Does Your Lack of Conscience Tell You Everything's Alright?

I realized, when we got home from the grocery store, I need clothes. I can't keep wearing the little kid clothing Jeffery bought me so long ago.

But I don't want to ask Alex to take me clothes shopping. I don't want him to waste his time driving me places. And I would walk, but I don't know how to get there. Being held captive can affect your sense of direction.

Not that I actually learned how to get to clothing stores before I was kidnapped.

August and Aaron are still at practice. Or maybe they're teaching. Regardless, Jack left to watch August ten minutes ago. Alex and I are the only ones in the house.

I don't know where his parents are. I can't keep tabs on them.

Not like it's my job to. I just like to know things.

Though I should have learned my lesson after Jeffery took me away from my home. After all, it was my obsession with knowing that got me in trouble.

Alex is in the shower. I can hear the water running. His voice can be heard over the sounds of water hitting a surface. He's singing.

It's like the heavens gave him the voice of an angel.

Or maybe he's an angel the heavens decided to grace us with.

A guardian angel of the sort? A knight in shining armor?

He's helped me more than he realizes. I feel a slight obligation to him.

I stare at Alex's wall of inadequately clothed women.

Too bad I don't look like them. If I did, I could be Alex's princess. They seem to be Alex's perfect woman: big boobs, perfect bottoms, a tiny waist, thick hair. I'll never look like them. Sure my hair will get thicker when I get more protein in my system but my chest will never be that big and I'll never have a perfect ass with a tiny waist.

Those requirements are impossible for me to fill.

But he asked me out. Would he ask me out if he didn't find me somewhat attractive?

Unless August put him up to it.

That doesn't seem like something she would do though. She's not the meddling type. She understands a certain respect for her older brother.

It seems like she does, at least.

Then that would mean Alex thinks I'm attractive.

How?

I stand and get close to the mirror. My blue eyes have more shine than they used to. I have no blemishes. My hair is still thin from malnourishment but seems a tiny bit healthier. There is a glow to my skin that I lost when I stayed with Jeffery.

But I'm not as pretty as the girls in the pictures.

The shower is still running; Alex is still singing.

He doesn't seem to be coming out anytime soon.

I take the hem of my shirt, pulling it over my head and throwing it to the ground. My pants follow my shirt, making a tiny pile on the floor. The mirror reflects an image of me standing in my undergarments. My eyes travel my body and dart to look at the pictures on Alex's wall.

I don't look anything like them.

My eyes return to my image. I run a hand over my visible ribcage, touch my protruding hipbone.

I could be smaller but I still look sick.

I turn to the side. My chest, though small, looks larger on my small frame. My bra is tight, pushing my breasts together in an uncomfortable fashion.

Jeffery was pissed when he realized he needed to buy me a bra. He wouldn't let me eat for three weeks in hope of my making my chest go away. It only dropped a size. He beat me, accused me of disobeying him by eating.

I really didn't eat for those three weeks. I even passed out at practice more times than I should have. Disobeying him was too scary a thought at the time, especially after he threatened to cut my chest off.

I was scared he was actually going to do it.

I don't doubt that he would have done it.

He spared me that pain though, turning to sexual abuse as a punishment.

I think I would have preferred bleeding to death.

Not that he didn't make me bleed through the sexual punishment. He had a habit of making cuts on my body when we did things.

I turn around, my back facing the mirror. I crane my neck to get a glimpse of my lower back. The scar of Jeffery's name is still visible.

Oh the stories behind that scar.

"What are you doing?" Alex's voice pulls me from my trance.

I must have missed the shower being turned off.