Page 28 of The Ground Beneath Our Feet
If I thought she was pretty while hanging out, it was nothing like the way she looked after she’d worked out. My God. Her skin glowed. Her eyes were shining.
But she shuffled into the kitchen, deflated. I’d been chopping vegetables for soup.
“What’s up, babe? How’d it go at the gym?”
She glared at me. “It sucked.”
I chuckled. “First day’s always hard. You’ll be sore tomorrow. It will get better.”
Opening up the fridge, she got out a bottle of water and took a long drink. “Yeah, but what’s the use?”
“What do you mean, what’s the use?”
“The distance between where I want to get and where I am is so far, I shouldn’t even try.” She gestured down her body, exasperated. “This is my fate.”
I put down the knife, rinsed off my hands, dried them and came over. Reaching under her chin, I tilted it up so that she looked me in the eyes.
Bad idea, though. Her eyes made me want things I couldn’t have.
“What are you talking about?”
Tortellini crawled by, headed for a tasty piece of lettuce in his bowl. He’d get there in a few minutes.
She glanced around the room and back at me. At least she wasn’t flinching when I touched her. Actually, her eyes held a yearning in them I hadn’t seen from her before. When she’d come here, she’d been so scared. Some of that fear seemed to have dissipated and was replaced by a longing for something. What, I didn’t know. She sighed. “I’m about as fast as your turtle. It’s embarrassing.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Who cares how fast you are, just as long as you get there?”
“But I can’t look like this.” She gestured down her body. “I have to change. I can’t stay this way.”
Her body was so close, I could see the redness lessening in her cheeks. Her hair was damp from the shower, and she smelled like her sweet lotion.
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
Her lips popped open in a comical look of shock.
“I’m serious. Women always think they look worse than they do.”
“I can’t be. I’m so much bigger than you’re supposed to be.” She bit her lip and blinked away tears.
“Not in my book. I think you’re fucking hot. It’s society that’s fucked, not you.”
She tilted her head, which made her look even prettier. I wanted to lean over and kiss those swollen lips. But I knew I had to stay away. Hands off.
Except now I had both hands under her chin, and I looked into her eyes. “Tell me why a girl as pretty as you doesn’t have a boyfriend.”
Again, she seemed surprised at my bluntness, but recovered. “We broke up.”
“Why’d you break up?”
“A lot of reasons. He wasn’t into me. I stayed busy with school, and then work, and I always had to take care of my family. I didn’t have time for a relationship, even one like ours that wasn’t great. I tried really hard, but he just didn’t pay that much attention to me.”
“Asshole.”
She laughed.
“It’s true,” I said. And without thinking, I kissed her cheek. It was soft, smooth, and lovely. “Anyone who deserves you knows you’re a pretty princess who should be worshiped. Not ignored.”
Her hand reached up to her cheek, and she held it there, suspended.
