Chapter 14 Sloane
SLOANE
Ilay in his bed, in just my tank top and panties, for far longer than what is socially expectable for someone who just got left.
He had me, and he walked away.
I guess that I shouldn’t really be surprised. No one else has ever chosen me first before. I suppose that this shouldn’t really be any different.
I was willing to let my insecurities go, to let him see me in a way only one other person had ever seen me, and he left without a second thought.
Like it meant nothing. Like I was nothing.
I’m being a little selfish. Because, of course, he’s out there saving lives or whatever.
But it still hurts.
Never being chosen really fucking hurts.
I get off his bed, grab my stuff, and head to my room. I grab a fresh change of clothes and hop into the shower.
I guess this just solidifies what I’d been thinking earlier; my day hadn’t been great.
I’d been rejected from one of the brands I’d been trying to secure a deal with for months.
Sorry, we’re not looking for models in your size right now, the email said.
Which all but means, you’re not a size 00, therefore we don’t want you to rep our clothing.
You’re also not plus-sized, so inclusivity doesn’t include you.
And then, paired with my stupidly reading some of the hateful things said about my body in the comment sections of yesterday’s workout video I posted, I had no self-esteem left.
He made me feel special. He kissed me and touched me like I was his whole world, and then he walked away like I was nothing.
I stand in the shower, feeling the water raining down on me, and I feel empty. I wish we’d stayed outside. I wish I weren’t so easily swayed by his influence. I wish I were someone worth choosing.
My heart aches as my brain whispers things that I can never seem to escape, no matter how small I get. It’s not until I start to shave my legs that I finally allow myself to cry.
I start off by crying about what just happened, and next thing I know, I’m crying about every little thing that’s wrong in my life, and about everything that I could possibly be sad about.
It’s not fair.
I realized a long time ago that life isn’t fair. Because if it were, I wouldn’t feel this way all the time. I wouldn’t feel like I wasn’t worth anything. I wouldn’t feel like such a disappointment or a failure all the time. If life were fair, I’d have parents who cared.
But life’s not fair.
And no one in my life really gives a shit about me.
I’ll always just be the fat girl who never really had anything going for her. Because even though I might not look like that girl on the outside anymore. I will always be the girl whom no one ever looked twice at.
I slide down the shower wall and curl up in a ball, making myself feel as small as possible. My body wracks with silent sobs as I let it all out.
When I’m all out of tears, I pick myself up off the floor and finish my shower. I get dressed in the baggiest clothes I own and curl up in bed, because I don’t want to do anything else other than feel sorry for myself.
The next morning, I still feel like shit.
My eyes are red as I stare at myself in the mirror.
My hair is a mess from tossing and turning all night long.
I tip my head to the side and wonder what he ever saw in me, or if he just wanted my body.
Maybe I’m just not enough. Maybe I’m not what he thought. Maybe he was expecting more.
I can’t look in the mirror too long, so I splash cold water onto my face and run a brush through my hair before pulling it up out of my face.
I go downstairs to make breakfast, and there’s a mason jar filled with pink, heart-shaped suckers. The jar is sitting on top of a note.
I should throw them in the trash. He isn’t allowed to make me feel special, then throw me away, just to do something like this.
I deserve better than this. I deserve someone who will choose me no matter what. Not someone who will only ever be married to their job.
But looking at the stupid pink suckers, I can’t help but smile the smallest smile that graces my face.
Besides, it would be a waste to throw away all these perfectly good suckers. They didn’t do anything wrong.
On Sunday, I take my car, and I go for a long drive. I drive and drive, one tank of gas, then another to get myself home.
When I get into my room, there’s a new piece of furniture pushed up against the wall, under the window.
A desk. He built me a desk. He’d even arranged it with my makeup, a few books, pens, my laptop, iPad, and tripod.
I run my finger over the wood top. Dark brown with black metal legs, it matches the rest of the furniture in the room.
I don’t go find him; not immediately, anyway. I’m still mad and feeling sorry for myself.
I hate myself for being so weak, for being so willing to forgive and forget because he did one nice thing for me after crushing any self-confidence I’d managed to grow around him.
