Page 4 of Never the Best

Hattie was my mother's third cousin by marriage. As was the norm in the South, she wasalsoRhett'sactualaunt, his mother's sister. After what happened with Rhett, she sort of adopted me. She was the one who told me to get the hell out of Dodge and go to college far, far away. She'd been there for me more than my mother or brother ever had. She became my guardian angel, my source of strength after what Rhett did.

My father had passed away when I was nine years old, so he, thankfully, hadn't had to deal with the rumors and innuendos of when Fat Pearl, fondly called Bumblebee (there was once a Halloween costume that Mama insisted I wear), had foolishly set her sights on Rhett Vanderbilt. He'd done what he was supposed to; taken advantage of my stupid ass anddiscarded me in public. As these things always went, it was the girl's fault. She was the fool, the slut, the whore. The boy? Well, he was just doing his duty, sticking his dick into whomever let him.

"If you grind your teeth any harder, there will be none left for you to chew your food," whispered Layla Warren, my boss and Savannah Lace's Chief Financial Officer.

I grinned.

Layla knew my history with Rhett; in fact, she and our CEO, Nina Davenport, had checked with me to see if I was okay workingwith Rhett's financial consulting firm. As Savannah Lace grew, we had to navigate new financial regulations and overhaul our systems and policies to stay compliant. This was where Vanderbilt Finance stepped in. Rhett had built a company that specialized not only in wealth management but also in helping businesses streamline their processes, policies, and systems to ensure they conformed to ever-evolving regulations.

"I'm just listening to all the fabulous things Vanderbilt Finance is going to do for us," I remarked.

Rhett, who had been talking, paused. "Do you have a question?"

I smiled broadly, even though seeing him hurt in places I'd thought had healed.

I'd never let him know that seeing him now was devastating, that it made the hole inside me—the one he'd helped create—bigger and deeper. I had been so young, so naïve, and he'd destroyed all of that, and then continued to do so.

Five years after he wonthebet, he tried to apologize—though calling it an apology would be generous. It wasn’t your typical “I’m sorry.” It was more like, “I’m sorry, and you should be grateful I’m even bothering to say it.” When I didn’t immediately fall at his feet to forgive him, he had the audacity to accuse me of being rude, as if I should've been honored by his half-assed attempt to excuse the mess he’d made of my life.

Because of Rhett, my trust issues were as vast and impassable as the Grand Canyon. I dated, but always cautiously—so cautiously, in fact, that the possibility of a real relationship never even existed. I had sex, but it was always casual, deliberately so. I mainly chose men I didn’t know, who I met through apps like Tinder, where anonymity felt safer. And even now, after losing so much weight, I still insisted on keeping the lights off during sex. It wasn’t about how I looked anymore, it was about the fear that someone might judge my body, the same way I still silently did myself, because no matter what the scale said, my mirror told me I was fat and ugly.

My weight loss, however, had not been intentional, and came at a significant cost. My eating disorder was born from the humiliation I suffered as a child and teenager because of my weight. The fear of being seen as obese took root so deeply that I starved myself to have some semblance of control. For years, food was the enemy, every bite a battleground between guilt and survival. It took countless therapy sessions to unlearn those thoughts, to see food as nourishment instead of punishment, and to remind myself that my worth had nothing to do with a number on a scale. Thejourney I was on was long, painful, and never-ending. I fought hard, sometimes every day, to reclaim my life.

But I had triggers, and when I got depressed or anxious, my first response was to stop eating.

My life was a constant balancing act—and even though I played the part of the confident, size-six, tough bitch, the truth was that, when I looked at my body, all I ever saw was Fat Pearl. Body dysmorphia was a relentless, insidious voice in my head, always whispering that I wasn’t good enough, wasn’t thin enough—wasn’tenough, period.

Some days, I could silence the self-loathing by drowning it out with logic and self-compassion. Other days, it consumed me. Even after all the progress I’d made, old wounds still lingered beneath the surface, waiting for the right moment to remind me they were never truly gone.

So, let no one tell you that all wounds heal over time, because some deep ones never do. Mine hadn't. But I was adept at masking; I wouldn't let people see me as weak, not ever again. I wouldn't allow it. My entire life had become about wearing armor to protect myself, to never be vulnerable again.

"I was just telling Layla how excited I am about working with your team," I lied. He wouldn't know I was lying because he, like everyone else, only saw in me what I allowed them to.

It was also not my first lie to Rhett that day.

He had come into my office before the meeting to ask me how I felt about Savannah Lace hiring his company. My response and demeanor were SoCal breezy.

"According to Layla, your team does excellent work. I’m looking forward to working with y'all," I deliberately misunderstood what he was asking.

He cleared his throat. "I meant," he paused and took a deep breath, "I want to talk about what happened."

"When?" I asked, my affected confusion evident.

"Come on, Pearl, you know?—"

"Are we talking about high school here?" I cracked my face to look amused.

He flushed. "Yes, Pearl, we are. What I did was…I regret it so much and?—"

"Good God, you're still on about that?" I laughed with what he'd assume was humor. I waved a hand. "Let it go, Rhett. We're here to work together, yeah? So, that's what we'll do. I don't have a problem with it. Do you?"

"No. I just…I wanted to be considerate of your feelings."

Now, you want to be considerate, you piece of shit!

"It's been fifteen years, Rhett; I can assure you that my feelings are not stuck in the sixteenth year of my life."Only if that were true!

He looked at me in disbelief.

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