Page 6 of Chase
He’ll be on my case about guys even though I’ve dated zero men since coming here because the one I want hasn’t done a damn thing about it. He stares for long moments that stretch on until we’re pulled apart. He’s shameless as he watches me from either afar or up close. Like I’m some sort of crash he can’t stop looking at. It’s both infuriating and intoxicating. I can’t stand it and want it all the same.
I may need to double up on my rise-and-shine sun salutations after kickboxing this morning. I need to steady these pesky nerves and laying here trying to belly breathe isn’t helping. I try to fill my mind with other things when a handsome face pops into my head.
I drift off in a daydream featuring a certain hockey player when my second alarm goes off giving me a warning that I’m encroaching on being seriously late. It’s easy enough to get lost in my thoughts of him. This crush has become all-consuming.
It started last semester and just won’t quit. It grows and grows each and every time I see him. It’s more than that at this point. If I admit how much I like him, the butterflies in my belly will surely riot with excitement and I’ll end up with knots of anxiety instead. And when I get anxious, I can’t always control how I manage it.
Mama and Nana would not approve or appreciate if they found me lying in bed, lounging about as if my checklist of tasks were going to check themselves. There’s nothing more satisfying than that check marking an accomplishment. I have to get up and face today even if it's going to be a different kind of Saturday.
It doesn’t matter if Mama and Nana are only in my head. The thought of disappointing them is enough to have my fingers twitching.No, I don’t need to do that right now.
I repeat that silently to myself over and over until the urge lets up. I take a deep breath to try to push my overbearing, judgmental, and ridiculing female family members out of my head and squeeze and release my balled-up hands to give my fingers something else to do.
They would lose their pretty little heads if they knew I’ve gained five pounds since returning from Europe. After being near starved on vacation by my Mama and Auntie, I have indulged every chance I could since returning to school.
Cafeteria paninis for lunch, pasta dinners with Evie, and dessert three times this past week have gone straight to my thighs. I think they look good like this but Mama would surely have an aneurysm. I can hear her loud and clear,“Honestly, Sloane, for being such a smart girl, it’s clear ya still can’t figure out how to keep Jason interested. You need to be watchin’ your figure, men like him expect perfection and ya have to work harder if he’s gonna keep you at his side.”
It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve told her and how many years have passed, my mother has taken my high school ex-boyfriend Jason dumping me harder than I ever did. He broke up with me the weekend he went to Vanderbilt for his freshman orientation. It took him twenty-four hours at college to realize he could do better than me.
She’s never forgiven me for our breakup and I doubt she ever will. Her and Daddy don’t let me forget that he’s the son of a very wealthy businessman and well-to-do family in Georgia, and all-out insisted that I try to win him back. They blame me hand over fist for our breakup and there’s no telling ‘em different. I’ll always serve as a constant source of disappointment for my parents. I’m often reminded that I didn’t hold up my side of the bargain and have yet to meet their standards.
The intrusive thoughts in my head sound a heck of a lot like my Mama’s voice. I try to sing a song to myself to drown her out but she’s loud, berating me for all my past transgressions.
Singing runs deep in my veins and being up on a stage is where I’ve spent a good chunk of my childhood. Mama sang her way to a Miss USA crown and had me taking voice lessons as far back as I can remember.
My Daddy, a retired army man who now serves as the Governor of Georgia with high political aspirations, had me performing at campaign dinners, and town fairs throughout elementary, middle, and high school.
Garnering positive attention for our family was my job. I was expected to keep up appearances, to act and look like the quintessential southern belle. I was raised to always use my manners, bake an award-winning cobbler, maintain a perfect size two figure, never have a hair out of place, and marry the right man straight outta college.
She had me in pageants early on and it was her dream for me to take the Miss Georgia crown and sing my way to the top. Davis played ball and wowed Friday night crowds while I wore glamorous evening gowns and sang for judges. The standards have always been high and success has always been the way to our parents' hearts. Their love is conditional and I’ve yet to earn it.
It all came crashing down for me a handful of years ago. Within a span of a few months, I was rejected from Vanderbilt and I’d lost Mama the coveted sparkly crown at the Miss Georgia competition. The rejection from Vandy was life-changing and the sting of being knocked out in the first round for the crown sent me spiraling.
My parent's disappointment was soul-crushing. That’s when my ex, Jason, started to pull away and my so-called friends vanished. I felt alone regardless of how much time Davis spent with me.
I was forced to attend the University of Georgia and left after being dismissed by Mama’s sorority. I kept failing at every turn, I somehow screwed up the only card I had left to play. I was naive to think I was a shoo-in and that I could somehow get back into her good graces if I became a sister. I had no idea how to tell her I was dropped on the last night.
When I worked up the courage, she wailed louder and cried harder than when her own Daddy died. My father blamed me for the bender she went on. He was convinced that my disappointment as a daughter caused her pill and vodka habit to ramp up. I had brought shame to their gubernatorial mansion doorstep.
That was the last straw. I was humiliated and a complete failure. I had tarnished Mama’s legacy and dragged the Higgins name through the mud. I was an embarrassment. I made the decision to choose a different path.
One of Nana’s neighbors had a daughter I was friendly with when we were younger. She was two years older than me and a senior at Havenwood at the time. She looked so happy in all her social media posts. Havenwood looked so beautiful; a picture-perfect, private, and prestigious university tucked away in Virginia.
I remember when she won a local pageant. I wanted to be her. She looked like she had it all with that crown on her head. Scrolling through her Instagram account, I wanted to be her again, but this time it wasn’t because of a sash and a tiara, it was because she looked the happiest I’d ever seen her.
She was another Georgia high society girl with standards stacked against her. She looked different like she left all the expectations behind and was embracing who she really was. She had pastel pink hair now and wore edgy eyeliner that framed her eyes when she smiled. Real smiles, not the plastic grins that we were taught and perfected in vanity mirrors in our bedrooms.
She looked healthy. Like her spirit was allowed to breathe. Like she wasn’t afraid to be who she wanted to be instead of who everyone else wanted. I felt more inspired and empowered than I had ever felt before.
I applied and made plans to transfer. I needed to leave UGA before the pressure of failing swallowed me whole. I couldn’t measure up and be who I was told I had to be while I was there. I got my butt to Havenwood this past fall after a miserable second year at UGA.
I might as well have crossed out every expectation my parents have ever had for me. Instead of using a red pen to X out their dreams, I used my own blood. I had started scratching myself and digging my nails into my skin when I didn’t make the cheerleading squad freshman year of high school.
It didn’t stop and I started to manage my feelings with little bites of pain. It became second-nature for me to pull on my hair and pick my skin raw.
It wasn’t until the day Vandy flat out rejected me that I sliced my skin open for the first time. Ten two inch cuts lined my upper inner thigh. A cut for every letter of Vanderbilt. It felt so good, I silently wished the name of the school was longer.
The second time I cut myself like that was when I lost Miss Georgia. I had turned eighteen on News Year’s Eve and was eligible to compete. I was in way over my head and couldn’t get anything right. Mama and Nana had lost all hope when I lost.
