1. Athena #2
No one marries the girl who lets herself go.
Every meal monitored.
Every dessert negotiated.
Every bite framed as a moral decision.
That’s the life women are expected to live whether it’s healthy or not.
I didn’t spend years dragging myself out of an eating disorder just to sign up again.
I’m heavier now because at five-eight, a hundred and fifteen pounds was something teenage me was expected to maintain.
I lift, I’m stronger than Nathan Jr., and food and I finally get along.
I take one slow breath, then another. “Get out,” I say quietly.
Nate scoffs. “Don’t be silly, Athena.”
“Get,” I repeat, louder now, “out!”
Lila finally scrambles out of the bed and starts gathering her clothes off the floor with shaking hands, and Nate looks at me like he can’t decide whether this is inconvenient or amusing. “You’re being ridiculous.”
“This is my apartment.”
The argument spirals quickly after that.
Voices rise.
Accusations fly.
Nate insists I’m being emotional, Lila keeps trying to speak but I cut her off every time she opens her mouth, and somewhere in the middle of it all I grab the pile of Nate’s clothes off the floor and throw them directly at his chest.
“Take them,” I snap. “Take all of it.”
Finally Nate yanks his shirt over his head and storms toward the door while Lila follows behind him, eyes fixed firmly on the floor.
“You’re going to regret this,” he says.
“Not tonight,” I reply.
The door slams hard enough to rattle the wall, and the silence that follows feels enormous. I stand there for a long time without moving.
Eventually my knees give out. I slide down the wall and land on the floor with my back pressed against the door. My phone buzzes somewhere in my coat pocket.
Then it buzzes again.
Then again.
I don’t answer.
Instead I sit there while the echoes of my mother’s voice replay in my head like a greatest hits album of emotional sabotage.
Control disguised as care.
Shame wrapped in love.
After a while I drag myself upright and grab my phone.
The screen lights up with messages from friends asking where I disappeared to after work, and suddenly the idea of sitting alone in this apartment feels unbearable.
So I text them back.
Twenty minutes later they’re outside.
They take one look at my face and immediately declare that we are going out.
Boston at night is loud and bright and determined to distract people from their problems, and the bar they drag me into is packed with students and hospital staff blowing off steam after long shifts.
Dinner turns into drinks.
Drinks turn into more drinks.
Someone orders fries, someone else orders tequila, and at some point the room starts tilting gently from side to side.
“Bathroom,” I mumble.
I stumble down the narrow hallway toward the restroom and brace myself against the sink while the fluorescent lights hum overhead.
My reflection looks furious, hurt, and a little reckless. This is the perfect moment for the idea that arrives, and a moment later I’ve entered a cubicle and taken off my top.
I slip out my phone and flip to the camera, then give the screen a quick once-over like I’m judging art, except the subject is my bare chest and I’m clearly biased.
I angle it a little higher, then a little lower, testing what flatters best, rolling one shoulder back so my breasts sit fuller and more tempting in the frame.
My mouth quirks at my own shamelessness as I adjust again, making sure the shot catches every soft curve, every teasing detail. When I’m finally satisfied, I take the shot.
My thumb hovers over Nate’s contact for half a second.
Then I type four simple words.
Look what you’re missing out on.
Five minutes later, my friends check on me while I’m trying to take an even better photo, and they confiscate my phone. I put my top back on, step out, and immediately blurt the truth. Unfortunately, that is five minutes too late.
“Okay,” Maya says carefully while steering me toward the door of the bar. “We are going home now.”
“I’m fine,” I insist, which is a lie so obvious that even the bartender snorts.
“You’re not fine,” says Rachel, grabbing my coat and shoving my arms into it like I’m a slightly uncooperative toddler. “You’re drunk, angry, and texting men who do not deserve the privilege.”
“Technically,” I say, swaying slightly as we step out into the cold Boston night, “I texted only one man.”
“Yes,” Maya replies. “That’s the problem.”
