CHAPTER 2
ARIEL
If I didn’t have so many little eyes on me right now, I would clutch my head, close my eyes and take a nap. I can’t. No matter how much I want to.
There are too many eyes on me. Too many impressionable eyes. They don’t miss a damn thing either.
The only thing saving me right now is there is only a little bit left in the year. They don’t want to be here just as much as I don’t want to be here. Testing is coming up and right now we’re all about reviewing.
I pushed them with readingThe Outsiders. I was a little concerned when we got to it, but they were able to relate to it and the message inherent in the book. I shouldn’t have thought they wouldn’t get it.
I should have had more faith.
I’ve been working on it. I’ve been working on trusting people. It’s one of the only reasons I got involved with Joel, my now ex, even though alarm bells were going off in my head. I used to scoff at women who raced right past the red flags like they were doing the slalom event in the Olympics.
I get it now.
I knew better and yet I did it anyway.
I was flattered Joel asked me out, since he’s a good-looking guy and seemed genuinely interested in me. I’m good with them, but my curves can either be something a man leans into or looks at with trepidation. He looked at me with hunger.
He was also a royal asshole. I knew better, I just didn’t heed my own instincts.
Thankfully I didn’t have sex with him. Something held me back and it was more than the red flags I paid no mind when I was racing past them, desperate to be in a relationship even though it was the wrong one.
I thought it would help me get over my little crush on the three men I game with sometimes. Okay, more than sometimes. I’ve played with them a lot over the last six months. It’s more than just gaming though, we talk.
Chat?
I don’t know even what to call it.
I shouldn’t have gotten drunk last night when Joel broke up with me. It took me a long time to love my curves, but I do. I’ve known men who find them sexy, genuinely sexy, and I’ve learned what I think I look best in. I dress for my body and for myself, wanting to express the woman I’ve grown into. I don’t hide them, unless I want to, and I appreciate my body for what it is now.
That doesn’t mean I don’t still have old wounds from the experiences of my past, including being bullied when I was growing up. Joel picked at those wounds and opened them up again. He used the little bit of trust I’d given him and then exploited it.
When we met up for dinner last night, he texted me and told me to meet him at the bar instead of a table. It was strange, but I didn’t think that much of it. I should have. I see it now, but at the time I was blind to it.
Mostly because I wasn’t thinking about the three men who I only know by the sound of their voice when I was around Joel. Cy, Kent and Gabriel aren’t mine. It doesn’t matter I get a flutter in my belly whenever I see any of them are online or I hear their voices.
When I was with Joel, I could ignore the pull I have toward three strangers. Three best friends. I shouldn’t be thinking about them the way I am. The fantasies I’ve had, the things I crave, can never happen
I know it but tell my body that.
The moment I walked up to Joel at the bar last night, I knew something was wrong. He was looking into the main part of the restaurant at a gorgeous blonde woman who I could tell with one look was tall and willowy. She was the exact opposite of me, and the realization paired with the look he was giving her made my stomach twist.
He tore his eyes from her only when I was standing right in front of him, and I had called his name twice. A look of guilt flashed across his face, but then disappeared quickly. His voice was hesitant, “Hey Ariel.”
I forced a smile on my face and reached out to touch his arm, but he pulled back like I’d electrocuted him. “What’s going on,” uncertainty filled me. “Is everything okay?”
He looked at me and shook his head slowly. “We’re through.”
That was it. His words put me in a stupor. When he turned to walk away from me, I jumped back into action. I wish I would have stayed frozen because, much to my own horror, I reached out and grabbed his arm like some desperate woman.
I’m not a desperate woman. Except for last night, apparently.
Joel turned and sneered at me. “You thought this was real? You didn’t realize I was just trying to check fat chick pussy off my bucket list?”
I pulled my body back and away from him and almost tripped over my own feet in the process. I’m sure I looked like a wide eyed naïve little girl as I stood there staring up at him. That is before I got my shit together and my brain came online. Sometimes you just need a reboot.