Chapter Seven

                                    

                                          
AN: This is part of a double update so go back and read the previous chapter if you haven't already! 🌼
I woke up the next morning with the familiar sting behind my eyes and a thick, pounding headache. My limbs felt heavy and my stomach turned as I rolled over to switch off the alarm blaring out of my phone speaker. 
 I needed to get up, showered and make my way to the market to open up, but I couldn't bring myself to leave the protective cocoon of my duvet. 
 I let my mind wonder back to the events of last night; punishing myself with a play-by-play of every cringe inducing moment. I lingered on how I'd left things with Harry, launching myself out of his van the moment he'd slowed in front of my door, with hot angry tears dripping onto my chin as he called out to me. 
 He'd attempted to follow after me to my front door, but a car that had pulled up behind him on the middle of the street began beeping its horn impatiently, so he drove off as I managed to slip inside out of view.
 I groaned, remembering the look of regret he'd shot back at me as he pulled off down the dark street, but also as I remembered the way he'd smiled before that, the way his eyes glittered for a moment, like we were 17 again. 
 It'd been surreal to be back in his rickety van, Cyndi. It'd stupidly made me lower my guard, allowed me sink back into comfortable behaviours of years past, allowed me to want to be in his company. 
 And I think for a brief moment, Harry forgot everything too. I could tell by the way he kept catching himself, wiping the smile from his lips with a hand drawn down his face, or clearing his throat nervously to hold in his laughter. 
 As I contemplated staying in bed for the rest of the day and finishing the bottle of vodka I'd opened up last night, I came to the realisation that I couldn't afford to not open the stall today. It was Saturday, my busiest day. 
 I endeavoured to do everything I could to make myself look as unbothered as possible from last nights events, knowing that I'd have to face Harry today.
 I showered away the smell of alcohol and tear stained makeup from my face, exfoliating until my skin stung and applying fresh concealer to try to brighten my hollow eyes. 
 Like trying to polish a turd, I thought to myself as I dried my hair in the mirror. 
 One of the symptoms of what Jason did to me that night, was a cripplingly low self esteem. I rarely felt good about myself, finding it difficult to meet my own eye in the mirror. Often all I could see was what he did to me. What he took from me. And despite logically knowing that it was all in my head, I felt like everyone else could see it as well.
 Marked. Tainted. An object who's only use had ever been her body, and nothing more. 
 For years after what had happened I refused to allow myself to be intimate with anyone - both physically and emotionally - but once I'd discovered the numbing affects of alcohol and how it allowed me to lose any inhibitions and took the edge off of the sting of physical contact, I almost became hyper-sexual. I felt if I couldn't make it home with someone after a night out that I was worthless, unattractive, unwanted. 
 I always made sure to slip out of whoever's apartment I'd woken up in with little fuss, no mention of meeting up again; I didn't want that. Didn't crave any real romantic connection. At that time, I'd only sort out validation from a physical connection. 
 Which had led me to being twenty seven and having never had a real relationship post Jason. I thought I'd been protecting myself from being hurt again, or from hurting someone the way I'd hurt others.