Page 36 of Try Hard

Fia

“D id Sophie do this one too?” I asked Eve as my fingertip traced the interlocking rings on her ribs.

I probably shouldn’t have even thought about touching her there, let alone asked.

The spot was private, usually hidden. In all the press I’d seen about her, I’d never seen even a hint of this tattoo.

The one on her thigh had been teasing glimpses of black ink, but this one did not exist in the social consciousness.

She laughed softly, her voice so rich and sweet and uniquely hers that it made me want to cry. “No. I got it done right after we won that medal. It felt right.”

I nodded. That was easy to understand.

Her eyes were molten pools of thoughts, and questions, and so much care that my insides ached when I met her gaze. She was beautiful in any light, but the soft yellow glow from the one lamp she’d turned on was impossibly romantic.

She quirked a grin before wrapping her arms around my waist and dragging me down over her. My palms smacked into the mattress on either side of her head, and she didn’t let me go as I hovered above her.

“And you, Ophelia? Any tattoos?” Her gaze almost wandered down my body but I saw her catch herself and stop, holding fast to the intense eye contact we had.

“No tattoos, no.” I thought about telling her about my piercings but there wasn’t any way to mention nipple piercings while you were hovering over someone in bed without it sounding…

propositional. With how she was holding me, I was glad I’d opted to keep the padded bra.

If she concentrated, I wondered whether she’d be able to simply feel them.

“Not a fan?”

“It’s not that. Yours look beautiful.” I hesitated, the conversation with Tanika and Kim demanding my attention. “You look beautiful.”

I wasn’t one for being forward with things like that—hadn’t been one for any kind of flirting for a long time now, but it was true.

Eve had always been the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, and that was only amplified when she was holding me over her, my hair falling down around her face like a curtain.

Eve Archer was not someone who blushed readily, but there was no denying the way a delicate pink bloomed across her cheeks and nose. Of course she blushed like someone from a gorgeous illustration.

Slowly, she moved one of her hands and brushed her fingers over my cheek.

She was so careful with me, so soft and gentle, so…

adoring. When she looked at me that way, it didn’t seem impossible that Tanika and Kim might have been right.

It still didn’t make any sense to me—Eve Archer had been the best, most interesting girl at our school.

Eve as an adult had, impossibly, only improved.

There was no world in which I could comprehend her wanting me, but it was there, in her eyes, that she did.

She watched her own hand as it glided up over my ear and into my hair.

My whole body shook, and it had nothing to do with the weight I was holding on my arms. I didn’t think she’d mind if I stopped holding myself up and simply lay on top of her, but that still felt like too much.

If we were doing this thing—any part of it—I need to go slowly.

“Does me telling you you’re beautiful feel okay?” she whispered, watching me intently.

I frowned. There was no way she’d figured that out. “What?”

She smiled a little sadly, as if she understood completely. “You don’t like it when people comment on your physicality.”

It felt like the bed had dropped out from under me. My voice came out rougher than I was expecting or intending. “How could you know that?”

“Ophelia,” she breathed, the word feeling like a novel all its own with how much meaning she conveyed through it. “I’ve been paying attention to you.”

“Nobody ever notices that.”

“Then they haven’t been paying enough attention. They haven’t been seeing you , only who they want you to be.”

She was cracking my soul open. I could barely breathe for it.

The last time I couldn’t breathe around someone I was dating—not that Eve and I were dating—it was dangerous, painful. I was being broken down. Not with her, though.

How was it that she saw through the carefully crafted facade I’d worked so hard on?

“I like who you are,” she said, looking straight into my eyes, and not a word of it was a lie.

She really had just been paying attention.

She didn’t need me to be the person she’d created in her mind.

It would have been easily done. We’d known each other years ago, she could have held onto her expectations of who that girl had become—who she should have become—just like everyone else I’d been this close with. But she didn’t. She was seeing me .

I adjusted my stance, settling into her side again before I started crying under her penetrating, knowing gaze.

I’d heard it said a million times that to be seen and understood, to be known, was the greatest gift.

I hadn’t thought I’d get that, didn’t think it was possible.

I kept people at a distance, worked hard to seem unbothered by the world around me because I couldn’t let anyone hurt me again.

