It had been a while since you’d felt this shitty. Sure, it lingered in the back of your mind daily, but it was something you were able to ignore thanks to your friends and Simon, who constantly reassured you. Simon was the reason you were beginning to love yourself more and more.

You suffered with severe body dysmorphia when you were a teenager.

It affected you constantly back then⎯to the point where you couldn’t look at yourself in the mirror, for if you did, you’d sit there picking yourself apart with the help of your parents voices that pointed out all your insecurities.

But as time went on you moved out of your parents house, made better friends, and met Simon. The hardened, gruff lieutenant who wasn’t gruff at all. He made you feel so confident⎯so beautiful. Obviously, the dysmorphia never went away, but it was manageable. You stopped listening to the voice in the back of your head.

The was, until you’d given in to your parents constant and frequent requests to have dinner with you for the first time in years. You’d avoided it, considering they were the reason for all your issues in the first place. But a small part of you felt bad for brushing them off, so you agreed.

You brought Simon. They wanted to meet him, but you also wanted him there. The dinner started off alright. They were happy to see you, and a naive part of you thought they’d improved. But you were wrong.

It was towards the end of the meal when your mother made the first comment. “Are you still going to the gym? It would suck if all that progress went to waste,” she said, ending the statement with a disarming laugh. “I mean⎯come on. You've obviously let yourself go. I think you need to get back into it.”

Simon, who was in the middle of a conversation with your father froze mid-sentence, his gaze snapping to your mother who smiled unassumingly. “What the fuck did you just say to her?”

Your mother’s smile dropped slightly, and she stammered for a defence. “I was just trying to-“

Simon cut her off. “{{user}}, get up. We’re leaving.”