No, I’m not surprised, but it doesn’t hurt any less.
“I need to go, Mom.”
“Josephine, are you crying?”
I can’t answer because, yes, I am crying, and my mother clucks her tongue. “Oh, honey, don’t cry.”
Except, why shouldn’t I? My face has been put out there for the whole world to see, and they all collectively hate it.
“I can’t…” I sniffle and swipe a tissue from the box. “I can’t talk right now.”
“Listen, Buck,” Mom starts seriously. “If you’re going to marry someone like Nico, you need to be stronger than this. You can’t let this crap get to you.”
I laugh, watery and heartbroken, as memories of being told to “shake it off” and “they didn’t really mean it” when these same comments and insults were hurled my way from my siblings. I simply had to toughen up. “Everyone has something they need to overcome, but the Lord never gives us more than we can handle,” she once told me, and that’s about the time I’d stopped believing in the Lord.
Because how could the creator of heaven and earth and all that is good create me with the sole purpose to be bullied by those around me.
“Besides, it’s what’s on the inside that counts,” Mom says, and I swipe the back of my hand over my face, desperate to be done with this conversation.
Desperate to be done with all of this. “I have to go.”
“But—”
“Bye, Mom.” I end the call and shuffle to the bathroom, where I spend a long time on the floor by the toilet, feeling like I might vomit.
When the nausea eventually passes, and I’ve stopped crying enough to stand, I wash my face and brush my teeth, avoiding my reflection in the mirror, reverting right back to my teenage self.
I spent years avoiding mirrors unless it was to apply creams and lotions and ointments. To get rid of the acne, try to remove the mole, make my nose look smaller, cut bangs to cover my forehead, pluck my unibrow, pray my teeth would somehow magically fix themselves overnight.
Some of it worked, and some of it didn’t. My skin eventually cleared up, and I’ve learned how to use makeup, but no matterwhat I do, I can never outrun my past. I can never erase the emotional scars.
Being pushed to the ground by Laura Lyn Huber when I was eight so I skinned both of my knees and then she made fun of me for crying.
Billy Dixon talking about my body in middle school when I’d developed before all the other girls, so they started calling me a slut.
Walking in on Lizzie and Waylon together.
Being so depressed that I sometimes imagined what it would be like to take a bottle of pills and close my eyes. Simply slip away.
I’d come so far from that girl.
I met Mrs. Chambers, I found photography, and I mustered up the courage to move here to Philadelphia, where I learned to love myself.
But how easily it fades.
How quickly I can become her again.
My fingers tremble as I reach for my cell phone again, scrolling to find Nico’s name.
I don’t know what I was thinking, agreeing to this stupid idea. I knew it wouldn’t work. I knew we didn’t make sense, and yet I wanted the slipper to fit. For once, I wanted to be the beautiful princess in the fairy tale.
I wanted the charming prince for myself.
But I was stupid, and calling off this fake engagement is my only option. I can’t go backward. I can’t dig myself out of that dark space again. I don’t have it in me. The first time was hard enough, and I would like to leave the little bit of dignity I have left intact.
I lick my dry lips and press the button to call him. He picks up almost immediately, his sunshine voice filling my ear. “Hey, mama. I know you were all about me not coming to your place last night, but I was thinking I could deliver your breakfast this morning. We could?—”
“I can’t do this, Nico,” I say, cutting him off before I can give in to him.
