Page 15 of Every Bit As Perfect
When he left, I slipped down to the beach, stepping out of my shoes on the way.Up and down the shoreline, I paced, my stinging eyes trained on the sand beneath my feet.
Seagulls squawked and waves drowned the sound of my shuddering breaths.
I didn’t love him.
It shouldn’t have hurt that much.
I lined my pockets with tiny chips of sea glass.One day I’d take my jars and broken pieces to Rachel at Artitude and make something from all these tiny bits of nothing.
For now, I filled my pockets.
And delayed my return to work because I knew, I just knew this was this piece of news my mother wanted to share to spare me from hearing it from someone else.If I went into work, she’d take one look at me and realize I’d seen him.
I couldn’t bear to see the pity on her face.
It was the same way she looked at me when I warmed the bench on the swim team.
Even though my swim times were better, I filled the spot on the team reserved for the back-up.
Because I didn’t fit the ‘aesthetic’.I never told anyone the coach actually said that.Not even Noelle.Shame silenced me.
The Brady Bunch, tall and slim, their long blond ponytails bouncing as they glided along the pool deck fit well with the other two girls on the team.
But not me.Short, curvy, dark, my unruly mop of hair barely submitting to a scrunchie, my swimsuit two sizes bigger than everyone else’s despite my petite stature.
It was the same look she gave me when the boys befriended me, treating me like one of the guys, in order to get close to Noelle.
It was the way she looked at me when I came home crying because I got picked last for the teams at school though I so badly wanted to play.
But all those rejections paled in comparison to this one.
I didn’t want to hear her platitudes.
He’s not the one for you.
Obviously.
Men are like buses.Another one comes every ten minutes.
Not in Sage Ridge.
You’re too good for him.
Evidently, I wasn’t good enough.
I’m sorry.
I felt sorry enough for myself.
Adding the weight of her pity would crush me.
6
First
Isilencedmycellphonefor the third time in as many minutes.
First Mom.Then Dad.Now Hawk.At only eight o’clock in the morning they should have assumed I was sleeping in like normal people did on the weekend.Surely they could have left me to wallow for a few more hours.
