Not yours to reject
"Because from where I'm sitting, it feels like you've spent your whole life trying to be smaller so people have less to comment on. And it never worked. People are always going to have something to say."
I don't answer right away, because some old, tired part of me wants to explain myself even here, to her and wants her to list every reason I've made the choices I've made, every logical justification for years of trying to take up less space in a body that never asked to be a topic of public conversation. I catch myself before I start.
"I'm working on it," I say instead, shorter than my instinct wants it to be.