Chapter 16 #3
He grabbed a towel from under the sink and handed it to me. “Get that Smurf makeup off you, Officer.” He winked, and we both chuckled.
“Don’t get on my bad side because I’ll have to handcuff you, Mase.”
“That’s all I’ve ever dreamed of.” He shook his head, his smirk stretching his lips wider, and shut the door after him.
I gasped when I took in my reflection in the mirror. Okay, I really looked like a blue humanoid creature. Mason hadn’t exaggerated.
Under the hot stream of water, I closed my eyes, wondering how the hell I had ended up naked in his bathroom of all places.
Meghan exchanged a glance with her twin sister. “Our mom asked us to watch our calorie intake because we need to fly home to attend a charitable event next month. She said we better fit into the custom gowns she ordered, or else she would put us on a strict diet.”
Meghan and Victoria were both super skinny, having a hard time gaining weight after battling anorexia for almost a decade.
Their parents were overachieving individuals, and the pressure they put on their kids while growing up became too much.
They both put their work before their family, and the girls ended up struggling not only with eating habits, but with trichotillomania too, a disease where they pulled out their own hair in a compulsive manner.
Victoria ended up with cardiac issues at some point, and only then had their parents noticed their daughters’ pain.
They rarely opened up about their struggles, but when they did, I couldn’t help feeling murderous toward their parents. They didn’t cause their daughters’ mental health issues, but they enabled them the moment they showed any progress.
Luciana helped them come up with strategies to talk about their feelings with their parents. She offered to see them in her office later this week, since it was kind of a big deal.
Melody informed us that she had eaten a meal while surrounded by three people, which was a huge achievement for her, and Samuel said he ate a chocolate bar yesterday and didn’t feel guilty.
“What about you, Melinda?” Luciana asked. “You’ve been silent a lot so far today. Any problem with your meal tracking or training?”
“No. I don’t struggle so much with calorie intake these days. I’m super busy, so I don’t have time to think about it too much.”
“You know, keeping yourself too busy is also a form of avoidance, right? It gives you the illusion that you’re imposing some kind of control on yourself.”
“I’m journaling every morning, and I’m really doing my best to let go as much as possible. I eat three meals a day and always try to make healthy choices as much as I can. It’s the other things that I struggle with.”
“What other things?”
“Huh…let’s see. I told someone truths I didn’t wanna tell him. It just spilled out—personal stuff I never intended to share with anyone. Now I’m not sure where we stand and how it will affect our relationship.”
“Is it information that this person can use against you?”
I shook my head, my face buried in my palms. “Nah. It’s just… I didn’t want him to know that about me. We were fighting and—”
“Fighting?” Luciana asked with question marks filling her gaze.
“Not fighting fighting, but more like arguing. It got messy, but not in a bad way. Maybe I’m overreacting.”
“Melinda, don’t judge your reactions. Instead, ask yourself why you reacted the way you did. What triggered you? What were you trying to say? How could your message have been perceived differently from what you intended?”
I took a big inhale. “I think we dealt with stuff that needed to be dealt with. I’m just not sure why I blurted it all out.”
“Perhaps a part of you wanted him to know things, no? Or maybe, subconsciously, you wanted to clear the air between you two? Could I be right?”
I offered her a one-shoulder shrug. “Maybe.”
“Think about it. We’ll circle back to you in a few minutes.” She clasped her hands in her lap. “Okay, people. I wanted to talk to you about something. For our next meeting, we’ll—”
My brain didn’t register what she was saying, too busy reeling back to what she had said about a part of me wanting to spill the truths about Jayden’s and my relationship to Mason.
Could she be right?
Once again, she forced me to assess my feelings.
Luciana had told us on our first session that we were all accountable for our words, thoughts, and actions, and that it would help us recognize our good and bad patterns, identify our challenges, build up our self-esteem, reduce our feelings of isolation and shame, and encourage us to be consistent in our eating habits.
She described her group sessions as a way to foster accountability in our recovery.
Same as journaling, meal tracking, or check-ins with a peer—someone who could encourage us while providing nonjudgmental support. To me, this person was Donovan.
I was aware that her reasoning made sense, it really did, but it wasn’t easy to put it into action and be fully vulnerable with ourselves and others.
And yet, Mason had succeeded every single time we bantered since we’d reconnected. Without knowing it, I was more honest with him than with any other person I knew.
The only thing I was keeping from him was my true feelings for him. If I wasn’t careful, soon even that wouldn’t remain a secret between us, and I’d blurt it all out at the worst possible moment.
If I couldn’t trust my subconscious, what was I supposed to do now?