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T he cold leaked through the paper gown, stiff and scratchy against my thighs. Every shift made the paper crackle like guilt. The overhead lights caught every flaw. Dr. Marshall didn't look up—just flipped through my chart, mouth drawn in that same line I'd seen on every face: disappointment.

Sweat pooled in the crease of my knees and under my arms, sticky and sour. His pen clicked, sharp and steady, syncing with my pulse. The sheet scraped like sandpaper against skin that already felt too exposed.

"Your PCOS symptoms would improve significantly with weight loss," he said without looking up, like I was just a case to fix, like I was not even a person sitting here. "I can suggest a few diet programs that have worked well for other patients dealing with... similar challenges."

I stopped hearing him after that.

My nails bit into my skin, holding me still. I wanted to curl up, to disappear. I shouldn't have worn this gown.

I shouldn't have come.

My throat constricted painfully as unshed tears burned behind my eyes. If I had a dollar for every time I'd heard that same condescending "solution" to a battle they didn't even see, I could afford designer clothes that weren't made for bodies like mine. Not that those fashion houses thought women like me deserved to wear their labels.

"Yes," the word barely audible, "I've tried it all."

He didn't even blink. He wouldn't believe me. They never did.

Everything. Weight Watchers. Keto. Intermittent fasting. Pills that promised miracles but only delivered heart palpitations and trembling hands in the dark at three AM. Creams that supposedly melted away fat but just chipped away at my savings and left my self-worth in pieces. Cleanses that left me lightheaded at work, unable to think, speak, or even remember why I was punishing myself in the first place. Waist trainers that compressed my lungs until breathing felt like punishment.

The proof lay in my bedside drawer—five years of food journals, every page stained with self-loathing. Calories tracked to the decimal. Workouts planned like battles. Weight that never dropped the way it was supposed to. Five years of "Day One" entries, each one whispering the same lie: this time would be different. And every one ended the same—with me hating myself a little more than before.

His words faded into white noise as my hands found familiar territory—the stretch marks striping my arms like scars I didn't get to outgrow. Yesterday's shopping trip forced its way up: being directed to that separate section at the back of the store. "Plus sizes are over there," the clerk had whispered, her voice dropping on the word 'plus' like it was contagious.

His look did what everyone did—darted to my stomach first, carrying judgment masked as professional concern. I folded my arms tight against my sides, aware of every inch that spilled where it shouldn't. The stretcher creaked beneath me—a sound that sent my pulse racing as I calculated whether it'd hold me, a skill sharpened by every time I'd had to wonder. I didn't dare shift. Not with him watching.

"Well, clearly you're not doing enough," The doctor's words yanked me back to the table. "Your bloodwork shows?—"

I tuned him out, my eyes fixing on the BMI chart mocking me from the wall—the same chart that'd haunted me since childhood, always reminding me how far I'd always been from what they wanted. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth as I traced the numbers, each one a familiar enemy. Through blurred vision, I caught fragments of my reflection in the window glass–a stranger wearing my face, taking up space in this sterile room designed for smaller bodies.

I didn't recognize her anymore.

"Are you listening?" His voice cut through my fog. "This is serious."

I nodded, but I wasn’t here. A hysterical laugh threatened to bubble up–as if I didn't know. As if the mirrors, the shopping trips, and the waiting rooms hadn't already taken pieces of me. Every appointment ended the same—me crying so hard I couldn't breathe. It congealed in my throat like something I swallowed too long ago.

It always ended like that.

"These symptoms—irregular cycles, acne, excessive hair growth—" he waved his hand dismissively across me, reducing me to a checklist of failures. "They're all because of your weight. If you'd just show some self-control with your eating habits?—"

Like I hadn't spent half my life starving myself.

"But I don't," the words escaped before I could swallow them. My fingers twisted in the hospital gown, the sound of tearing paper ripped through something inside me. "I barely eat compared to them." My voice cracked—he wouldn't believe me. "I count every bite. Log every portion."

His skeptical expression made my chest constrict, my lungs tightened like my ribs were shrinking around them. No one ever listened. They saw my body and made assumptions, their gaze looking straight through everything that proved them wrong. They didn't see the tiny portions, the careful planning, the constant gnawing hunger that'd become my closest companion.

I could disappear entirely and they'd still say I didn't try hard enough.

The memories flooded in—watching thin friends load their plates without a thought while I nursed a cup of soup that sat like stones in my gut. Enduring those knowing looks when I ordered salads at restaurants, the silent assumptions as heavy as chains around my neck.

My heart slammed like it wanted out—like it was clawing for escape from this body I couldn't stop being in. I pressed my arms tighter across my chest, but it didn't help.

I didn't feel real. Just a thing on display, stitched together wrong, like humiliation was the only thing keeping me from falling apart. Like if I looked down, I'd see someone else's limbs, someone else's ruin. My body was a battleground and I'd always be the one who loses.

"I know what people think when they see me," the words scraped raw against my throat. "But they're wrong." Years of carrying others' assumptions had left me bruised in places no one could see. "And the pain," I forced out, regretting it the second his eyes narrow. "Sometimes I can barely stand."

He sighed–that heavy, practiced sound doctors perfect when patients don't fit their expectations. "That's expected at your size. Your body just isn't built for this much weight." His pen tapped against my file, each click an executioner's drumbeat. "Look, I'm only seeing you as a favor to Trevor. Most doctors wouldn't take an uninsured patient, especially someone like you."

I sank further into myself, the paper gown crinkling like failure. His lip curled slightly as his stare drifted down to where my thighs spread across the examination table–flesh taking up space it was never meant to. I tugged the gown down, but it wouldn't stretch far enough.

