Run: Beginnings Read Online Free PDF Page B

He…Michael—that was my fiancé—he wanted to get married but I didn’t so I left. It was…complicated.”
                  Eric said nothing but his expression was patient, calm. She knew he was waiting for her to get her bearings.
                  “We had been together for four years. He was with me through most of medical school. I really loved him and thought we were definitely going to get married. We were just waiting for me to get out of school first.At least tha t’ s what he said. But after graduation, things started changing. He started criticizing. He said I wasn’t making much of an effort with my weight. He started nitpicking on the way I would dress. But the thing was that with how crazy school had been and now work, I actually had lost ten pounds. But it wasn’t good enough for him.” Natalie looked down at the table, pulling her arms tight around herself. “He said it wasn’t good enough.” Which meant I wasn’t good enough.
                  Taking another fortifying sip of the wine, Natalie continued, “One night I came home early after a long shift at the hospital. I thought maybe we could go out to dinner together. I figured if we just spent a little more time together, we’d be fighting less. I went upstairs and heard the shower running. I knocked and then opened the door. I heard her giggle first.”
                  Natalie felt the memory of that night come back in a stinging wave of betrayal and hurt. Tears prickled her eyes as she remembered the pain of realization. For a split second, she had seen the way Michael was looking at the giggling woman. The laughter and lust in his eyes had been so absent from Natalie’s life for so long, she almost had n’ t recognized the look. “Michael was shocked to see me home so early. He hadn’t expected me. Obviously. I don’t who she was but obviously he knew her well enough to be sharing a shower. I didn’t wait for any explanation. I just left.”
                  She had gone to Amber’s house, driving in a haze of tears, sobbing loudly in the car. The girl had been everything she was not. Blonde, beautiful, thin. She had felt so ugly and so unwanted. By the time she landed on Amber’s front door, Natalie was completely shattered.
                  Later, the details had begun to trickle in. Her name was Candace. She was a coworker of Michael’s. Initially it had just been a casual friendship. But eventually, according to Michael, she had become more insistent, more flirtatious. And then everything had spiraled.
                  “He came back later saying that he was sorry. That what he had done was unforgivable,” Natalie said, her voice sounding hollow even to her own ears. “He cried and said it had all been a terrible mistake and that he loved me.” Natalie sighed, looking away. “I know I should’ve just let the relationship die then. It was already broken. But I was so….Oh god, I’m going to sound so stupid but I was scared that no one else would ever want me again.” She said the last bit in a rush, the words squeezed together in one breath.
                  Too ashamed to meet Eric’s gaze now, she continued, “And a week later he proposed. It was a short engagement. He insisted we get married as soon as possible. But throughout the whole time, I could see that he wasn’t really looking at me. He wasn’t seeing me . I think he was just doing what he thought was right. He hated feeling like he was the asshole. A lot of our friends had heard what had happened and were shutting him out. So Michael wanted to try and fix it. But even though he stopped criticizing me about my weight or my body, I could see it in his eyes and I could feel it in the way he touched me. Or really, the way he did n’ t touch me. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized, I couldn’t live with that. I couldn’t live a life where I repelled