What kind of person does that make me?
I’m so fucking pathetic that I’m willing to just throw myself at the first man who gives me any kind of attention. I’m better than that. I have to be better than that. I can’t keep letting myself get walked on because of the person I used to be.
Beckett
Will you come downstairs?
Me
Why?
Beckett
To eat dinner.
Me
I’m not hungry.
Beckett
Please?
That’s not fair. He can’t say please, not after the way he acted. Regardless of what my brain tells me to do, my heart wins. I get up and go downstairs.
“Thank you for the desk,” I mumble, taking a sip from the tea he’d made.
“What desk?” He asks, playing dumb. I roll my eyes.
“The one that wasn’t in my room when I left this morning, but is now,” I sass, watching him carefully. He gives nothing away.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“So what? The furniture fairy just stopped by, looked around, and figured that I would need a desk.”
“I was tired of your shit being everywhere. It’s not a big deal, it’s just a desk,” he says, his words holding a little bite, but there’s no heat in his eyes when they find mine.
Does he think that I’m messy? Have I not been doing a good job at cleaning up after myself? My brain starts to overwhelm itself with a million questions, the voice in my head being louder than whatever it is that he’s saying to me.
I somehow keep my cool and answer softly, turning back to what’s left of my food. “Thank you, anyway.”
“Don’t mention it.”
We fall into a tense silence where neither of us knows what to say.
Fuck. Stop fucking crying, Sloane. I scold myself as I feel the tears try to build. I’m fucking tired of feeling like a fucking victim. I was so confident before I came back here. Now I’m home for a few weeks, and this stupid man has turned me back into the blubbering idiot I was before I left.
“I need to apologize for the other night, for everything that has happened this month. The way I’ve been treating you isn’t ok.”
“Water under the bridge,” I mumble as I scroll on my phone.
“No, it’s not. I’ve been a dick, and you deserve better than that,” he says, and I shrug.
I’m trying to stay nonchalant, but it isn’t working as much as I want it to, because I’m not a nonchalant girl; I’m an overthinking, overdramatic girl, who has never been nonchalant about anything in her twenty-one years of living.
“Sloane.”
“What, Beckett? You’ve made yourself perfectly clear.
We can’t do this; we shouldn’t do this; your job comes first, my dad comes first. I got it, you don’t need to keep saying it.
We can just pretend that none of it happened.
Thanks for being kind and accommodating.
I’m more than happy to move out if you need me to, doesn’t matter to me. ”
He takes the phone out of my hand and sets it on the counter. He spins the barstool I’m sitting on and makes me look at him.
“I don’t want you to leave.”
“Then what the fuck do you want!? Because your actions are confusing as hell, and they don’t ever match your words.”
He answers me by kissing me, soft, sweet, gentle. It only lasts a few seconds before he pulls away.
“I want things that I shouldn’t, that I can’t have. But fuck, I want to take them anyway, Sloane.”
He rests his forehead on mine, and my fingers gently grasp his shirt. I close my eyes. I shouldn’t forgive him, not like this, not at all.
He’s hurt me, and he’s thrown me away every chance he’s gotten, but I don’t know what to do.
“If you want me to stop, then I will. I’ll leave you alone, and we can keep co-existing. But I don’t want you to leave.”
I open my eyes when his hands come up and cup my cheeks.
“I can’t keep getting hurt. I can’t just keep giving myself to people who will never see my value, who just throw me away like I’m trash.
And you can’t just run away every time you do something and regret it.
You can’t just run over me and come back and sweet-talk me with words and kisses.
I…I want more than that. I need better than that,” I whisper.
“I don’t regret any of our kisses, Sloane, and I’m sorry for making you feel like I do. You’re right, you deserve better.”
“I don’t want you to stop, but…I don’t know how to do this, any of it.” I feel my cheeks heat.
“We can do it at your speed, whatever that looks like. I’ll stop running.”
“I’m scared.”
“Me too, baby. Me too.”
“I don’t want to be the girl I used to be. And the other night made me feel like her again.”
His jaw clenches, and his nostrils flare softly. But I don’t think the anger is directed at me.