That is right. It is me, Lexington. No one else is here. Just me, looking at how much weight you have put on. And you, you are seeing the ugly effect of your gluttony too… I can see it in your eyes.
I physically froze.
Let me get you back to where you should be. To where you know you want to be. Just let me back in. Give me the reins. Hand yourself to me. Give yourself over to perfection.
As if being controlled like a puppet, my hands ran over my ribs. One, two, three, four, five, six… My fingers began tapping frantically at the skin. There was too much fat. I should be able to feel up to ten ribs, but I could only feel six. No! I could only feel six.
My hand dropped lower, my fingers prodding the excess flesh of my stomach. Lower still. No, no, no! My hips! My hips were not protruding, not angled or defined. There was too much fat. I’m too fat. Not again! Please! I… I—
Stop!
Lexi… fight it! I said to myself with urgency.
Panting hard, I came back to myself with a jolt. My pale, naked skin was peppered with red marks where I’d been hitting at my bones. Hives had broken out on my neck and chest, and my eyes were red with aggravation and stress.
Seven minutes.
Seven minutes and thirty-two seconds.
Seven minutes and thirty-two seconds until I could move again.
Until I could breathe right again.
Until I could fight the voice in my mind, trying to make me fall.
I felt exhausted. Like I was David who’d just taken on Goliath. But my Goliath never died. He never ever went away. Could not be defeated, just, at best, kept at bay. And my heart fell when I thought of what my life would be like with him always in my mind.
I was determined not to let him win.
Walking to the empty showers, the pipes groaned when I turned the lever and let the water fall on my head, washing away the near miss… washing away the negativity.
You are beautiful, Lexi. You are strong. You are perfect just the way you are, I recited in my mind. Dr. Lund had taught me to use mantras to stay positive. Positivity was half the battle, or so Dr. Lund had said. And I tried real hard to maintain my grip on that lesson. Hell, I stuck my nails in and held on for dear life.
Chapter Eight
Lexi
Ten minutes later, I was showered and dressed. Knowing the coast was clear and all the coaches and players had left for the night, I made my way out of the locker room.
Clutching my bag to my chest, still feeling raw and exposed, I walked slowly down the hallway, dragging my feet. When I was halfway, a huge crash saw me almost trip in fright. My head whipped to the direction of the noise—the players’ locker room.
My heart was pounding in my chest in fear, and I was just turning to leave, when an agonized deep, loud roar echoed down the hallway and wrapped around me. Whoever it was sounded in pain. Tormented. Like his soul was being ripped out.
I instantly felt drawn to the sound. After all, pain attracts pain.
Before I even had a chance to realize it, my feet were carrying me toward the Tide players’ locker room… toward the person seeming more broken than myself. Toward someone who might just understand.
The closer I got to the door, the more the crashes increased, until silence ensued and a pained shout ripped from someone’s throat, ricocheting off the metal of the lockers. As I reached the door, I wondered if I should take any more steps. The person might want to be alone. I was probably intruding. But I couldn’t seem to turn away.
I stared at the closed locker room door.
It was three more steps.
Three more steps until I pressed on the handle and crossed the doorway to see who was in pain.
Three more steps until I could maybe, perhaps, be of help.
Clutching my gym bag closer to my chest like a shield, I took the final step through the door and immediately froze at what was before me.
Carillo.
Austin Carillo on the floor, his packed and muscled torso free of a shirt, boasting an intricate collage of both dark and colorful tattoos. He was leaning his back against the cold door of a locker, head in his hands, breathing hard.
I watched silently as I fought with what to do. Carillo was clearly in pain, but it was me. He hated me, had threatened me. I was probably the last person he’d ever want to see.
Resolved to just quietly leave him to his grief, I lifted my foot to turn when Carillo’s head snapped up and I found myself frozen in shock.
Austin’s dark eyes were bloodshot with stress, his dark stubbled cheeks red from where he had obviously rubbed aggressively at the skin. But his sadness ebbed when he saw me, and his jaw clenched in annoyance.
Oh shit. I’d made a mistake.
A really big mistake.
Austin’s hands hit the tiled floor and he abruptly pushed himself off the ground. His six-foot-four height seemed to loom over me, even from his place across the room. Our gazes were locked, and my hands and legs began to shake.
He was angry…
And I feared him.
He was a gangbanger, a Heighter. He’d been arrested multiple times. His brother had served time. And I was now alone with him. Alone with him and he was seething. His anger seemed directed toward me. There was no one there to help me.
Carillo began to move forward but stopped a few steps away. He radiated danger and darkness like the sun radiated heat. It was a force field around him, an aura, and it only served to scare me even more.
Almost black-brown eyes narrowed as Austin studied my face, and I gripped my gym bag harder. But something in his expression changed as his eyebrows rose, and I frowned.
What’s he seeing that’s so shocking?
And then I remembered. I hadn’t reapplied my makeup. I’d been so shaken by how easily the voice had gotten through to me I’d just wanted to flee home.
I felt embarrassment, an intense embarrassment that he was seeing me so raw and imperfect. I couldn’t understand why it bothered me so much. He hated me, and I feared him. But I did care. I cared so deeply that he’d seen the real me.
The girl who didn’t measure up.
The girl with too many flaws.
“What the hell’re you doing in here?” Carillo said coldly, shattering my thoughts, his emotionless expression again firmly on his face.
“I-I-I—”
Austin stepped farther forward. From his nearness, I could smell his scent, a deep woodsy musk, the smell of a hard-played game. It just added to his darkness.
“I-I-I what?” He laughed, unfeeling. “Why d’you always turn up where you’re not wanted? When you’re not wanted? In places you ain’t supposed to be?”