She didn't see a cute woman who wore a large man's clothes. Instead, she saw a short woman with too much on her hips, thighs, and belly that didn't make the shirt look large and endearing. The short sleeves were laughably down to her elbows and the hem if she pulled it down would hang to her knees. But she didn't feel sweet and dainty.
She felt small and too much.
Her long, wet hair was hanging limp down her front and leaving spots on the dark shirt so she dug into her jean shorts pocket until she found a hair tie to scoop it up and wrap it into a thick, wet bun on top of her head.
She heard her sister's voice in her mind about her figure.
Or was it her own?
That was the thing about allowing others' voices to leave an impression inside of your mind; it started as theirs and then the more it was allowed ground it morphed into a more familiar voice, one it was hard to demand it leave as it was your own. She closed her eyes, squeezing tight to stop her thoughts, to bifurcate between what was real and what was allowed in and untrue. She'd learned this trick from her therapist after she lefther husband. Months of depression and anxiety had led her to the poppy-red door of Dr. Sarah Almey.
She'd had a shiny black bob that accentuated her sharp chin and blue thick-framed glasses that Tilly had found chic and charming, leading her to buy her first pair of red cat eyes. She'd helped draw Tilly out of a place of believing lies about herself and her life that were holding her captive to dark places and an ongoing loop of trying and failing to live up to a false definition of 'good enough'.
She taught her that when she found herself listening to a voice that would speak something negative about herself or the future, she should stop, physically close her eyes, breathe, focus on something outside of her body, and let the voices show their true face.
Truth or lie?
"Stop."
The sound of his voice made her eyes snap open. He filled the doorway and then he was walking toward her. She froze. He stood behind her in the tall mirror and she didn't know what to do.
"I'm going to put my hands on you and I want you to tell me what you're thinking."
His words tickled along her ribs but he didn't move. Silence stretched.
She licked her lips nervously and then nodded. Only then did his hands gently, barely, encase her hips and the simple barely-there touch sent her heart into a frenzy.
He dipped his head low until his mouth was next to her ear and the sight was spectacular, this large man behind her having to lower himself until he could be near her quiet thoughts.
"You torture yourself," he said gently, the words prodding her mind. "I've watched you undo yourself the last few weeks.Pulling inside yourself, hiding from me, looks of uncertainty. You hold yourself less surely. Tell me what's going on."
He'd noticed all of that. About her.
He spoke as though he knew her, could catch her struggle in the barest of looks and the way that her shoulders sat a little higher and unsure. She had caught her reflection just the other morning as she got ready and recognized the woman standing there. Someone from before.
When you dragged yourself out of dark places, breathed new air and surrounded yourself with goodness and honesty, there was a transformation that happened.
It was slow, and it started painfully from the inside, but then that transformation had a penchant to turn you inside out until you started to look how you feel - glowing and unapologetically strong.
But the other morning, she saw the woman she was before that. And it scared her.
"Can I tell you a sad story and you don't try to make me feel better?"
He nodded, his dark eyes holding hers in the mirror. She liked this, seeing him and him seeing her, but not facing him.
The request was large in a small voice. Sometimes we just need a witness to ghastly, dark things, so that we can know we're a reliable narrator of our own stories. That alone can start healing someone.
"I was married. Years ago. We met in college and none of the backstory really matters, but three years into our marriage I found him cheating on me. With a friend, a neighbor. I knew before I knew for sure. It was the way he stopped looking at me and only reached for me for his own pleasure. He became unkind in how he looked at me and spoke to me like I was a nuisance." She tilted her head and looked at her face as she spoke in the mirror.
She was telling her own ghost story, watching the haunting fill her eyes as she revisited becoming a fraction of herself because someone she loved betrayed her.
"I remember she came over for coffee and I caught her gaze following him as he came into the kitchen and then the way that her head turned just the slightest as he left. It was," she shook her head, "intimate. The way that lovers' eyes touch more than they look." She swallowed. "He uh, got meaner and meaner. I started believing his mean. His voice became mine in my head. I got smaller. I shrunk. I lost weight and he said I looked good and had no idea it was diseased weight loss from his poison."
Theo watched her, took in her words and the weight of what she was handing him. His hands on her hips lightly clasped when she stopped talking, telling her to give him more.
Telling her he could hold it for a while.
"When I finally confronted him, the yelling and threats I didn't understand at the time. Why, if he didn't want me anymore, would he threaten to kill me if I left him? He was with someone else. I've never understood that."
