Free Love Me for Me by Kate Laurens

have minded chubby, if I was healthy. But I gained the weight on purpose.” Daring her to argue with me, I looked right at her, my chin stuck out defiantly.
    The Kaylee I knew was caring, but liked things to be light and happy and fun. I was more than a little bit shocked that she looked right back at me, her expression deadly calm.
    “You’re not heavy anymore.” She turned a page in her textbook, and then another, though she wasn’t looking at the book at all.
    “No,” I agreed. “I’m not. And I won’t let myself be ever again. That’s why I only take skim milk in my coffee. That’s why I got into yoga. And that’s why I run.” Not waiting for a response, I pushed out of the tiny dorm room and made my way down the hall to the girls’ bathroom, my heart beating frantically against my rib cage.
    Mechanically, I moved into one of the shower stalls and stripped out of my running gear. Sliding my feet into my rubber flipflops, I turned the shower on and stepped beneath it.
    I turned the heat as high as it would go, hoping to burn away some of the sudden vulnerability.
    I’d never before told anyone that I’d gained the weight on purpose. I’d never wanted to.
    Swallowing hard, I tilted my head back and let the scalding water run down over my face. I tasted the salt from my sweat and shuddered.
    My mom had known that something was wrong with me almost as soon as my problems had started. But she hadn’t pushed, hadn’t tried her hardest to get the answer from me, the way I thought a mother should. Instead she’d packed it away neatly, as if it wasn’t real if she couldn’t see it.
    I’d always wondered if she’d known, if somehow she’d guessed the truth but hadn’t been able to face it. Regardless, by the time I’d told her, I knew that she truly either didn’t believe me, or that she’d talked herself into believing that it couldn’t possibly be true.
    She thought my weight problems, the way I hid behind long locks of hair, the rumours about me and so many boys were simply my way of expressing teenage rebellion.
    I wasn’t sure I was ever going to be able to forgive her for that.
    As I mechanically lathered citrus scented shampoo into my hair, my thoughts turned back to my roommate. My best friend.
    I’d thought I’d known Kaylee inside and out, but the last couple of days had told me that I wasn’t the only one with demons in my nightmares. That meant that she’d understand if—and this was a big if—I wanted to talk.
    As the shampoo suds swirled down the drain, I wondered what it would be like to tell someone who really cared. But if I told Kaylee, then I’d have no real reason not to tell Alex.
    The disgust and disbelief on my mother’s face were seared into my brain forever. I didn’t truly think that Kaylee would react the same way, but I knew it would alter her perception of me forever, and I didn’t want that.
    Alex, however...
    I couldn’t let him think I was dirty.
    As I toweled the moisture off of my skin, I looked at the silvery lines that striped my upper arms. Most of the time I was able to forget that they were there, but from time to time I caught a glimpse. The scars were like ghosts that could be beaten into submission, but never fully exorcised.
    Unlike Alex, I hadn’t hidden my scars with tattoos. I needed the visual reminder to keep me from doing something self destructive.
    Something like getting involved with a beautiful boy who would be disgusted if he knew how dirty I really was. And if I saw that disgust on the face of the one who made it all better, I wasn’t sure I could live with the resultant emotion.
    I heard the hiss of the spray, saw the steam as someone in the next stall over started their shower. A moment later the scent of lavender hit my nose, soap or shampoo or something else innocuous, but it was enough to make me gag.
    Suddenly miserable, I pulled my robe around me and scraped my sopping hair back into my hair elastic, then ran from the