“Yes.” I lifted my head, wiping the sweat dripping from my forehead with my towel. “I am.”

“Stop quitting. Tell your mind to get out of the way so your body can work.”

“I have been working!” I yelled. I was surprised at the level the words left me, but I wasn’t sorry. I was exhausted. I was pissed. And I was officially at my limit.

“And you’re still working. You’re not done. Let’s go.” He pressed the green button and bumped the speed up to six, forcing me to walk. I smacked his hand away and stopped it again.

“I’m going to throw up.”

He sighed. “No you’re not. You’re just psyching yourself out.”

“I CAN’T DO THIS!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, my chest heaving as I dropped down to the ground from the steps. There were people staring at us then, but I didn’t care. I stepped right up to Rhodes, putting me chest-to-chest with him. I felt intimidated, but I didn’t dare let it show. “All you do is scream at me and push me and I feel like nothing is happening other than me feeling like I want to die every night when I leave here. You never let me breathe, you never smile, you never talk to me, and last night you pretended like you didn’t even know who I was. I don’t know if you’re ashamed to be seen around me or what but I’m not putting up with it. You may be my trainer, Rhodes, but that doesn’t give you the right to be an asshole.”

Rhodes’ eyes were on fire as he stood back, arms crossed, taking every lashing I handed out with my verbal beating. At first he seemed amused, but with every word, his face fall a bit further.

Satisfied with his dumbfounded expression, I tossed my towel over my shoulder and snagged my gym bag from the floor, heading for the Rover.

I was shaking as I strapped on my seatbelt, physical proof that though my words were confident and sure, I was far from both. Starting the car quickly, I pulled out of the club without looking back to see if Rhodes was trying to stop me. My breaths were still hard in my chest and my heart hammering against my ribs when I made it home.

The house was quiet as I dropped my bag at the door. I heard Mom on the phone down the hall, but I headed for the kitchen first, grabbing a Gatorade out of the fridge. I chugged half of it before heading toward where I heard Mom’s voice. I wasn’t sure the whole training thing was for me anymore, but before I made any decisions, I wanted her advice. My hand lifted to knock on the door frame when I heard my name. Pausing, I tucked my hand back to my side and leaned back against the wall, straining to hear what she was saying.

“I’m proud of her, I just hope she can stick to it. You and I both know the kids in college won’t be as kind as the kids here in Poxton Beach. No one knows who she is or who her father is there. They’ll judge her based on her looks. I think she sees that, too. I’m just glad she’s finally doing something about it.”

My chest tightened and my throat grew thick with something I couldn’t quite swallow down. I silenced my breath as much as I could, trying to hear her soft voice more clearly, but my heart was beating like a helicopter in my ears.

“Yeah, exactly. Natalie has always been pretty, but I can’t wait to see what she looks like once this trainer is done with her. And she’ll feel so much better when she’s not carrying around so much weight.”

An ache ripped through my chest as she paused on the phone, the other person talking now.

“Oh, no, I, um… I think he’s getting better. We haven’t had any instances recently. He’s just a man, I don’t hold any of it against him.”

She had moved on to something else, something that I didn’t have a clue about. But I clearly understood the conversation before that. A familiar sting hit my nose and I sniffed, wiping at it quickly before walking as quickly and quietly as I could back to the living room. I snagged my camera off the coffee table and slipped back out the front door, pulling it shut almost silently behind me.

I was shaking even worse now and I dropped the keys to the Range Rover twice before finally climbing inside, carefully setting my camera in the passenger seat beside me. My hands found the wheel and I gripped it tight, heart beating in my ears, breaths coming erratically. When I pushed the START button and the engine purred to life, it was like a sort of numbness settled over me. My muscles were becoming more aware of the hell I’d put them through that afternoon while my mind tried to process everything I’d just heard.

Mom was right. I did know that college would be different, should I decide to go. I knew that no one would know who I was, that maybe who I was had something to do with the friends I had here in Poxton Beach. But hearing those things from her killed me. Had she always thought I was overweight? Had she always wished that I would do something about it? Was she ashamed of me, too?

My mind was spinning as I drove to the beach. I felt tears stinging the corners of my eyes but they didn’t fall. I pulled into Dale’s reserved parking spot near the pier and threw my camera strap around my neck before peeling off my sneakers and socks and walking slowly onto the beach.

When my toes hit the sand, I powered on my camera and lifted the viewfinder to my left eye, snapping the first photo.

Click.

Just hearing the soft, familiar sound let my breaths come easier than before.

I shot everything and nothing. The water, the sand, a seashell stuck in seaweed, a man and his daughter down the beach building a castle, the old and decaying building on the other side of the pier. I snapped and clicked until my arms were numb from holding the camera and my face was numb from the tears I hadn’t realized had started falling.

It was the first time in my life I fully admitted to myself that I wasn’t happy.

I wasn’t happy with who I was. Or how I looked. Or how I felt. Ever since I could remember, I depended on food for everything — comfort, celebration, mourning. And now that I had finally started to take control and do something about it, I didn’t feel support from anyone around me — save for Willow, who would likely be gone in just a few weeks.

Even my trainer didn’t believe in me.

It was like they all looked at me with pity in their eyes. Poor Natalie Poxton. But I didn’t want to be that girl anymore. If my life was to be a story, I wanted to take control of the pen. I wanted to change the paper, crumple up what had been written so far and start over.

I just hoped I could actually do it.