Page 28 of Eat Slay Love

Especially not by men like him—one that looked like sin in a suit and watched me like I was something they’d been waiting for their entire life.

Not by men who had the power to makeanywoman in the world melt at their feet.

And here I was with one ofthosemen standing next to me, waiting for my answer like I was the only one who mattered.

And even crazier, now that I was being chosen, my mind still struggled to believe it.

My heart knew I was worthy. I had spent these past months convincing my heart that I was deserving of love, of romance, of being seen.

But my mind?

Unfortunately, I think my mind was still lagging behind. It was still the younger version of me—the dark chubby girl with barrette plaits— who had spent her childhood watching smaller girls get picked first, who had overheard adults murmur about her weight when they thought she couldn’t hear them, who had trained herself to believe that love—real, thrilling, all-consuming love—was for other people.

But never for her.

Not for girls who took up space.

Not for girls who had been told to shrink their entire lives.

And now here I was, no longerthatgirl.

I was a grown-ass woman who was currently fighting to love herself, who had walked into this night knowing she deserved magic, romance, something unforgettable.

And yet, in this one moment of being truly seen, I still had to convince my own damn mind to let me have it.

Shit.

Because if I said no right now. . .it wouldn’t be because I didn’t want him.

It wouldn’t be because of society’s beauty standards.

It wouldn’t be because of my weight.

It wouldn’t be because men like Mr. Lyon didn’t want women like me.

It would be ME.

Me holding myself back.

Me blocking myself from joy.

If I said no, I wouldn’t be able to blame a thousand things—magazine covers, dating apps, men who made cruel jokes, childhood wounds that still stung in my quietest moments.

Tonight, the only thing standing between me and a night of possibility was my own self-doubt.

My fear.

My hesitation to believe that I could step into the kind of life I had always wanted.

I shivered, and my therapist’s words came rushing back.

"At young ages, we are programmed with negative self-talk. We don’t come into this world believing we are too much. We are taught to believe it. And your path to success isn’t waiting for that voice to disappear—it’s pushing through it. It’s breaking it away, piece by piece. It’s realizing that fear doesn’t have to be a stop sign. It can just be a mile marker on the way to something great."

I breathed in deep, feeling the heaviness of that truth settle into my bones.

I had two choices.

I could say no, walk away, and spend my entire life wondering what would have happened if I had just let myself step into the magic waiting for me.

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