Page 94 of Hero's Prize

Ella still didn’t understand why Lilah was so upset. “I’m not surprised. Like I said, it sort of grew into a frenzy.”

“Do you still follow the chats about Colton?”

Ella felt her face heat at the fact that Lilah knew she did that. “No, it just hasn’t felt right since he and I got together at the wedding.”

“Good.” Lilah nodded enthusiastically. “I think that’s very healthy.”

This was the exact opposite of how she’d looked when she’dfirst come in a few minutes ago. It didn’t take a genius to put together what was going on.

“What did the social media sites say?”

Lilah shook her head. “Nothing. Never mind. I shouldn’t even have brought them up. Ignore me.”

It had to be pretty bad if her friend had come storming in here to see if Ella was okay. Ella grabbed her phone so she could open the social media networks herself.

“Elly-Belly, don’t. It’s not worth it.”

“I know I’ll eventually look anyway, so I might as well rip the Band-Aid off right here.”

Ella wasn’t sure what exactly she’d been expecting, but this was much more brutal.

Sure, there were plenty of pictures and captions about people meeting Colton, but there was a particular section, complete with hashtags, that was only about Ella.

She only skimmed through it, but the attack was thorough and savage.

“The Wyoming mountain air may be doing great things for Colton Harrison’s health, but evidently not for his eyesight.” That was attached to a picture of Ella that had been taken while she was mid-sentence with Tony, but Tony had been cropped out of the picture, so it just looked like Ella was making a weird face.

The comments got uglier from there.

“I didn’t know his standards were so low.”

“I didn’t know they made an outfit in that size. Oh, maybe she’s wearing a tent.”

It went on and on.

Plain. Chunky. Ugly.

“Elly-Belly…”

Ella jerked back from the friend she’d known most of her life. “I’ve always hated that nickname.”

Lilah blinked, then nodded slowly. “I didn’t know.”

“Yeah, because how could you know that a nickname highlighting my fat stomach would bother me?”

“You don’t have a fat stomach. But regardless, I’ll never use it again.”

Ella felt tears fill her eyes, and she wiped them angrily from her cheeks as they fell. She was yelling at one of her best friends, who had done nothing but come here in an attempt to protect and comfort her.

“I’m so?—”

Lilah cut her off. “If you finish that apology, we might have to fight. You have every right to ask us not to call you that. I’m just sorry that we never understood how much it hurt you.”

“It doesn’t hurt me as much as?—”

Lilah reached over and grabbed both of Ella’s upper arms. “It does hurt you, and I should have known that. I’m the one who’s sorry.”

“They said really mean things about me, Li.” Her voice quavered, and tears rolled down her cheeks. “I’ve always tried to be nice to people. Those are strangers who don’t even know me, and they said such horrible things.”

---