Page 167 of Fifty First Times (Sharing You 0.40)
??home” sounded so full of love and angst at the same time that I thought I would burst. Make a joke, Anna. Make it light.
“Mr. Carroll,” I said in mock scandalized voice. “Are you propositioning me?”
He chuckled. “I made an early dinner, staying warm in the oven. And I got a new movie.”
“And?”
“And, yes, I’m hoping to make out with you and get my hands on that gorgeous body of yours. But if it’s just for that shoulder rub, I’m fine with it.”
“Okay.” I smiled and pressed a quick kiss to his shoulder. “But food first.”
“Food first.”
TAL’S KITCHEN WAS no less deluxe than his bedding. Bright blue and white tiles made a backsplash mosaic over granite counters, and I sat perched at a small solid-wood table, watching him toss a fresh salad, then pull some beautiful-looking mac and cheese out of the oven.
“Homemade,” I said. “I’m impressed. You still trying to butter me up?”
“Well, it’s not that, exactly. I just want to be on my best behavior, because I don’t want to do anything to discourage you from giving me the optimal answer to my question. From earlier.”
He sat down across from me and slid a plate full of food in front of me. As starved as my body was after playing that show, my stomach flipped over and over in an endless loop.
“Tal, I want to talk.” The words came out in a rush, and with them came a bit of relief, especially since Tal’s eyebrows pulled together for a split second.
He quickly schooled his expression back to calm and open, waiting to hear me. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all. He took a slow bite of salad, chewing slowly. Giving me time.
“It’s about my scar.”
He nodded, taking a few seconds to swallow. “The one you got from that door. Yeah?”
“Well, I . . . I didn’t get it from a door.”
He nodded, keeping eye contact with me—and panic fluttered in my chest. What did that mean? Did he know? Did someone tell him? Did he Facebook stalk me to find out? Was there even anything on Facebook about it?
My hands shook. I picked up my fork, then put it down again. “I . . .”
Tal reached out and covered my hand with his. “You can tell me. Whatever it is, you can.”
Did he know?
“I tried to kill myself.” A momentary relief washed over me when the words fell out of my mouth. Tal breathed in deeply and closed his eyes, like he was trying to pull himself together. But I couldn’t figure out the emotion behind it. Sadness? Fear? Repulsion? A second later, though, his eyes opened, staring into mine, full of only patience and openness.
After a few seconds, he just said, “And?”
“And what? I’m crazy. I’m a crazy, damaged person who tried to kill herself. So you don’t want me to move in with you. You probably don’t even want to be with me.” I didn’t know whether I wanted him to agree or argue with me.
“It doesn’t change anything,” he said. “You’re the same person you were this morning, and I still want to be with that person.”
I felt stunned by his bald-faced indifference. “Don’t you want to know why?”
“If you want to tell me. But if you don’t, I understand that you had a life before you met me. If you want me to know, I want to know, too.”
Of course I wanted him to know. That was why I told him, right? All the same, the breath in my throat felt shaky as I got the whole story out. The photo shoot. The confidence I’d had when I got there. The empowerment of dropping clothing around my ankles piece by piece, then stepping out of them to do the bravest thing I’d done at college so far—to show my mom that even with a body like mine, I could do something beautiful. The article that came out in the USC magazine, about real beauty, and the pride I felt.
And then, how it all came crashing down. The newspaper editorial that implied that girls like me, ones who occupied ten- or twelve- or fourteen-sized bodies, were gross and unhealthy. The pages and pages of comments using hateful slurs against us. The way it brought up memories of my mom counting my calories and weighing my food and constantly remarking that I’d gotten the bad genes, the ones that meant I couldn’t find a pair of jeans to fit my ass to save my life.
The way that half-drunk frat boy assholes recognized me on campus and called me “fatty” and “pudge cunt” for weeks after.
“So then,” I finished, “I got so down, so uncomfortable in my own skin, and so lost . . . even my mom thought it was stupid that I’d done the shoot. I felt like a fucking waste of space. Slashing my wrist with a razor just seemed to make a whole hell of a lot of sense.”