Heat crawled under my skin as I braced for the next hit.

"Your bloodwork shows insulin resistance, but again, that's typical for someone of your size." His words landed like stones, like I didn't already carry enough. The scratch of his pen made my skin crawl like it was taking notes on my worth. "I'm prescribing some meds, but honestly, they won't help unless you make serious lifestyle changes. When was the last time you exercised?"

I stared at the floor. My throat wouldn't work. The question lingered, cruel and rhetorical. My tongue felt thick, like my words had nowhere to go. Why did it even matter? He'd already decided. "I walk to make deliveries?—"

"That obviously isn't good enough." His voice snapped like he was tired of excuses. "Your father mentioned you spend a lot of time at home—does that limit your physical activity? Is that because you're embarrassed about your appearance? Or have you just given up?"

Each word landed like a physical blow, bruising places that never healed. I curled into myself, a futile attempt at becoming invisible under his scrutiny.

If only he knew that being fat was the least of my problems now. My days weren't spent hiding from the world because of guilt—though that was still soaked into everything. They were spent in my kitchen, where flour and sugar coated my hands, baking wedding cakes, birthday treats—making things for people who didn't have to earn kindness. Or bent over textbooks, trying to keep up with online classes.

Maybe I was born wrong. Maybe something in my DNA soured before I even took my first breath—something broken they couldn't name but still punished me for. There was no cure for being born unwanted by the world.

A boy once mooed at me in the school hallway. Loud enough for everyone to hear. I laughed along like it didn't matter, like it bounced right off. But I never wore that shirt again. I burned it two days later in the fire pit behind our house, hoping the smoke would carry the guilt away.

And then there was V.

My stomach churned at the thought of him, lurking at the edges, too solid to ignore. His presence had nothing to do with my size and everything to do with his obsession. Each pound I carried suddenly felt insignificant compared to the pressure of being watched, the way he was fixed on me without permission or reason.

"I stay home because I have to work," I managed to say, but the words felt hollow. How could I explain that a psychopath had decided I was his to watch? That leaving my house meant feeling his eyes on me, knowing he was always there, just behind me?

The doctor wouldn't understand. No one would. They'd see a plus-sized girl making excuses, not someone trapped in a cage made from someone else's obsession. My fingers dug into the soft flesh of my thighs, the pain was proof. I still got to feel it. The pain reminded me that this skin—no matter how it was judged—was still mine.

"I have orders to fill," I murmured, but he was already writing in his chart, the scratch of his pen a death sentence for any dignity I'd managed to preserve.

"I've seen patients half your size make the necessary changes. There's really no excuse." He tore the prescription from his pad, the sound like peeling something raw. "When you come back in a few months, I hope you've lost some weight. Otherwise, we're just wasting each other's time."

I wanted to say something but didn't. What was the point?

The door clicked shut behind him like the room buried me too. I fumbled with my clothes, desperate to cover myself before the tears started falling. My fingers were clumsy. Nothing fit right. Not even me. The fabric grabbed in all the wrong places, like it knew what I hated most. I shoved my arms through sleeves that fought back, not able to hide this frame that took up too much room in a world that wanted me erased.

A memory hit like a sucker punch—being thirteen, standing in a fluorescent-lit dressing room while Mom searched for something that would fit. "It's okay, sweetie," she'd said, her voice thin, trying to stay soft as she handed me another size up. "We'll try the other section." The women's section. Because I'd already outgrown the right to be young.

I grabbed my purse and rushed out, every step a retreat from their eyes. The receptionist called after me, but I couldn't stop. My vision tunneled. I couldn't breathe. I just needed the door.

The automatic doors slid open with a hiss, and the parking lot's cold air hit my face like a slap, momentarily shocking my lungs into working again.

I collapsed into the driver's seat, leather sticking to my skin as I fell apart. The tears came hard and fast now, blurring the world until everything looked wrong. My fists pounded against the steering wheel, every strike a cry for something else—anything but this disgust I couldn't dig out of.

The medical building loomed through the windshield, its windows reflecting a warped version of me.

"Why can't I just be normal?" The words bounced off the windshield, coming back to mock me with my broken voice. "Why can't I just love myself?"

But self-love felt like something everyone else got a head start on while I was still learning how to hide.

I was so tired of trying.

My phone buzzed in my purse—probably Mom checking how it went. She tried so hard to protect me, to shield me from the world's cruelty with love wrapped in bubble wrap and duct tape. But she couldn't save me from myself.

Even my tears rebelled—too messy. Mascara smeared down my cheeks like stigma with a brushstroke.

Even breaking down, I still couldn't get it right.

I didn't cry in single cinematic tears. I cried in floods and wreckage, spilling past the edges I was told to stay within.

I wanted to smash the mirror. Shatter the reflection so I never have to see this face again—this traitor that smiled in family photos and cried in dressing rooms. I wanted to peel myself out of this body and leave it behind like something contagious. They say to love yourself.

But how did you love what everyone else hated?

My throat cracked. My fists slammed against the wheel, skin burning with rage I couldn't aim anywhere. I shook like my body was trying to tear itself open. I wanted to claw off my skin and start again. Something bearable. My ribs convulsed with a sound I didn't remember making, like my soul was trying to evacuate this weight I wore like punishment.

My hand drifted down my stomach, fingertips catching on every ridge, every scar. It was not soothing—it was proof. Of failure. Of survival. Of being seen. That I'd lived. That I'd been watched. That I'd never been enough.

Through the blur of tears, I noticed someone standing at the edge of the lot, unmoving.

V.

Always there.

Of course he was.