Page 16 of Never the Best

One set washis.

"Well, a woman has needs," Aunt Hattie declared.

Having been single her whole life, Aunt Hattie lived life to the fullest and had many lovers, some discreet and others not so much.

She reached out to straighten my neckline with a gentle, almost absent-minded touch. "You look gorgeous."

"Thank you." I looked down at my dark blue dress, hoping that it didn’t make me look fat. Even now, after all these years, I worried about what people would say, the Savannah people, that is.

"Hello, hello," Suellen, Josie's mother's, voice crackled loudly, followed by the tapping of a finger on a microphone.

“Well,” Hattie drawled, her voice low and rich, “looks like the show’s about to begin. Try not to roll your eyes too hard, ladies; someone might notice.”

Rose and I giggled.

I listened to the speeches and the stories about how Josie and Rhett, the loves of each other’s lives, had met with a smile on my face, even though everything inside me was shriveling to see Rhett celebrating life with another woman.

I didn'tloveRhett, no, he made sure to destroy that innocent affection—but he'd been my first lover, and right here was a reminder ofthat. He'd treated me like dirt but was elevating Josie as his future wife in society. He'd taken my virginity as part of a bet, but he'd given Josie a big fat diamond ring. He'd ridiculed my body and was now with a thin woman.

Now, I was a size six, which by societal standards was considered slim—but when I looked in the mirror, that's not what I saw. I saw every flaw magnified, every imperfection glaring back at me like an accusation.

According to my therapist, having been ridiculed by the boy who I'd given my virginity to, on top of being constantly reminded of it by my mother, classmates, and everyone in society, had led to my body dysmorphia.

My therapist had tried to teach me how to challenge those thoughts, to separate reality from the distorted image my mind conjured up. "The mirror isn’t a fact, Pearl," she’d said more than once. "It’s a filter. Your brain is showing you what it fears, not what’s true." But fear was powerful, and it whispered things I couldn’t ignore, not when I was standing here feeling every single one of my old wounds rip open.

Rhett had made sure I knew my body was unacceptable back thenafterI'd let him see me naked. God! I'd been so scared he wouldn't find me attractive. We'd been in ourfamily’s summerhouse. He'd been sweet, kind, loving, affectionate, everything that I'd ever dreamed a first lover would be. He told me I was beautiful. He was the first person to do so.

To find out after that he'd lied—that it had all been a game, and in reality, he found me hideous, and mytight virgin holewas what made it bearable to fuck me—well, that was a poison that got into my bloodstream. That day by the pool had been the beginning of my unraveling, the moment I’d started to honestly believe that my body wasn’t good enough.

"Rhett is the best partner a girl could ask for," Josie spoke into the microphone as she looked into Rhett's eyes. They looked perfect together. Beautiful. Confident. I’d bet none of them looked in the mirror or their plate of food and wondered how they could disappear into nothingness.

"I'm the luckiest girl in the world," Josie continued.

"And he's the unluckiest," Aunt Hattie murmured.

Rose chuckled. "You know what they say about marriage?"

We both waited for her to tell us.

"Life is short, marriage is long, drink up."

"That's what Shirley MacLaine said in a movie," Aunt Hattie complained. "You stole it."

"You bet I did, but it's quite apropos."

Rhett came to the microphone then, and his presence silenced the room. He was a handsome man. He had blue eyes, was well-built, and had hair that always looked casually styled but perfect. And that face? God had spent extra timecarving that one up. He looked, not hyperbole here, like a Greek god.

"I want to thank all of you for coming to celebrate this occasion with Josie and me. We're grateful for your blessings and your friendship," he spoke with quiet grace. His voice was sexy, audiobook dirty hero hot. Josie had landed herself one hunk of a man.

I could guarantee he was good in bed. If he'd been so caring and concerned about my pleasurethenwhen he was seventeen, now in his early thirties, after way more experience than most men thanks to how he looked and who he was, I was sure he'd only gotten better.

Did he remember me? Did he remember my first time? And if he did, how did he feel about it? Was he disgusted that he’d had to have sex with someone as huge as me? The thought twisted in my mind, sharp and relentless, as my eyes drifted down to my body.

Even now, I couldn’t stop the flood of self-criticism. My thighs felt massive, like they didn’t belong to me. My stomach, though flat by most standards, felt convex, pushing outward in a way that seemed grotesque. My breasts were too big—not in the way society deemed attractive, but in a way that made me feel awkward.

The mirror was my enemy. Despite years of therapy, I avoided it whenever I could, especially when I was naked. Seeing myself fully exposed wasn’t just unpleasant—it was a trigger, a doorway to the darkest parts of my mind. The irony wasn’t lost on me: the one thing I could never escape—my own body—was what made me feel the most emotionallyunbalanced. It wasn’t fair. How could a part of me so intrinsic, so inescapable, feel so foreign and wrong?

No matter how much progress I thought I’d made, in moments like these, I felt like I was back at square one. A war waged inside me, and the battlefield was my reflection.

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