I sobbed, the ugly kind of crying where you can't catch your breath and your chest aches so much you think you might actually die from it.
Inside, the party continued without me. No one noticed I was gone.
Not even Ace.
Especially not Ace.
.
Later that night, as we drove home, my mom looked over at me with a wrinkle of her nose.
"You need to get it together, Brit. You can't afford to be emotional in this industry."
I said nothing.
Because I knew now — the only person who was ever going to save me was myself.
And starting tomorrow, I was going to make damn sure no one ever made me feel that small again.
Not my mother.
Not Ace.
No one.
Chapter 6
Brittany
The Past - Age 19
I turned nineteen alone.
No balloons. No cakes. No Jasper.
He was buried in his books at Harvard, climbing higher and higher while I… I was floating somewhere between survival and collapse.
Modeling was still my life, and in the public eye, I was thriving. Every campaign, every shoot, every billboard with my face on it screamed success. But behind the polished photos and filtered smiles, there was a darker truth unraveling at the seams.
It started with the whispers.
Then the comments.
Then the headlines.
Every shoot I posted, every runway I walked, there they were — Sierra and Ace — picking apart my body like vultures circling a dying animal.
Sierra was ruthless. Her words weren't knives — they were serrated blades, meant to twist and dig deeper.
"Look at her thighs," Sierra had written under a photo once. "Brittany should focus on being a model, not a linebacker."
Ace wasn't much better. His criticisms were more subtle, said behind closed doors, never when Jasper was around. He played the nice guy card in public, but when the cameras were off and the texts came rolling in, he showed his true colors.
"Maybe try eating a little less before your next shoot," he messaged me once.
"Models aren't supposed to have muffin tops," he said another time.
I read every word. Every single word. And I swallowed them like poison.
