Several weeks later, during another quiet evening, he asked to speak with me again.
The tension in his face told me the conversation would not be easy.
“Soph, I really like you, but the showering isn’t helping,” he confessed.
Then he hesitated before saying what he claimed he had been avoiding.
“I didn’t want to hurt your feelings, but I asked you to shower more because you have a body odor issue.”
The words were humiliating.
No one had ever mentioned such a problem before. I had never noticed anything myself. Yet hearing it from someone I trusted made me doubt my own senses.
I had already changed my routine, spent money on new products, and become anxious about my body.
Now Jacob was telling me none of it had worked.
After that conversation, I became obsessed with finding an explanation.
I researched possible causes of body odor, medical conditions, treatments, and specialized products.
