Sadly, Bonnie had suffered from gaslighting, too, but hers was slightly more complicated than Beau’s story. Her entire family had been the victims of many gaslighters and ignorant bigots, but she hadn’t distanced herself from her friends. Instead, we’d been able to take her back repeatedly our whole lives and had done everything we could to shield her from them.
I often thought about the theory that like attracted like, and wounded souls flocked together. That’s what we were. Before I’d had the surgery, I focused my attention on Bonnie and what she was going through, protecting her in any way I could. I’d recognized the pain and suffering in Beau, but she wouldn’t let us get close, so I’d had to look out for her from a distance as best I could.
Once I’d rectified part of my problem by having surgery, I’d worked harder on helping Bonnie, getting her to talk to her parents to tell them how bad it was. We’d researched Atavism, and that’d helped her understand that she wasn’t different, she was unique—two things that are similar but vastly different at the same time. She’d made an appointment with my therapist just to help her lay some solid foundations after so much upheaval mentally and emotionally. Her parents and brother had always been her biggest source of stability. Still, therapists are experts on coping mechanisms, isolating and understanding things that affect us mentally and emotionally, and she’d eventually decided it wouldn’t hurt to try.
The Bonnie I’d grown up with had been timid and had zero confidence. The version of her we had today was still slightly shy, but she had confidence and gave no fucks whatsoever about the bullshit the handful of assholes that refused to quit lobbed her way.
“Your expression’s worrying me. What are you thinking about, Ari?” Parker asked, and I realized I’d been staring into space and hadn’t heard anything he’d said.
“I’m sorry, what were you saying?”
“I’m asking what you were thinking about that put that expression on your face.”
“Beau and Bonnie,” I told him honestly.
Seeing that I wasn’t going to elaborate—they weren’t my stories to share, ever—he changed the subject back to what he must have been asking while I was thinking about my friends.
“Something’s bugging me about all of this. I can understand wanting to change things that are affecting you and making you depressed, but when you mention your brothers, it’s almost like you’re inferior to them. Did that play a part in what was going on?”
Uncomfortable with how well he read the situation, I tried to figure out a way to answer around it, but I was never good at coming up with excuses or lies on the spot. I never told them because that wasn’t the person I wanted to be, and excuses just blew up in my face, so I tried to avoid them. This moment was no different.
Fuck my life.
“Yeah, it did. People think a lot of Noah, Archer, Tate, and Levi, but I was always referred to as their sister, never as Ariana Townsend, the person. No one’s perfect, and trust me they all have their faults, but at the same time, not many people saw or acknowledged those faults, whereas my appearance was only fuckable if it involved paper bagging and no light. I’m not saying it’s their fault, they’re amazing brothers, but I guess it just made it harder for me,” I mumbled, picking at that poor nail again. “Now I sound shallow and petty.”
“No, you don’t,” he disagreed firmly. “The way you’ve phrased it doesn’t sound at all petty and shallow. I’ll bet a lot of people could relate to that. You’re right—in high school and college, people have other people they either idolize or are willfully blind to their faults. In contrast, you got things pointed out in a vicious and vindictive way. But, Ari,” he leaned across and grabbed the hand that I was mauling the nail on, “your brothers aren’t perfect, no one is.”
Rolling my eyes, I disagreed with him. “That’s where you’re wrong. There isn’t one thing on their bodies they’d want to change. I’ll bet you there isn’t one thing about their entire person they’d want to change. And let’s look at my granddad—do you think he’d change anything?”
“He had Scrotox,” he pointed out, making me shudder.
Yes, he was that guy. It’d been a joke gift if I remembered correctly, and he’d been determined to cough a ‘fuck you’ at the person who’d given it to him. He’d even jokingly tried to show it to my cousins as payback, knowing they’d freak out and run away.
“Hurst’s also worked all his life on becoming the man he is today, so that goes to prove he doesn’t think he’s perfect. I bet he’d have a list if you asked him if he’d change anything at all about himself.”