“I’m proud of her, I just hope she can stick to it. You and I both know the kids in college won’t be as kind as the kids here in Poxton Beach. No one knows who she is or who her father is there. They’ll judge her based on her looks. I think she sees that, too. I’m just glad she’s finally doing something about it.”
My chest tightened and my throat grew thick with something I couldn’t quite swallow down. I silenced my breath as much as I could, trying to hear her soft voice more clearly, but my heart was beating like a helicopter in my ears.
“Yeah, exactly. Natalie has always been pretty, but I can’t wait to see what she looks like once this trainer is done with her. And she’ll feel so much better when she’s not carrying around so much weight.”
An ache ripped through my chest as she paused on the phone, the other person talking now.
“Oh, no, I, um… I think he’s getting better. We haven’t had any instances recently. He’s just a man, I don’t hold any of it against him.”
She had moved on to something else, something that I didn’t have a clue about. But I clearly understood the conversation before that. A familiar sting hit my nose and I sniffed, wiping at it quickly before walking as quickly and quietly as I could back to the living room. I snagged my camera off the coffee table and slipped back out the front door, pulling it shut almost silently behind me.
I was shaking even worse now and I dropped the keys to the Range Rover twice before finally climbing inside, carefully setting my camera in the passenger seat beside me. My hands found the wheel and I gripped it tight, heart beating in my ears, breaths coming erratically. When I pushed the START button and the engine purred to life, it was like a sort of numbness settled over me. My muscles were becoming more aware of the hell I’d put them through that afternoon while my mind tried to process everything I’d just heard.
Mom was right. I did know that college would be different, should I decide to go. I knew that no one would know who I was, that maybe who I was had something to do with the friends I had here in Poxton Beach. But hearing those things from her killed me. Had she always thought I was overweight? Had she always wished that I would do something about it? Was she ashamed of me, too?
My mind was spinning as I drove to the beach. I felt tears stinging the corners of my eyes but they didn’t fall. I pulled into Dale’s reserved parking spot near the pier and threw my camera strap around my neck before peeling off my sneakers and socks and walking slowly onto the beach.
When my toes hit the sand, I powered on my camera and lifted the viewfinder to my left eye, snapping the first photo.
Click.
Just hearing the soft, familiar sound let my breaths come easier than before.
I shot everything and nothing. The water, the sand, a seashell stuck in seaweed, a man and his daughter down the beach building a castle, the old and decaying building on the other side of the pier. I snapped and clicked until my arms were numb from holding the camera and my face was numb from the tears I hadn’t realized had started falling.
It was the first time in my life I fully admitted to myself that I wasn’t happy.
I wasn’t happy with who I was. Or how I looked. Or how I felt. Ever since I could remember, I depended on food for everything — comfort, celebration, mourning. And now that I had finally started to take control and do something about it, I didn’t feel support from anyone around me — save for Willow, who would likely be gone in just a few weeks.
Even my trainer didn’t believe in me.
It was like they all looked at me with pity in their eyes. Poor Natalie Poxton. But I didn’t want to be that girl anymore. If my life was to be a story, I wanted to take control of the pen. I wanted to change the paper, crumple up what had been written so far and start over.
I just hoped I could actually do it.
I wasn’t sure if I was still crying when the sun started to set, only that I didn’t care anymore. I let myself break as I shot the pink and purple streaks across the Carolina sky. I knew right then and there, on a warm Sunday evening with my feet sinking into the sand at the edge of the ocean, that this summer would be the hardest of my life. It would either change me for the better or shatter me completely.
But maybe I needed to break, to fully fall to pieces, before I could ever truly be whole.
Chapter Four
I DEBATED NOT EVEN showing up for my training session the next day, but I dragged my butt to the gym against my own will. I knew I’d have to face Rhodes after going off on him the day before but I hoped he would just let it go. That’s what I was prepared to do. The night before had set a new resolve for me and I was ready to get to work. Even if I was the only one in my corner, I was going to fight for a new me. The summer after high school was supposed to be about change, movement, progress. I was determined to turn my life around and I wasn’t going to waste a single second because of some jerk who’d always been a jerk, anyway. He didn’t think I could do it? Fine.
I would prove him wrong.
Just like I’d prove Mason wrong, and he’d realize giving me up was a mistake. Then, I’d be back under his arm, under his sheets on rainy Sundays — back where I belonged.
Even with my new determination, I couldn’t meet Rhodes’ eyes when I walked through the gym door. Walking straight up to the treadmill, I hit the QUICK START button and began walking, staring straight ahead out the window that overlooked the golf course. After a minute had passed, Rhodes walked over to stand in front of the machine. He leaned over and paused it, bracing his hands on either side of the display and blocking my view of the course, forcing me to look at him. When I finally did pull my eyes to his, his features were softer. I tried not to notice the way his hair flitted over his brows as they pulled together and he exhaled.
“I’m sorry, Natalie.”
I shivered a bit when he said my name, but I wasn’t sure why. Maybe because he was just saying it like a normal person yet for some reason the three syllables rolling off his tongue shot straight down between my thighs.
“I’m not sorry for pushing you, but I’m sorry for upsetting you.” His lips pressed together for a moment before he continued. “And I’m not ashamed of you.” Rhodes held my gaze. Even when I tried to look at the ground, he moved his head down into my view until I looked at him again. “Exactly the opposite, actually. You work hard. You want this, for whatever reason, and I can see it. That’s why I push you. I know you can work harder, go faster, lift more. I’m proud to have you as my client.”
I scoffed, the anger I felt from Saturday night resurfacing. “Oh yeah? Is that why you completely ignored me at Rook when I saw you with your…” I paused, not sure what to call Mrs. Landers. “Girlfriend?”
His mouth flattened into a thin line. “She’s a client, Natalie.”
“Is that right? Well damn, do you kiss on the necks of all your clients? I’ve been getting jipped.” I couldn’t believe those words just left my mouth and my cheeks flushed immediately, but I stood straight and kept my eyes on his.
He glared at me for a moment, his steady eyes threatening to weaken my resolve, but I remained poignant.
“You shouldn’t be smoking.”
I rolled my eyes at his attempt to change the subject. “I wasn’t smoking. If you hadn’t treated me like the plague and actually talked to me instead, you would know that.”