IMAGINES | travis kelce + taylor swift (1)

12.1 | pretty isn't pretty

when pretty isn't pretty enough,
what do you do?
[olivia rodrigo]

TRIGGER WARNING: EATING DISORDER HABITS, MENTIONS OF PURGING

_____

Taylor stepped out of the shower, a shiver shedding down her naked spine as her feet flattened on the chilled bathroom floor tiles. As she slipped into her black skinny jeans, she couldn't help but latch hold of the reflection of herself that stared at her—the eyeshot view of herself that she could not, would not stand—the features of her upper half.

She could act on one of two options—she could guise those specific details for the time being and inform someone close to her, like her trustworthy boyfriend, of the habits she recently revived. Or she could continue to gawk at her reflection, facing a more disgusted version of herself she feared to oppose and support her alarming conducts painted through the bristles of a life's worth of insecurities

She's done this before, and she knew better, but while one part of her didn't care, the other couldn't help itself. Like in the past, she'd fed into her indecision. Her gaze focused on her appearance, clutching the flesh of her abdomen to tightly the natural pinkish tint of her knuckles faded. Exchanging fistfuls of her tummy, tears began welling into her eyes. The scary thoughts were already taunting her, but the depths of the contemplation just started talking.

Taylor could recognize this evil bit hours before it gradually started picking at her, and each time she tried to avoid the temptations, the voices demolished what little self-esteem Taylor carried with her. This is all she's ever known, this unbearable struggle that never seemed to have let loose—since she was a ten year old girl. In waves, is what it terrorized her in—allowing her to swim for just a specific period of time, granting the girl the opportunity to experience some sense of normalcy, to harvest herself to her feet, to gain a tremendous amount of progress, then to be completely immersed under water, deeper each time, unable to swim, to rise above the surface. It was only once, about six years ago, when people caught on, following nearly twenty years of hardship and starvation. Though, Taylor never admitted to that. She'd gone through the process of rehabilitation without a fight. All the requirements she fulfilled, and she put in every ounce of energy her body could. And for maybe a year, she felt kind of okay. Better than she did for so many years prior. She'd lose her composure from time to time, but it wasn't anything she couldn't fight through. Then, it started getting bad again and, at times, worse than before. And all at once, the walls she shredded into shambles needed to be built back up again and from scratch, and they kept on getting larger—thicker and taller.

The person she adored the most in the world, her mother, hit rock bottom when Taylor confessed to her eating disorder years ago. It cut Taylor each time the topic was discussed around her mother, given the older woman could hardly even accept the fact that her baby had suffered through something so serious and kept quiet. Hell, sometimes Taylor swore that Andrea fallen into a deeper pit of depression than herself, and with her mom's cancer diagnosis, inevitably, Taylor masked the self inflicted scars from not just her mother, but to the rest of the world. Taylor knew her disorder had murdered everyone's interest in bothering with her, clearly justified through the actions of her ex. She was so sick, so vulnerable, that he couldn't stand looking at her face. Too afraid to leave her in spite of what she might do afterward, he chose to spend his nights with other females. Taylor trusted Travis, but she wasn't sure how much Travis trusted her, nor did she have the intention of fucking around to find out. She settled on strutting her way past the wave of disappointment. She couldn't let him know about this. The pop star was convinced that if she's hidden it all these years so successfully, hence her ex, she could from Travis. And to keep him, that's just what she'd do.