Page 90 of Glass Jawed
Her pacing slows. She looks anywhere but at me. “Your home.”
I squeeze my eyes shut.
“I didn’t know what to expect. Maybe a one-night distraction. Maybe regret. What Ididn’texpect—was to feel like a fucking object.”
My entire chest constricts. I can’t move. Can’t breathe. I want to interrupt. I don’t—because I don’tgetto interrupt.
“He didn’t even look at me. He didn’t talk. Didn’t check in. Just...usedme. Like a toy. I remember staring at the ceiling, wondering if I should ask him to stop, wondering how thefuckI got there in the first place.”
Her hands tremble now, but she doesn’t stop.
“Then he threw me off the bed,” her voice shakes. “I carried the fucking bruises on my hips for aweek!”
I can’t help but wince. I remember her being on the floor. But hethrewher? What kind of monster just fucking throws somebody off the bed? Christ. She was hurt. She was inpainand I—
“I didn’t even feel human. And then—then—you walked in and obliterated me in a whole new way.”
I flinch. Physically. Like her words just backhanded me.
She turns to me now, and for the first time tonight, her voice cracks. “You looked at me like I was a disease. The homewreckingslut.”
Her lip curls as she repeats, almost shaking, “You... you looked at my naked chest and said,if you wanted to fuck a woman, you could’ve found one who actually looked like one.”
Oh God.
That wasme.
That was my voice. My words. Myvenom.
She starts pacing again, more agitated now. The calm has shattered.
“I’ve been calledless of a womanmy whole fucking life. Too skinny. Too flat.’Do you even eat?’. ’Oh look! The skeleton’s here.’My cousin brother called meanorexicforyears. My own mother sends me links to Ayurvedic oils that’ll apparently help ’fix’my boobs—to this day. As if I’mdefective.”
Her steps are sharper now. More restless.
“My ex once joked—joked—that it’s a shame he couldn’t fuck my tits. You know, since they werebarely there.”
My breath catches. My body unable to contain the rage simmering. I want to kill that bastard.
Her voice doesn’t waver, but mine would. She keeps going, each word like a blade.
“And I laughed. Ilaughedbecause what else do you do when someone reduces you to their disappointment? I laughed—and then Ispiraled.”
She stops walking. Stares at the floor like it wronged her.
“I stopped eating properly for months. Not because I was trying to lose weight—I didn’t have any fucking weight tolose. But because I hated myself. I hated existing in a body that wasn’tright. I kept shrinking like I could disappear into nothing. I didn’t want toexist.”
Oh God!My vision blackens at the edges. I can’t have her not exist. Not because ofthis.
“And when I told people I was struggling, you know what I got?”
She lifts her chin, eyes hard now.
“‘But you look like a model.’That’s what they said. They shoved cover models in my face like I should begrateful. Like I didn’t have the right to complain about beingbulliedorhumiliatedorbody-shamed—because I had the ‘right kind’of thin.”
She swallows hard.
“So I’m the ideal when I’m silent and pretty and not asking for anything. But I’m still notwoman enoughfor the real world. Not sexy enough. Not curvy enough. Not soft enough in the places that count.”
