X: Command Me through Alexander's Eyes - Geneva Lee Page 0,67
her when she said the thinner I got, the more popular I would become. By the time I went home for Spring Break, I weighed less than a hundred pounds. My mom—” she breaks for a moment, and I kiss her forehead, hoping it makes her feel safe enough to continue. “My mom started crying when she saw me. They pulled me out of school, and she drove me to therapy every single day because she wouldn’t let them admit me. That summer we moved to England. Dad thought it would be a better environment for me. Maybe he was right.”
“He was right.” I want to send him a goddamn thank you card for removing the ocean that was once between us, for bringing her to London, for bringing her to me. “Because you’re here with me now, poppet.”
Her hand presses against my chest for just a moment like she’s checking to see if I’m real. “I’ve done really well with therapy. I learned my eating disorder was a coping mechanism that I used when I was stressed or lonely. I stayed in therapy until my second year at university, and then I met Daniel.”
“The one who tried to break you?” She’d mentioned him before. I had the sense he didn’t want to run into me any time soon.
“I should have seen through him.” Her voice is full of regret.
“Don’t make excuses for him.” I hated men that did that to women. Men who manipulated and twisted. Men who were so fragile they used others like human shields.
“It was fine for a while, but then things changed. He changed. One minute he made me feel like the most important person in his life, and the next, I was the reason he was miserable. He criticized how much I ate, pointed out how little I exercised. He competed with me for grades. When my parents gave me access to my trust fund, we came home after my birthday party, and I told him I was tired.”
I brace myself, afraid I know what comes next. I let her go, putting enough distance between us that if my rage takes over, she won’t be in its range.
“He didn’t like that,” she continues. “He accused me of being superior to him. He said I was being elitist and that I was too snobby to fuck him. Things escalated quickly, and he almost—”
I jump up from the bed, needing more distance, certain I might actually detonate. Pacing the length of her room, I motion for her to continue.
She does, but there’s a nervous edge to her tone. “But he didn’t. Belle came home. She saw what was going on and threatened to call the police. That night should have been enough for me to see what he was doing to me, but I still thought I was in love with him. I refused to go to therapy, even though Belle pushed. I was fine. Things were under control, and then I fainted during class. At the hospital, they asked me when my last period was, and I couldn’t remember.”
I stop dead in my tracks. It’s bad enough that any other man has touched her. If he...
“I honestly thought I was pregnant, and the thought of having a baby with Daniel made me so scared that I got sick. They had to put me on oxygen and give me a feeding tube.” She forces herself to continue as she cries, “I realized that I wasn’t scared of having a baby, but I was terrified of being permanently bound to Daniel. When it occurred to me that my child would have him for a father, there was a sadness deeper than any I’ve ever known.”
Clara Bishop isn’t a mother. I’d have found that during my research. There’s no indication that she ever had a child. That only leaves one possibility. “So you ended it?”
“I didn’t have to,” she says with a hollow laugh. “The results came back negative. I wasn’t pregnant. I was malnourished. My liver was barely functioning. I was shutting down. I hadn’t purposefully stopped eating. I hadn’t even realized I was doing it. The doctors quizzed me and suggested I go back to therapy, especially a support group. It was there that I realized I’d been clinging to an idea of control that didn’t exist. Not eating was something I chose. Maybe because of the awful things he said about my body. Maybe because subconsciously, I desperately needed to control something. My group helped