Kailyn
Iknew coming back home and accepting this job with the Blaze was a huge gamble, but it was the best decision for my career.
I’ve worked my ass off to get where I am. I’ve spent countless nights running on caffeine and adrenaline, holed up in my tiny one-bedroom apartment, cramming for exams and working alongside the best doctors and professionals at various clinics and teams.
When Thomas Preston, the General Manager of the team called me, along with Dr. Sanders, the head of the athletic trainers department, to offer me the job, I was hesitant at first, scared of being confronted by my past. After speaking with both of them, and seeing how much more I could learn from one of the best in our department, as well as having a more stable job, it was a no brainer.
Coming back home was also a plus, because I definitely missed my family.
Going to UCLA was the right decision for me, but it pulled me so far away from everyone and everything I loved. I lost a lot of time staying away. And while it was the best school to go to, that wasn’t the only reason I chose it.
These last ten years have led me to accomplishing my dreams. It’s been a long road to get here, and while I’m grateful to finally have this opportunity, I still feel like my life is missing something—or someone.
Seeing Jake Spencer in person again after all this time is like a punch to the gut.
It brought back all of the memories of us, the laughs we shared, the stolen moments when no one was looking, the lingering stares, and the way his hands felt as they roamed my body.
He was the only man to ever light my soul on fire with just one look and one touch.
He wasn’t there when it happened; the conversation that changed my life—our lives—forever. I heard exactly what he said, and it broke me completely.
I thought that I could trust him with my heart, my insecurities all laid bare for him, and to find out he broke that trust shattered any hope that I had.
Even after everything, breaking up with him was still the hardest thing I have ever done. Looking back, knowing what I know now, I regret how things ended.
These last ten years have been really good to him, not that it’s much of a surprise to me. He sat right in front of me, all six-foot-two of him, with a broad muscular build, chiseled jaw, and a body that has filled out over the years.
Even off to the side of the room, I could still see the deep brown of his eyes as they stood out just like the tick of his jaw as he stared at the floor, and the way his hair fell on his forehead, the strands stuck together by sweat.
Memories come racing back, like when he used to wrap me up in his arms, holding me close to his chest as his warmth seeped into my back. Every time he held me, I felt safe in his arms, like he saw my curves and still wanted every piece of me.
My heart knew that it was safe with him.
In high school, I was bullied for so many things; my weight, my shyness, my hair, my clothes, you name it. High schoolers can be some of the cruelest people out there. I never thought I’d find someone to see and love the real me, until him.
And then one day, reality came crashing down. I had to protect what was left of my broken heart.
I never told my brothers about us, scared to ruin everything if things ended badly between us. Scared Jake would lose his friends and I’d lose myself.
Keeping us a secret allowed me to feel safe in a way that telling people would destroy. Others would have their own opinions, either telling me to my face or spreading it all over social media. I wanted to safely live in Jake's arms for as long as time allowed me.
High school can be a scary place sometimes, especially when you're a girl. It’s also made even worse when you're related to and friends with some of the hottest guys on the hockey team and every girl wanted to get with them.
While the spotlight was on them for their good looks and their status, I got the opposite effect, being called ugly and fat, only fueling my body insecurities. When I was twelve, I was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS), and it completely changed my life.
It meant countless periods where I was in such excruciating pain that it felt like my insides were tearing me apart, horrible bouts of pain in my stomach and back that had me falling to my knees, and begging my parents to stay home from school when I couldn’t move from my bed.
I endured heavy cycles, lasting anywhere from two to fifteen days, only for it to start all over again a week later.
Endless struggles to find the right balance of diet and exercise, and still never losing weight despite everything.
I’ll never forget the countless doctors who wrote me off and said that if I lost weight, all my symptoms would go away.
News flash, they were just misogynistic men who didn’t take the time to listen to me.
At twenty-seven years old, every day is a struggle with my health.
