Which point, little Della? my eyes asked hers when I turned my head.
The one we both avoid, hers said back.
I straightened when she set her full cup next to me. “Thank you for the coffee, but I should get back to my place.”
Rolling my neck, I reached for my phone to call Dallas, only for her to shake her head. “I already texted Ren. He’ll be here in a few minutes.”
My nostrils flared.
“Don’t start,” she whispered. “He’s all I have, Theo, whether you like it or not. He’s a good person.”
My open glare wasn’t lost on her.
I wanted to tell her she was wrong. She had me too, we both knew it. But the second those words left my mouth it would change everything. It’d mean more than an innocent declaration of family—of familiarity that we were accustomed to over the years.
She didn’t need that.
I didn’t either.
Not after what I did a year ago.
So, I let her leave.
Chapter Three
Della
The mirror is not the enemy.
I repeated that to myself at least three more times before walking over to the shower and turning it on. The steam would do its job with time, fogging the glass before I peeled off the clothes that hid what I struggled seeing. Some days were better than others, but I could feel the edge of a relapse forming as anxiety bubbled in the pit of my stomach. Truth was, I didn’t hate my body. Not anymore. I learned to like it with time and therapy, but it didn’t change the days that made me see my imperfections highlighted in my reflection whenever I passed it.
It took months after starting therapy before I could turn my head when walking past storefronts to see what graced the windows staring back. A girl too thin who felt too large, worried about what the media would say when pictures floated around, or when people would turn and whisper at formal events. I would never be cured from the thoughts that plagued my mind whenever I went clothes shopping and found clothing too snug or too loose. There would always be faults—cellulite and stretch marks and things my eyes narrowed in on with an embarrassing amount of obsession. There would be days when I couldn’t fight the urge to loathe a piece of me that didn’t deserve the kind of self-hate I’d inflicted when counting my calories, then eventually my ribs when they showed because of how badly I treated myself.
But I tried and that was what mattered.
Running my hand on the piece of ripped paper with elegant scroll I’d taped onto the edge of the mirror, I took a deep breath and forced my gaze on my almost naked complexion, half hidden by the steam on the glass. Be better.
The shower I took was longer than normal, and I knew my aunt would be displeased considering I’d be undoubtedly late for our Sunday brunch. I, however, didn’t have enough energy to care. I knew my limits and needed the time to myself to prepare for everything that came with the outing. Sophie would gossip about her so-called friends and their families, making believe that she and Andrew were far better than the scandals that happened in her social circle, and belittle me for my posture, what I put onto my plate, and how I didn’t call her back when she called yesterday.
She was the last person I wanted to talk to after getting home from Theo’s house. If he were anybody else, I’d have to worry about her chastising me about what happened at the party. Thankfully, he wasn’t the kind of person to rat you out. At least, not when things like this occurred. There were few times he spoke up about what I did in my life. The only time he chose to intervene, when I wished he hadn’t, had left us with a wedge between whatever friendship we’d formed over the years. Though Sophie, and many other family members, had told me I was silly to even call it that.
“Don’t be naïve, Adele. Theo is not your friend. He’s your father’s. A man like that has no use of a girl your age.”
Perhaps it was those words that left me huddled in my room for days after he told my father that I’d been starving myself—that I’d been purging, exercising too much, moody beyond help. If what my aunt said were true, Theo wouldn’t have even bothered to tell my father of my choices he disapproved of. Looking back now, I saw that wasn’t true. He cared, perhaps more than anybody, considering nobody else was willing to speak up about what I was doing.
The missed meals.
The extra hours of exercise.
The covered mirrors.
Throat thickening, I looked at the pricks on the wall where tacks held a sheet over the large vanity mirror once upon a time. Theo had done me a favor by telling my father, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t hurt.
“What are you doing, Della?”
“Are you out of your mind, Della?”
“You could kill yourself, Della!”
I could have. Theo was right. And while that was never my end game, it was a very likely possibility when I finally looked at myself in the mirror after he’d torn the sheet off in his rampage from weeks of me shutting him out.
“Tell me what you see,” he’d demanded. When I didn’t offer him a reply, he turned to me, spine straightened to full height, and told me what he saw instead. “I see a girl who has fallen too many times to the predators of the world who want nothing more than to tear her apart, but I know that girl is much stronger than she believes. One day, that girl will become a woman who wears her confidence proudly. Want to know why, Della?”
I’d known he was going to tell me
