the attention from the players. She was sweet, but knew how to play the field, so to speak.
We lost horribly after forty-five minutes, and I downed one too many sour beers despite telling Lawrence I didn’t want to drink. I usually opted against alcohol because of the medication I was on for anxiety, something my therapist had prescribed a few years ago. I didn’t take them on days I knew I was going out because there was a chance this would happen. Truthfully, I wasn’t even sure if they worked that well. I had good and bad days where I felt more anxious than not. It wasn’t as debilitating as it used to be when I went out because media wasn’t parked in front of my building trying to get an interview. There weren’t paparazzi following me and snapping pictures from shrubbery or calling out my name to get an ugly photo that would be on every gossip site known to man. It was because of them that I got worse. Not just my anxiety, but…
Blowing out a breath, I cradled my stomach where a pink scar rested. How many times did TMZ make comments on my appearance? She’s gained weight. Stress eating is a sign of guilt. I thought she was a dancer? The comments on my thighs, the way I filled out my leggings on the way to practice, the tint of my skin or how and if I wore makeup, all came back to one thing: I was a Saint James, which meant I was guilty. Guilty of pretending I didn’t care about what my father had done to people or how he abused his power. Guilty of not caring about the state of the New York after my father was arrested. They crucified me in every way possible until I hated myself more than I already did. Because I did gain weight from stress eating. I did stop trying at ballet. I did stop caring. Not about others. About me.
I just…stopped.
My mood swings then had gotten me in trouble with Judith, our ballet teacher, when I stopped being able to do the routines as easily as before. She’d berated me for gaining weight and demanded I go on a special diet, making me see a dietary specialist to help me cut out the food I was “poisoning” my body with. Then there were the stretch marks. The little reminders on my stomach and thighs that told me I’d lost control when the trial began. It was televised. There were reporters everywhere. I’d snuck food everywhere I went with me to ease the pain, in the form of chocolate, carbs, and anything in between. I’d damaged the body that had once been naturally thin, and my metabolism did nothing to stop the transition that would send me into a downward spiral every time I stepped in front of those studio mirrors.
“Again, Adele!”
“Higher! If you didn’t eat that, you’d get a better jump!”
“What was that? Can you not bend further because of the extra padding?”
On and on it went until one day I’d broken down after practice. I’d waited until all the girls left before I realized what I needed to do. So, when I got home, I threw out all the junk food, got rid of anything that wasn’t appropriate for my diet, and…stopped eating altogether. When my father looked, I was nibbling here and there to disregard any growing suspicion he might have had. That was when I discovered purging.
The anxiety medication might have helped more than I gave it credit for, but there was no medication from the level of self-hate a person had for themselves. There wasn’t a pill to swallow to make people love themselves. No injection could make self-worth higher than self-consciousness on a whim. It would always be a fight for me to eat without sticking a finger down my throat or finding new methods of starving myself when nobody was looking. There were always going to be days when I wished my weight was as low as my self-esteem.
But I was better.
Be better.
Those words were a chant in my head, a soft-spoken demand that was not pointed at me, but one I took as a sign that I needed to listen.
“Be better,” my mother had said.
It was about two hours into the party when I stumbled toward the little kitchen downstairs off the main room and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. Ren was flirting with Ben, Rita