Page 82 of Crush
“Yeah.”
“I had body image issues.”
He gave a sympathetic frown. “I'm sorry to hear it. A lot of young girls suffer with that, don't they?”
“Yeah, but mine took a slightly different path. I feel like I should show you what I showed Chloe.”
“You can show me whatever you're comfortable showing me.”
I pulled out my phone and showed him the pictures from my mom's Facebook.
“Oh, Brynn, you poor thing,” he said, a hand over his heart. “You were so thin.”
“And yet I thought I wassohealthy,” I said, flipping through the pictures. “I worked out every day. Jogging, cardio, weights. Literally every day for years.”
“That's why you became a personal trainer?”
“Yeah. I already spent hours at the gym, so why not make it my job?”
“So what happened?”
“I started having health problems in my early twenties. I started feeling weak all the time—my body was so tired, it didn'twantto work out, it wanted a break. But I couldn't accept that, and I'd never let myself rest. In a weird way, I thought I was tired because I was at the peak of physical fitness, and staying there was hard work. So I forced myself to soldier on. Until funny things started to happen, like, my hair falling out.”
He put his massive arm around me and squeezed me. “Oh, Brynn.”
“And then I started having heart palpitations, which made me so scared to justmove. And I started to feel so weak, I couldn't get out of bed. I was depressed.”
“You were married then, right?”
“Yup. My husband, Mikey, thought I was ridiculous. And even more ridiculous for not going to the doctor—but I didn't need the doctor because I was in suchgreat shape,wink wink.”
“Is that why you two got divorced?”
“Well, there's more to it than that …” I trailed off.
I took a deep breath.
Just tell him.
“I got worse. It was hard just to get out of bed. Some days I didn't. I started losing clients. Finally, Mikey managed to talk me into going to the doctor. One of the things I told the doctor, that I hadn't told Mikey, was that I'd stopped having my period. After a bunch of tests, I was told that I likely had hypothalamic amenorrhea.”
Shea tilted his head at me. “You have what now?”
“That was my reaction, too. Basically, it's a condition where menstruation temporarily stops. What had I accomplished with all my working out and dieting? I'd starved and stressed my body to the point that it halted my reproductive system. I've been infertile ever since.”
“Oh, Brynn.” Shea's mouth fell open. “I'm so sorry. But you said it's temporary?”
“The doctors say that Imightbe able to have kids someday, but no one really knows. Usually, if you get your body back in order, menstruation begins again within a few months. I had to learn to eat and not hate my body. To be okay with having fat on my body. To not want to spend hours on the treadmill to jog it all off.”
“Well, you seem like you're doing great,” Shea said, his soft eyes locked on mine. “Not only are you a great person, but you have a lovely body, Brynn. Really. You're so feminine and womanly and beautiful.”
I smiled at him. “Thank you. That means a lot, because it's not always easy.” My smile faded. “Especially because I've always been led by this promise of a light at the end of the tunnel—that someday I could get my period again. But with every day that passes, and it doesn't happen, it's like that light gets dimmer and dimmer.”
“Have you been following up with your doctor?”
“Oh, sure, but they just don't know enough about my condition. On one hand, my period could return tomorrow. On the other end, it might never happen. No one can really say.”
“Damn.”
