Yours Truly ❁ n.k.h

• chapter seven •

When I was younger, my relationship to my body was never something I'd given much thought to.

My clothes swallowed me whole, even after I started filling them out, to my grandma's disbelief. I could never remember much except hearing her say to my mom that I was growing too fast, and that she needed to be careful around me. My uncles and male family friends used to joke that my mom's gonna have to get a shotgun, a sentiment typically reserved for fathers, but was saved for my mother who played both roles.

I never understood it. All I knew was that no matter how wide my hips grew or how big my chest was, I couldn't help but want to cover it all in clothes two times larger. That was comfort to me. That's what felt like home.

But in a house full of women, they never let me forget what my body really looked like underneath all the layers.

I was constantly reminded to wear pants when people came over and to never wear anything on my torso without a bra underneath. All of my clothes had to match, and be ironed. Presentable, my mom put it. I always had to look presentable.

Today, I have a different idea of presentable than my mom raised me with. I don't straighten my hair or iron everything I own. Sometimes I even go outside without a bra. And other times I look at myself in the mirror and wonder if this is the body that everyone saw me growing into before I was able to fathom it myself.

I never cared for all of the rules around manners and presentation, or what they were centered around, but I had the sneaking suspicion that it had to do with men.

While I wasn't used to seeing them around the house growing up, I was no stranger to how they changed my grandma and my mom. Suddenly the strongest women I knew went from witty, boisterous, and sometimes even huge gossips to quiet, subservient, and lacking of any depth. It felt like I was walking around an apartment full of corpses most days.

I fucking hated it.

The men they backed down to were never ones that deserved it (if any did at all). They ate ravenously and dropped food on their shirt, and their pants hung lower than their pride. No matter how many times my mom would ask them not to curse around me, they did it anyway. And one time I even caught one stealing money from my grandma's coat before he left our house.

I had no qualms about men. Frankly, I had no interest in them whatsoever growing up. But I did promise myself that if I was to ever abide by the rules my mom and her mom set out, it wouldn't be for the sake of men. It would be for me.

These were the thoughts that plagued my head as I stood in front of a display mirror at Goodwill. Eight days in the same outfit was more than enough to warrant even the most fashionably inept person, and frankly, my sweat was beginning to stick to my clothes no matter how many times I washed them.

And if I was being completely honest - Gary got in my head.

I hadn't paid much attention to the fact that I was wearing the same outfit out of necessity because no one seen me on a daily basis. But if I was going to work at Judgment Day Ink, I couldn't show up in the same clothes everyday. If I thought yesterday was bad, imagine if he saw me for a third time in the same shirt and jeans. Two times already didn't bode over well with my new employer.

Granted, he hasn't called me yet so technically I'm not employed. But I have a feeling he'll take me under his wing. I know how to make a good argument when I need to, and I think I made a damn good one.

So far at Goodwill, I found a bunch of flannel shirts, a long sleeve or two, a hoodie, and three pairs of jeans. I opted for clothes that fit the way I liked them to; baggy jeans, oversized hoodies or sweaters, and tight fitting shirts. The tight fitting shirt was just a formality of sorts. I always felt warmer with a fabric closer to my skin under one that allowed room for the heat to fester.

I also made sure to go with simple color schemes. There were mainly blue jeans, a pair of khaki colored ones, a green hoodie, flannels with green or blue or brown in them, and white long sleeves. The shoe section was a little harder to peruse because I wore a size nine, and all of the shoes were either extremely scuffed or not in my size. It took a minute but I managed to find a pair of white trainers with a black design. The brand was unreadable and there were some scuffs around the toe area, but it was just gonna have to do for now.

It felt good to do something I used to before this all went down. For once, I felt steady. I wasn't baselining or freaking out, I was just here. I finally felt some semblance of normal.

Looking down at my clothes, I decided it was time to just buy them and go. I shouldered my way past a dad and his kid on the way to the register. The little girl was enthusiastically reaching her hand towards him with a piggy bank she found and the biggest smile on her face.

I couldn't help but smile at the sight of the two, forcing the painful lump back down my throat.

The child's laughs resonated in my ear with each step, but was steadily growing further and further away. The sound was... delightful. Familiar.

I reveled in it for a moment as if the joy was mine to keep. The cashier at my register kept giving me a weird look that I couldn't even be bothered to notice.

Her laugh, seeing a parent embrace their child with open arms... It was the purest form of love imaginable.

I said thank you to my cashier, grabbing my assortment of clothes and the receipt. There were no more bags being sold here because of some policy ban and none of the bags they sold were big enough to hold my things.

I walked towards the exit. Before I left, I couldn't help but look back for the dad and his little girl. This time she was picking and pulling at the jackets she passed. Her dad held her hand and weaved her through the spaces between people in the store, ushering her to stop touching everything.

Suddenly I felt a phantom itch in my own hand - one that wished I was holding someone. But this wasn't New York, and I wasn't with her. She didn't even look or smile the same.

Whenever I tried to hold her now, I was always aware I was holding a ghost.

She was no longer my angel.