.
To be honest, the only thing she’d picked that I didn’t mind wearing were the tan suede booties with a four-inch heel and a flashy gold zipper up the back.
“What? Why not?” she chirped. “You’d look amazing in that.”
“It doesn’t fit,” I argued. “I should’ve gotten rid of it all, not packed it when I moved here.”
She arched a single brow and scrunched her mouth to the side. “Oh please.”
“I’m serious! The tank and jeans are way too tight.”
She wasn’t giving up. “I’ll be the judge of that. Go try it on.”
We had a mini–stare off before I finally conceded with a roll of my eyes, grabbing the clothes off the bed before heading back into the bathroom.
I shimmied the jeans over my hips and did the button, surprised they cinched as easily as they did.
I was usually a size twelve, a fourteen whenever I was bloated, and a ten on a good day—which were few and far between.
These were tens, but they didn’t cut into my belly the way I thought they would.
Once I had them in place, I slipped the tank over my head.
The clothes didn’t fit as badly as I remembered, but for a woman who basically lived in sweats and T-shirts most days, wearing something that hugged me at all was uncomfortable.
It made me feel like each and every one of my flaws was on display.
Pulling the sweater on, I untucked my hair from the collar and flipped it over my shoulders. The gold hues of the top actually looked great against my hair and skin tone, but I wasn’t sure about wearing pants that lacked an elastic waist.
Stepping out of the bathroom, I held my arms out and declared, “See? It’s too tight.”
“Are you out of your mind?” she cried, looking at me like I’d just grown a horn out of the center of my forehead. “Honey, you look fantastic!”
I glanced down at the pooch in my belly. Lifting my hands, I rested them on it and pushed. “I look fat.”
“Shut up.” My head shot up at the sharpness in her tone, and when I met her gaze, frustration was flashing back at me.
“You are not fat, Eden. I don’t know what happened to make you have such a low opinion of yourself, but you’re absolutely beautiful, and I won’t stand to hear you say another damn negative thing about yourself. ”
Pulling my bottom lip between my teeth, I bit down, turning my head away as embarrassment coursed through me.
“Hey now.” Nona’s voice went gentle just as quickly as it had hardened, and she rested a palm on my cheek, forcing me to turn my face back to her.
“I’m sorry. That came out harsher than I intended.
I just hate how you put yourself down constantly, and that you don’t see yourself as you really are.
You wanna tell me what brought on the negative self-image? ”
I’d been hoping to keep my past a secret a little longer, fearing it would tarnish what people thought of me.
But I was discovering that if I wanted this friendship with Nona to work—and I really did—I was going to have to be honest about who I was and where I came from.
I’d just have to hope for the best and trust her to be the truly good person I’d come to believe her to be.
“I didn’t exactly have the best upbringing,” I finally admitted, moving to the bed and taking a seat.
If I was going to dive into all this, I might as well get comfortable.
“To put it plainly, my parents were drunks and assholes. I spent my childhood moving around all over the country because they were either running from the cops or someone else.”
“Oh shit,” she muttered on a cringe.
“Yeah,” I deadpanned. “I have a big brother who’s a chip off the old block, as well. Just as bad, if not worse. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the three of them could be mean as hell when they were drunk, which they were more than they were sober.”
“God, Eden. I’m so sorry.”
I shrugged like it was nothing, even though the memories still caused a pain that refused to be ignored.
“They are who they are. If they weren’t accusing me of thinking I was better than them, they were tearing me down every chance they got.
As soon as I was old enough and had enough money, I bailed.
Haven’t looked back since. I moved around, mainly because it was all I knew, but also because I was trying to find the perfect place to start over.
I never had a forever home. Not until I moved here, that is.
” A bitter laugh trickled up my throat. “I promised myself I was gonna start fresh, be a different person with no ugly ties to the rest of the Brenners, but I guess leaving all that behind was harder than I thought. It’s hard not to look at myself and see what they taught me to see for years, you know? ”
“Oh, sweetie.” Nona sat down beside me and wrapped me in a sideways hug.
“They were wrong. They were so very wrong, and terrible for making you feel like this.” Her arms fell away, and she shifted to face me and grab my hands, holding tight.
“You’re a knockout. And I’m not just saying that ’cause you’re my friend and I adore you.
You really and truly are. Inside and out.
And I promise, as someone who’s grown to know and care about you, I’ll repeat that to you as often as you need until you start to see yourself that way. ”
My fingers clenched around hers, and my sinuses began to sting with unshed tears. I managed to get ahold of myself and sniffed the emotions back. “You’re amazing, No. Anyone ever tell you that?”
Her face split in a snarky grin. “Oh, doll. If I had a nickel for all the times I heard that, I’d have a mansion on the beach in Fiji by now and my kids would be getting Ferraris for their sixteenth birthdays.”
Pulling my hands away, I gave her a playful smack on the arm. “All right. The emotional portion of the evening is over.”