Page 189 of The Compass Series

HAILEE

A fter our newfound romance, Aiden had to head off to Los Angeles for some business work for two weeks.

I dreaded having him gone, but I kept my head down and counted the days until his return.

During his trip, he was busy, but there wasn’t an evening when he didn’t make time to call me.

Each morning before I went to school, he’d send me a text message saying he hoped I had a great day.

When I called him out about the two-hour time difference, he told me he set an alarm to tell me good morning, then he’d hit snooze on his clock and go back to sleep.

Aiden Walters, ladies and gentlemen. The boy who set the standards.

Each day at lunch, I’d sit alone at my table. Carlton noticed me one day, but he didn’t dare walk over to me. He knew we had nothing to say to one another. The popular kids had already ditched him, too, seeing as how they’d had their laughs. That didn’t mean they were done mocking me yet, though.

“Hey, Hailee, how are you doing?” Cara asked, sliding into the lunch booth across from me. She had two followers with her, and they sat on either side of her. They were smiling as bright as ever, which was enough of an alarm for me.

They were smiling, but it didn’t seem like a peaceful approach. I was on high alert.

“Hi?” I said as a question.

Cara grinned and leaned in toward me. She took my hands into hers. “I think it’s great that you and Aiden have officially become official. I mean, who doesn’t love a friends-to-lovers trope, am I right?”

I remained silent.

For the past few weeks, Cara and her friends still mocked me over my weight. I didn’t tell Aiden about it, though, because him being Aiden, he would’ve flipped out.

“I think it’s so brave of you to date him,” Cara’s friend, Elizabeth, stated.

“So, so brave,” Natalie echoed. “Like, so brave,” she swooned.

Brave?

What was so brave about me dating Aiden?

I knew I shouldn’t have, but I took the bait. “What do you mean?”

Cara kept smiling. “The article just came out this morning. You have to read what people are saying about you online.”

My heart rate picked up as chills ran up and down my spine. “What people are saying?”

Cara lightly gasped, but I was all but certain she wasn’t surprised.

“You haven’t seen? Here, let me show you.

” She pulled out her cell phone and tapped against it a few times before holding it in my face.

There was an article on one of the biggest tabloid websites titled: Everything we know about Aiden Walters’s Plus-Sized Girlfriend.

Under the headline was a picture of Aiden and me holding hands, followed by even worse photographs of me in the most unflattering angles that someone took of me during the school day. I was slouched at a desk in one, picking up a dropped notebook in another, and getting my food in the lunch line.

People were taking candid photographs of me at school.

People were taking candid photographs of me at school and giving them to the paparazzi.

People were taking candid photographs of me at school and giving them to the paparazzi, and were all mocking me about it.

“I was nice enough to send them some pictures for their article. You’re better than me, honestly,” Cara said, picking up the spoon on my lunch tray.

“Because if it were me, instead of using this spoon to put food into my mouth…” She turned the handle of the spoon to her mouth and opened it wide, “I’d be using it to get food out of me.

But then again, I’m not so brave like you, Hailee. ”

Tears sat at the back of my eyes, but I didn’t want them to fall in front of her and her followers.

I climbed out of the booth, grabbed my backpack, and took off running out of the cafeteria.

“Guys! Hurry! Get video of the hungry-hungry-hippo running,” Cara shouted as I made my exit.

Everyone was laughing at me. Not just everyone at school, but everyone online, too. I sat in the janitor’s closet in the complete dark as my cell phone shone in my face. I read every article about me, every comment, every trending post.

Aiden’s into Black girls? No fucking way.

If she spent half the time doing her hair that she did eating, she could be cute.

There’s no way that thing is dating Aiden Walters.

Dear God, I’ve seen what you’ve done for others…

How did she get the sexiest guy alive, and I’m still single? Clearly, looks don’t matter.

Someone doesn’t skip meals.

One burger away from a heart attack.

Mooooo!

This has to be photoshopped.

My phone began ringing as Aiden’s name flashed across the screen. Tears fell against the phone as my hands shook repeatedly. My stomach sat in knots as I rejected his call. He called again and again, and I rejected every single one.

