Same/Difference (The Depth of Emotion #4) Read Online Free PDF

would have analyzed how accessories camouflaged my insecurities but I didn’t care. For years the pretty things I bought and wore were my magic. They cancelled out hospital smells, painful bandage changes, and pitiful stares. I placed them in the dark recesses of my mind but they could resurface at any time.
    Like now.
    I could still hear the name-calling, the taunts, and see the ugly facial expressions. They made me feel like I didn’t measure up and never would. Although my mother was an angel she learned the hard way that she couldn’t protect her little girl from a broken heart. The worst offenders were children with cherubic faces that became devils when they weren’t monitored. Mean girls.
    I stretched, flexed, and pointing my toes while I tried to put the sad thoughts back into their box in my mind. I had many boxes there. All were childhood memories, some pleasant, some not, but neatly catalogued nonetheless. As I grew up part of my healing was through counseling. They taught me to concentrate on the present in order to avoid the pain of the past, but I wasn’t always successful. It was a work in progress and I was still working on it.
    Although it was necessary for me to live in the “now”, relaxing my body couldn’t hurt. The flight had cramped me but the drinks relaxed me. Volleying the two was a perfect mental health cocktail—and not a good one. An exhaustion that was physically and emotionally draining was creeping in. My internal clock wasn’t cooperating well and, now that everything was put away, a hot shower sounded pretty good. I grabbed a tee shirt and some clean panties. The need for sleep was threatening to push me over the edge of rationale. My thoughts were beginning to get muddled and I felt scuzzy from the recirculated air on the plane. Shower. Sleep. Now. It was an easy formula. All I had to do was follow it.
    I picked out my outfit for the next day, a little business, and a little pleasure. Liz and I had registered for the conference but we also were planning to look at a few properties. I was thinking of buying a condo for my Vegas visits. Of course, the absence of hotel pampering could greatly hinder my decision. I l oved room service.
    As I closed the closet door and placed my clothes on a hook I caught a glimpse of my reflection. Just like Narcissus, I was drawn to it, but there was one, big difference between us; I wasn’t in love with myself. Not at all.
    Quite the opposite in fact.
    As I looked in the mirror she stood before me. The girl that never measured up. The one that everyone hated. The one they brought to life because they hated her imperfection. In my sleep- deprived, maudlin state, I looked at her through their eyes. I pushed the dress off my shoulders but it was she that looked back at me. Her eyes watched it flutter to the floor, but it puddled at my feet. The girl in the mirror was the object of their cruelty. She fixated on the lacy bra and panties that I wore beneath, but she was disgusted by something so pretty against something so foul. I saw her as a conqueror, but all she saw was a freak.
    I should have shifted away from the mirror, or told her to look away. We didn’t coexist peacefully. I chastised myself because all I had to do was take off my underwear and step into the shower. Instead she hooked me through my peripheral vision like an unsuspecting fish. She knew I was weak when I was tired, and she took advantage of it. I wanted to turn away—but I couldn’t. Like a shark she fixated on my massacred flesh. The waters of exhaustion were the perfect opportunity for her to take a swim in my wounded mind. She swam in the waters of my anxiety, compulsion, and ritualism while I stood helpless on the shore side of the looking glass. They ripped her spirit apart with their bloodthirsty appetite. The voice in my mind screamed for her to fight, to turn away from the perilous waters, but when I was exhausted she swam alone in a masochistic ocean. I couldn’t pull