• Rose In The Dark • (GxG)

Chapter Five

Omniscient

"I was never thin, at least not in my eyes..." She hardly felt the words as they left her mouth. "And I didn't realize that that wasn't a bad thing until it was too late, and the damage had already been done..." Until the scars had already formed.

Encouraged by the caress of Noah's hand on her arm as she was held close, Milan found herself opening up a door to her past she thought she'd locked and tossed the key into an abyss. Somehow the key had surfaced, and she felt a magnetic pull back inside that room. The room of another life. Another version of herself.

One she'd thought better to pack up and put away than ever allow to be a part of herself.

"My relationship with food..." she drew in a ragged breath, one labored from all the crying. "It was my comfort, until it became my enemy... And somewhere along the way it'd become my comfort again, especially when I was sad or stressed. I think... I think when I realized I was doing it again, I started to avoid it." She gestured a hand, lifting it from Noah's chest. "I thought I'd done everything right, I thought I'd moved past it... but when I looked in the mirror that day, I..."

After a moment, when her lover's words fell short, Noah spoke softly. "What did you see?"

Inhaling just barely through her nose, Milan closed her eyes, mentally grimacing at the images.

"When I used to dance," she began instead of answering. "The competition was...intense. And people would say things about me that made me see myself in ways I hadn't before... And it wasn't just people, it was-" her lips pursed as she felt tears brimming again. She didn't want to continue crying about this. There'd been enough tears shed. "That's what I saw... or at least that's what I felt when I looked at myself..."

Grasping her girlfriend's words, Noah bit her lip while staring up at the ceiling. Her caress on Milan's arm hadn't wavered as she replayed the woman's words in her mind. Though it came to a stop as her eyebrows drew and she peered down at her.

"Milan, did someone say something to you?"

There was a brief pause before her lover spoke. "No." She didn't even sound convinced by her own answer. And the dry chuckle she let out seemed far away to her own ears. "Besides, I'm far too old to care what anyone else thinks, right?... Things like that shouldn't even bother me anymore..."

Objection wrote across Noah's face in an instant. "Milan-"

"It shouldn't Noah," Milan's voice broke upon the soft call of her name. While she cursed mentally at the emotions seeping through yet again, her lips curled in anguish. "This shouldn't matter anymore, I should be past it. It's juvenile and I'm far from a child-"

"Hey-" Shifting to where they sat up, Noah cupped a hand under Milan's chin to have their eyes meet. "Don't do that to yourself. Okay??" She took the woman's hand to squeeze, her gaze pleading that Milan would receive her words. "Don't invalidate your feelings. If it still hurts it still hurts, you told me that yourself." Her hand held firm as the woman attempted to drag her gaze away, then her brows knit again. "Baby please tell me who it was...or what they said..."

Shaking her head, she waved a hand. "It doesn't matter-"

"It does."

"It doesn't," Milan retorted, her tone hardened as she found Noah's eyes again.

Though the older woman pursed her lips, the look in her eyes hadn't wavered, nor had the expression on her face. Letting her tearful gaze linger, Milan squeezed her lover's hand, mentally sighing in apology.