𝙸 𝙲𝚊𝚗'𝚝 𝙲𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚁𝚎𝚊𝚜𝚘𝚗𝚜

𝚂𝟹𝙴𝟺: 𝙰 𝚃𝚛𝚒𝚙𝚙𝚢 𝚃𝚛𝚒𝚙 𝚝𝚘 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙼𝚊𝚕𝚕

CW: This chapter contains a discussion of body image/insecurity, discussion of sex, and also a stream of consciousness about nipple piercings, which doesn't necessarily call for a warning, but I feel like readers are going to want to know this ahead of time.

Inspired by Community S3E7: "Studies in Modern Movement."

Annabeth POV

Swimsuit shopping is a traumatic experience for any girl. When she was thirteen, Annabeth tried on six tankinis and even more one-pieces only to find that no matter what size, no matter what brand she tried, nothing fit. She had a nervous breakdown right there in the dressing room, because what was wrong with her body made nothing fit right, and oh, god, why her?

Her stepmother Helen wasn't any better. Before that traumatic incident, swimsuit shopping was a one-and-done experience. Helen would grab like three one-piece swimsuits off the clearance rack at Justice in youth larges, send Annabeth into the dressing room, and she was done, perhaps feeling a little wounded that she was still wearing children's swimsuits with seahorses and mermaids on them, but relieved to have not pissed off Helen.

So thirteen-year-old Annabeth certainly had a different experience than twelve-year-old Annabeth.

She put her regular street clothes back on, wiped her nose with the sleeve of her tutor Luke's sweatshirt she always wore back then, and stepped out of the dressing room, ready to face her step-monster.

"Well?" Helen had demanded.

"Nothing fits," Annabeth said, trying to keep her voice even.

"You didn't even let me see."

"They're all really tight... up here..." Annabeth gestured to her chest.

Helen sighed. "Great, you have boobs now. Just fantastic."

Then it clicked. Annabeth hadn't had a significant growth spurt vertically; she was tall for her age, but she hadn't grown in a year, possibly because she had gotten her first...

Oh, shit, she'd thought to herself. She hit puberty full-on. Never had she wanted a real mom so desperately. Hell, she would have settled for a dad who gave her a second thought.

And then she learned nothing else was going to fit her except for a bikini from the juniors section at JCPenney—her mall didn't have an Aerie yet—and that she'd have to start shaving 'down there' because Helen didn't want to see that, and good heavens, did she even wear bras because the A cups Helen had bought Annabeth a year ago definitely wouldn't fit those.

The answer was no, Annabeth couldn't swallow her pride and ask Helen to buy her new bras. She'd been wearing this oversize sweatshirt that belonged to a nineteen-year-old college student twenty-four-seven, so nobody could tell if she chose not to wear a bra on any given day-

"You okay in there, Stacy?" a familiar voice calls, bringing twenty-one-year-old Annabeth back to the present.

Yes, she gave the fitting room attendant a fake name. She's sort of shopping on the down low today.

"Yep." She checks herself out one last time in the mirror in the fitting room of the mall's new Aerie. The swimsuit is relatively simple—just olive green triangles over her breasts and those bikini bottoms that everyone's going for these days, the kind that's high-waisted, but shows off some ass.

Annabeth doesn't look half bad. Back when she was a kid, the Kelly Clarkson music and the attendant banging on the door might have sent her into a panic attack, but now she feels nothing. She feels alright. If she were more social, she might even go find the nervous preteen who seemed close to tears at the register and tell her that it gets better, that Annabeth is twenty-one now and only came close to crying once. Yeah, turns out bandeaus are a no-no for her.