I wore T-shirts over my one-piece suits because there was special, waterproof padding on my ‘small side.’ Picking out my prom dress had been a nightmare. Bra shopping gave me severe anxiety. Wanting to mess around with my boyfriend in the back seat of his car in high school had been an awkward experience of telling him not to touch my chest when he’d obviously really wanted to, and I’d really wanted him to as well.

There were so many times I cried because of how I detested my body.

It wasn’t as if I wanted much. All I wanted was to be normal. I’d hated what I’d been born with and wondered why me. Why did I have to grow up to be shaped like that? I’d fucking hated it with every fiber of my being.

So what was I supposed to do? Was I going to live like that the rest of my life? Sure, I could have, but it was such a debilitating fear that someone would notice the imperfection that I would never be comfortable in my skin. As much as I didn’t want it to bother me, it did.

I didn’t want guys staring at my breasts. I didn’t want to do porn or make money off my body. All I wanted was to feel better about myself. To get an even tan. To wear a bikini for the first time in my life because I didn’t have to worry about padding coming out. I wanted to be with a guy and not worry about what they would think, or who they would tell if they found out one of my breasts was so much bigger than the other. I wanted to be confident with myself.

So I made it happen.

No one had tried to talk me out of it. No one shamed me into feeling like having implants made me a bad person or a floozy. My loved ones had been behind my decision from the beginning.

I saved up as much money as I could while on tour with Ghost Orchid to pay for the best cosmetic surgeon in Texas, and it had been worth every single penny. I would go through the initial soreness, pain and fear all over again. The first bikini I bought four months afterward had probably been the most conservative bathing suit on the planet, but I’d cried anyway when I put it on for the first time.

Who was anyone to make me feel bad about what I had done? And while every woman had her own reasons for doing what she wanted to do with her body, I was a firm believer that people needed to mind their own business. If you weren’t hurting anyone and weren’t asking for handouts, no one had a right to open their traps.

Just as soon as I opened my mouth to tell the TCC guys I had implants and that they should shut the hell up, two people beat me to it. Two totally unexpected people.

My brother.

And Sacha.

They spoke at the same time, making it was hard to figure out what exactly was said, but it sounded like a mix of “Would you shut the fuck up?”

I blinked. Then I blinked some more, totally caught off-guard by the ugly, unyielding tone in both of their voices. A knot formed in my throat, and I swear, for one long minute I just sat there absorbing the fact that they’d said something. Finally, quickly, the moment clicked and I remembered what was going on.

“Why?” That might have been Mateo asking.

It was Sacha that leaned across the table to glare at his bandmate, a no-nonsense expression on his face that made the corners of his mouth go tight. “Because you sound like ignorant assholes. My mom had surgery done. Are you calling her a slut?”

The silence that came over the table was deafening.

And so, so, so fucking awkward. Holy shit.

But it was the anger and loyalty radiating off the TCC singer and how it made me feel that shocked me the most. Did he know he was standing up for me? Of course not, but I took the victory to heart anyway, like he was my champion too.

I tipped my head to glance in Eli’s direction only to find him already looking at me. He gave me a wide-eyed and more than slightly impressed look that said, “what was that?”