Aiden: Answer, Hails.

Aiden: Please. Answer the phone. I saw the articles. They’re bullshit.

Aiden: You’re perfect. They’re idiots and haters and trolls.

Aiden: Please, answer. Hails. Please.

Aiden: I’m coming home on the first flight out. I’m coming.

I headed home that day to find my parents speaking with Laurie in our living room. The second they saw me, it was clear that they, too, had read the online articles.

Dad shot to his feet. “Cinderella,” he started.

I shook my head. “I’m fine. I’m going to study.”

“Baby girl,” Mama began, but I didn’t give them a chance to continue. I shot to my bedroom and locked the door behind me. I collapsed onto my bed and cried into my pillows. Every inch of me ached. My head was pounding from crying for so long and so hard.

“Cinderella, we’re going to give you the space to feel what you have to feel for a few hours, but then I promise you, I am going to kick this door down and hold you,” Dad said from outside my door.

He meant it, too.

I unlocked my door and had dinner with my parents.

I could almost feel their concern as Mama made my plate for me.

Why did she put so much food on my plate?

I didn’t need that much food. I shouldn’t have been eating that much.

My hands sat in my lap as I stared at the mountain of food Mama was giving me as the words of the strangers around the world echoed in my ears.

Fat ass.

Disgusting.

He’s cheating on her.

Did you see the size of her thighs?

The dinner conversation was fine, and I told them I was okay. I had to tell them that. Otherwise, they would’ve worried and felt bad. I didn’t want them to feel bad. It wasn’t their fault that my body looked the way it did.

After dinner, I went to the bathroom attached to my bedroom and stared at myself in the mirror.

I took off my T-shirt and slid out of my sweatpants.

I stood there in my bra and panties as tears rolled down my cheeks.

My hands moved across my body, across my skin, and gripped the extra weight.

I pinched it, I bunched it up, I hated it. I hated it. I hated it.

Me.

I hated myself.

Fat ass.

Disgusting.

He’s cheating on her.

Did you see the size of her thighs?

I pulled out the scale from under the sink and dusted it off. I stepped onto it. Two hundred and forty-five pounds. I was two hundred and thirty when the school year started, not that long ago. How did that happen?

Fat ass.

Disgusting.

He’s cheating on her.

Did you see the size of her thighs?

I threw up.

I hugged the toilet seat as everything inside me came up. I threw up until I was dry heaving. Until my eyes watered. Until everything felt dizzying.

I stood from the floor, brushed my teeth, then tossed mouthwash into my mouth and wiped the tears from my eyes. I spat out the mouthwash.

I stepped back on the scale.

Two hundred and forty-four pounds.

One pound down?

How was that possible?

I put on my pajamas and climbed into bed.

Aiden hadn’t stopped texting me. He’d already booked a flight and was on his way to the airport.

He kept updating me about when he would get home.

It was two in the morning when there was a knock on my window.

I went to open it to find my best friend, my person, standing there with the most heartbreaking stare I’d ever seen in my life.

I turned on my lights, then opened my window. The chilled breeze brushed against my face.

“Hey, you.” He smiled, but I felt his sadness.

“Hey, you,” I replied.

“Can I…?” He gestured into my room.

I stepped to the side. “Yes.”

He climbed through my window. He stood beside me and wrapped his arms around my body.

I tried to wiggle out of his embrace, uncomfortable with the idea of him feeling my rolls through my pajamas.

It was silly because he had held me many times before, but now my mind was jumbled with other people’s thoughts that didn’t belong to me.

I always thought I was enough. The rest of the world was trying to convince me otherwise. I hated that they were winning, too. I hated that their thoughts in my head were louder than my own.

“I’m sorry,” he started.

“It’s not your fault.”

“It is. It’s happening to you because of me, and I hate that.” He took off his jacket, followed by his shoes. He rolled up his sleeves. “They’re idiots. People who feel loud and proud behind a keyboard are total dicks who just type bullshit to get likes from other miserable people.”

“Yeah, but…” My voice trembled.

“I know. It still hurts.”

I nodded. “It still hurts.”

“They made you insecure.”

“Yes.”