And, underneath, I realised now, I’d thought that was what I deserved.

That, if I’d let someone in romantically again, I deserved to be coerced and judged.

That I was broken and ignoring how I felt was my punishment for that.

I hated that my brain still felt that way. I’d tried so hard to get past all that. But, of course, it was never so easy.

“Ophelia?” Eve asked, holding me tight.

I nodded. “You’re right. I don’t usually like it when people compliment me physically.”

She pressed a reassuring kiss to the top of my head. “That was the problem with Adnan earlier.”

It wasn’t a question. She just knew. I’d never been known before, not like this.

“Yes. I mean, it’s not the only problem—I’m not interested in him—but the way he looked at me, his compliments…

It’s only because I lost weight. He didn’t give a shit about me in school.

And that’s fine, he wasn’t required to, but that kind of attraction isn’t safe.

I had it held over me for so many years.

And then I lost weight, and people are different now.

The way they look at you, the way they treat you…

It makes me sick sometimes, like all I’m worth is this thin body—take up less space, be who we want you to be.

‘If you’d been like that before, I wouldn’t have had to hurt you. ’”

Eve’s breath stuttered painfully. “Your ex said that to you.”

I nodded against her chest, holding back my tears as best I could.

Admitting it to her, finally voicing his words, felt like cutting one of the ties to him that still stung. I’d spent so much time trying to protect someone who hurt me—and for what? For him. The person who hurt me. I wasn’t sure he deserved that courtesy. He’d never given it to me.

She hugged me so tight it felt like she might break me, but it was exactly what I needed. I almost wanted her to press so hard she could absorb me into her being, where I could be strong and whole.

“Honestly,” I told her quietly, “I was never a huge fan of physical compliments when we were younger. Being a teenager with the kinds of curves I had then, well, I got a lot of gross, inappropriate comments from men. So, even before… everything, they always felt painfully loaded.”

“I’m sorry for everyone who ever hurt you, Ophelia. I wish I could go back and save you from all of it.”

I laughed a little wetly. “You were just a kid too. And you’ve had more than your fair share of gross comments.”

“Me deserving better doesn’t preclude you from deserving it too. Nor does it stop me from wanting to protect you.”

“You aren’t required to do that.”

“I know, but I care about you, just like you care about all of the inappropriate comments and exposure I get.”

“I guess I do wish I could protect you from that.”

“Right.” She brushed one hand through my hair, and I realised it had been a very long time since I’d last felt so truly safe. Sure, around my parents I was safe, in my home too, but this was safety with another person, with someone who cared to know the me I didn’t show the world.

If all the pieces I was putting together were correct, Eve Archer had been working on knowing the real me for over half her life.

“I’m sorry about Soph,” she said after a long moment. “I’ll talk to her before dinner tomorrow night.”

I shook my head, feeling the fabric of her shirt almost rough against my cheek. “That’s not necessary.”

“It is if she’s doing something that makes you uncomfortable.”

“I can handle it.”

“You shouldn’t have to.” She paused and I felt her heart racing in her chest. “Ophelia, I want you to feel safe and welcome here. I know you can handle those comments, but she shouldn’t even be saying them. I don’t want you to have to keep your guard up here.”

I laughed shakily. “I’ve known Sophie a long time. It’s not my first experience with her… approach.”

“Jesus Christ. I guess I’m not surprised by the confirmation that she was just as bold with you back then.”

“I think she might have been worse, actually.”

Eve groaned. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“I will get her to stop.”

“Eve,” I said, lifting my head to look at her, unbothered if she saw the tears and emotion in my eyes, “I can handle Sophie’s comments.”

Her gaze softened as she took in my face, as if just seeing me soothed something inside of her. “I’ve seen the way your body locks down, the way your expression changes. I can see how much you hate it and how it hurts you.”

“It’s tolerable. I know Sophie doesn’t mean anything by it, and, to her credit, I definitely know it’s not about how much I weigh.”

Eve’s face twisted to something repulsed which I knew was her trying not to think about her little sister boldly and brashly coming onto me. “Well, I suppose there’s that. But still. I don’t want her hitting on my…”