I eat right, exercise when I can, and still there’s no medicine or cure to help me.
The only thing that helps is my birth control, and all that’s done is decrease the frequency of my periods, but not the pain and symptoms that come with.
So I take it one day at a time and hope for the best.
But no matter what I do, I’ve just never been able to look like other girls. It’s been my biggest insecurity my entire life.
I’ve always had curves and been bigger than most girls my age. In a world where everything is about beauty and image, it was safe to say that I wasn’t very high up on either of those lists. I wore clothes two to three times bigger than others and never looked the same in my jeans like they did.
Stretch marks marred my hips and waist, and all I wanted to do was cover them with make up. That, plus having back rolls, usually meant hiding underneath as many layers of clothes as possible.
Eating in front of others was a challenge, too, being judged for everything that I consumed, especially during lunch time. I ended up starving myself sometimes until I got home from school afraid of what kids would say or do.
With recent changes in the healthcare world, they’ve renamed PCOS to Polyendocrine Metabolic Ovarian Syndrome (PMOS), to hopefully reflect the experience many women go through.
It’s given me hope that people will finally start to understand or take me seriously when I tell them what I’m going through.
Hopefully, more positive changes and advances mean better solutions and help for us.
After moving to L.A. and finally getting into therapy, thanks to my sister, Lainey, and my best friend, Bellamy, I started to unpack all of the self doubt and insecurities I had about myself, finding better ways to cope and process my emotions.
Therapy gave me the confidence in myself that I was desperately missing, but there’s still times when those voices at the back of my head come out and want to be heard louder than anything else, making me feel worthless and disgusting.
But it also gave me the courage to say yes to the Blaze and move back home.
I knew accepting this job would mean seeing Jake again, and I tried to come to terms with that as best as I could, but nothing could have prepared me for the way my heart twisted and my gut sank seeing him sitting right in front of me.
It reminded me of how much growth I’ve done in the last ten years, thanks to therapy, and how much work I still have to do on myself.
After weighing my options and talking to Lainey, I knew coming back home and taking this job was ultimately the right decision for me.
I also knew that there would be some challenges facing me, mainly a 6’2” beautiful man that broke my heart with just a few words.
One day after school, I was waiting for Jake by the locker room when I overheard some of the girls talking about how they wanted to ask him out and see which one of them could kiss him first. Startled, I hid around the corner, hoping they didn’t see me.
Luck was not on my side.
I heard one girl loudly proclaim something about me. “Any of us are better options than that fat loser, Kailyn.” They all erupted into cheers, laughing at my expense.
I ran home, crying in tears over how nasty those girls were.
I ended up calling Bellamy, and she came over, holding me while I sobbed onto her shoulder. She tried reassuring me that Jake truly cared for me, that he looked at me like I hung the stars and the moon, and I believed her, pushing my insecurities aside to trust in Jake.
Then one night a couple weeks later, we went on a date.
He took me to our favorite diner in town, Sunrise Cravings, and we sat in the back and laughed all night while eating burgers and sharing a milkshake.
With him, I felt like I could be myself, eating what I wanted and not having to watch every calorie or carb that went into my body.
He let me pick what I wanted and never judged my choices, making me feel safe with him.
Everything was going perfect, until it wasn’t.
I had gotten up to go to the bathroom and when I came back, I saw one of the girls on the cheerleading team sitting next to him, touching him and flirting with him. It was the same girl that made fun of me in the locker room, and my heart sank into my stomach because I knew what she was doing.
“Why are you even entertaining her, when you know you could have a real woman like me? She’s nothing compared to me.”
I didn’t even stick around to find out what he said.
I ran back to the bathroom and held myself up for just a few more minutes, trying to fight off the tears that were burning behind my eyes.
When I returned to him, all I wanted to do was go home and cry myself to sleep because even though I knew exactly what game she was playing, her words hit me right in the center of my chest. Her words had their intended effect, making me doubt if I was good enough for him.