The October breeze stings my cheeks and clears approximately none of the tequila fog from my brain.
The street outside the bar glows with the yellow wash of streetlights, cars sliding past in steady lines while people laugh and argue and move around us like the city is one big restless organism.
“Do you want pizza?” Rachel asks.
“I already bought dinner,” I mumble.
“What happened to it?”
“I wasn’t hungry anymore.”
Rachel kisses the side of my head. “It’s gonna be okay, Athena. Maybe not today or in a few weeks, even. But the guy was an asshole and we kept telling you he’d let you down. You’re actually free, and you’ll see that soon.”
“It’s not just him,” I whisper, and my throat feels scratchy. “It’s Lila too.”
Rachel falls quiet. “Yeah,” she mumbles. “That was a real bummer.”
They herd me into a rideshare like two very patient sheepdogs, and I spend most of the ride staring out the window while the city blurs past in streaks of red brake lights and glowing storefronts.
My brain keeps replaying the scene from the apartment—the bed, the sheets, Nathan’s voice.
If you maintained yourself.
The words dig in deeper each time they repeat. Maya nudges my shoulder gently. “Hey.”
“I’m okay,” I say automatically.
“You don’t look okay.”
“That’s because I’m drunk.”
“That’s also because you just caught your boyfriend in bed with your best friend.”
“Former boyfriend,” Rachel corrects from the front seat.
“Former best friend,” I add.
Maya squeezes my hand.
“We’re proud of you for throwing them out.”
“I threw a shoe,” I mumble.
“Symbolic.”
The car stops in front of my building ten minutes later, and they escort me upstairs like an exhausted celebrity being smuggled past paparazzi.
The apartment still smells faintly like Thai food. I glance down the hallway toward the bedroom and immediately decide that I will not be going in there tonight.
“Couch,” I announce.
“Excellent choice,” Rachel says.
They fuss over me for a few minutes, which mostly involves forcing me to drink water and removing my shoes before I fall over.
“You text us if you need anything,” Maya says.
“I will.”
“Even if it’s three in the morning.”
“I won’t.”
Rachel points a stern finger at me.
“You will.”
“Fine.”
They linger another minute before finally heading out, and the apartment falls quiet again once the door clicks shut behind them. I collapse onto the couch without bothering to change clothes.
The ceiling spins slightly above me.
Somewhere in the distance a siren wails through the city streets, and the sound blends into the dull ache building behind my eyes.
I think briefly about the photo I sent. Then I decide that’s a problem for tomorrow’s Athena. Tonight’s Athena is going to sleep. The last thing I remember is the faint trill of my phone vibrating somewhere near my hand. Then everything fades.
Morning arrives like an act of violence. Light punches through the apartment windows and lands directly on my face, and my head feels like someone replaced my brain with a bag of angry bees.
“Fantastic,” I croak, and make a face at the sour undertone on my tongue.
I squint toward the coffee table where my phone is lying beside the empty pizza box I apparently ordered sometime after my friends left.
That seems on brand.
I reach for the phone slowly, because sudden movements feel dangerous.
The screen lights up immediately, and a message notification sits at the top. My stomach twists.
Right.
The photo.
The text.
The extremely mature decision to drunk-message my cheating ex at midnight.
“This is going to be humiliating,” I mutter.
I open the message thread. The reply is short.
Wrong number, Athena. Are you okay? —Nathan.
My stomach drops straight through the floor. The photo is still there, and so is the caption.
Look what you’re missing out on.
And the name at the top of the conversation does not say Nathan Clarke Jr.
It says Nathan Clarke.
My heart slams against my ribs.
That number isn’t my ex’s at all. It’s his father’s—Dr. Nathan Clarke, chief of trauma surgery, my boss, and the dangerously handsome silver-fox fantasy I’ve spent a very long time refusing to examine too closely, mostly because every possible version of that thought ends somewhere between inappropriate and career-ending.