“Wow,Em, your ideas are truly inspired.”
She did not appreciate my sarcasm. “Alright, sister dearest, what’s your brilliant plan for the evening?”
A thought struck me. “Let’s go swimming!”
“Swimming?”
“My new neighbor has a heated pool! And he said I could use it whenever I wanted.”
“Thenew neighbor?”Her eyebrows rose with interest.“The hot new neighbor?”
“Ben,” I offered.
Her interest died and she crinkled her nose. “Right, Ben. But won’t it be weird if we just walk over there and jump in? What if he has people over?”
“He’s not there. He has a date tonight.”
“A date?”She shook her head slowly like she had trouble figuring this out. “How do you know so much about his social life?”
“I’m playing nice,” I told her. The guilt swarmed again and I wondered if saying the words out loud would make it go away. Now it felt like I was hiding something illicit from her.Which was ridiculous.I needed to rip this Band-Aid off and face her judgment. “He helped me mow once and I’ve seen him a few times since then.”
“Oh,” she sounded honestly surprised. “That is nice of you.”
“I can be nice.”
She didn’t say anything.
“So do you want to go swimming? You can borrow one of my suits.”
“It’s heated?”
“It is! I’ve already been in it once, remember?”
“Sure, sounds fun! We’ll take our wine over there. Actually, it’s starting to sound amazing.”
By the time we finished picking at our dinner and put the leftovers away, we had finished the first bottle of sangria. We left the dishes and wandered upstairs to pick out swimming suits from my limited supply.
Emma wasn’t impressed with my offerings, but she found one that she deemed “could work.”
I slipped into my choice, a simple black two-piece, and couldn’t help but feel extremely naked. I stared at my body in the bathroom mirror and wrapped my arms around my middle.
I hadn’t been self-conscious about my image since high school. When I got to college I really grew into my own skin and decided to start loving who I was. Then I met Grady. If I had been okay with what I looked like before, his adoration for my body gave me a whole new sense of confidence.
Throughout our marriage, whatever insecurities I had never lasted long with his appreciative gaze and sweet, whispered words. He made me feel beautiful. He built up a confidence in me that I had hoped was unshakeable.
I didn’t want to be the kind of girl that found her value in other people’s words, and I didn’t think I was. But his constant reminding had made it easy.
I still had the same body; in fact, I was much more toned now than I had been in my marriage. I had been soft from happiness and four pregnancies. I hadn’t been fat, just soft.
Now, after months of running, my muscles were toned and my stomach had some definition. And yet, staring at myself in the mirror, I missed the easy way Grady made me feel sexy. I missed the way he would stare at me as if he couldn’t believe that I was real.
I could hold those memories close, but they could never do for me what his actual presence did.
“You look hot! Let’s go!” Emma smacked my booty, pulling me back to reality.
“I haven’t been in a swimming suit in a while.”
“I can tell.” Emma circled her bikini area and I had a mild, embarrassing panic attack. But I was fine. Whew. She cackled at my expense and then tugged on my arm. “Come on, Sasquatch, it’s just you and me.”
