All Chapters of FAT, BARREN, AND REJECTED: Chapter 1 - Chapter 5

ELLA’S POV Hunger had a way of reorganizing a person’s priorities. Three weeks after the ceremony, I was living in a cramped rented room that my only remaining friend, Delia, had quietly paid for without ever making me feel like a charity case. The room had one window that didn’t quite close, a mattress that dipped in the middle, and a radiator that clanked more than it warmed anything. I hadn’t asked her to help me. She’d simply shown up with a key and told me not to argue, and I’d been too broken to do anything but accept it, too proud to say thank you the way I should have. Going from Luna of the Hawkson pack to a woman who counted coins for bread should have felt like the end of the world. Some nights, it still did — I’d lie awake listening to the radiator clank and think about the house I used to live in, the staff who used to make me up, the husband who’d made a spectacle of discarding me in front of everyone who mattered. But when the restaurant down the street posted a

ELLA’S POV My stepsisters lingered by the door as I finished dressing, arms crossed, matching smirks firmly in place, watching me the way they always had — like my life was a show performed entirely for their amusement. “Have fun with Mr. Crippled.” Chloe examined her nails with theatrical boredom. “I’m sure your bought body is exactly what he ordered.” “Bought body.” I laughed, short and humorless, tying the sash of my traveling coat, refusing to give them the satisfaction of seeing how deep the words still cut, even now, even after everything I’d survived without them. “Careful. People might start asking what actually happened to me, and you won’t like the answer.” “Oh, please.” Claudia rolled her eyes, leaning against the doorframe with the same lazy cruelty she’d perfected since childhood. “Whatever expensive doctor fixed you up, it clearly didn’t fix the attitude.” “No,” I agreed, meeting her gaze evenly. “That part, I kept on purpose.” They didn’t know — none of them