Page 22 of Falling for Autumn
“Because why would you . . .” the second woman stated, waving her hand at me and looking me up and down.
Every mean name I’d ever been called since childhood, every cruel word that’d been spoken about me, and every disdainfullook that’d been cast at me overwhelmed me in the moment. The memories of the embarrassing incident at the bowling alley when Wilson’s wife showed up came rushing back. I recalled how horrified I was as she called me a cow, fat, ugly, and every other ugly word she had spoken. I recalled how everyone was watching us and how she kept aiming her camera at me as she live-streamed. I was in that moment all over again.
In spite of being a heavyset woman, I had always felt beautiful. I hadn’t always been confident about my size, the way my sister, Wynter, had been. But I knew that my inner person and outer person were beautiful. Yet, the way they were looking at me and disrespecting me made me want to disappear. I wondered what October thought when he looked at me and if he was ashamed to be seen with me. His next actions and words dispelled all those insecurities.
“Thisismy woman. I don’t get why beautiful queens feel the need to disrespect another beautiful queen. The only thing that makes sense to me aside from being thirsty is that you’re insecure and someone didn’t love ya asses right. That ain’t my problem, but what y’all asses ain’t gonna do is tear mine down. Now y’all can kick mud,” October proclaimed and grabbed my hand, intertwining our hands. He pressed a kiss to my knuckles, and a flush of security, desire, and adoration ran through me. When I looked up at October questioningly, I saw something in his eyes that had me growing warm inside.
“Nobody was all that into you anyway, boo. I felt sorry for your ass being caught with someone like her,” the first girl stated.
I jerked my hand away from October, ran up on the girl, and she stumbled backward trying to get away from me. “I will beat your ass in this stadium so bad you won’t know what the hell happened to you,” I threatened.
When she fell, her friend turned to look at me and yelled, “Bitch!” as she reached down to help her friend up.
“Come on, baby. Our order’s ready,” October declared, grabbing my hand again and pointing at the server who was beckoning us.
Chapter 9
October
It bothered me that Autumn slipped into a cocoon of protection after our encounter with those hos at the game. Afterward, no matter what I tried to do to pull her out of her shell, she would smile, but I knew she didn’t feel it inside.
Her parents were going to bring Auburn home the next day, so after the game, we headed straight home. On the ride home, I kept looking at her, and she seemed to be lost in thought, chewing on her nail. I reached over a few minutes before we got home, and I grabbed her hand.
“Talk to me, beautiful.”
“About?”
“Whatever is on your mind. You’ve been distant since that bullshit during halftime.”
“I’ve not been?—”
“Don’t fix ya mouth to insult my intelligence, Autumn.”
“It was just so embarrassing.”
“Why? They’re the ones who embarrassed themselves. They made assumptions they shouldn’t have made, got rejected, and then that shit you pulled really embarrassed them,” I replied, chuckling.
When that girl had fallen on her ass, people all around us who hadn’t been privy to the heated exchange turned and saw that shit. People laughed at her, and then someone commented about “that’s what bitches get for trying to be cute,” which only made everyone laugh harder.
“I know. It’s just that I get so tired of that—people making assumptions about me. As if because I’m overweight that automatically means I can’t be just as beautiful as they are. It doesn’t matter what I look like outside. I’m still beautiful inside, but it’s like that doesn’t matter. I’m no less of a person because I’m overweight.”
I pulled into my parking spot, parked, and shut the ignition off.
“Autumn, at some point, you’ll need to leave people with their ignorance.”
“You think it’s that easy? When people look at me in derision and make scornful comments about me, it’s not easy to ignore. It doesn’t feel good when others are around to witness my ridicule and mockery, and they start laughing too. It hurts, October. It hurts here,” she exclaimed, pressing a fist against her chest.
Tears fell from her beautiful chestnut-brown eyes.
“Why the fuck does it matter what other people think about you, Autumn?”
“Because it does, okay? You’ve never been in my shoes.”
“People have said shit about me, lied on me, and tried to make me feel less than. I keep my head up and skywalk that shit.”
“It’s not that easy, October. I wish like hell it were. I have tried dieting, exercising, and starving myself, and this weight won’t go away.”
She was crushing my heart with the brutal way that she spoke about herself. I wanted to find every muthafucka who had ever spoken a word of hate over her and beat the shit out of them.
