“Hopeless,” he muttered under his breath, rising to his feet like the weight of me was too heavy to carry. “You’re hopeless, Brit.”
My heart cracked clean in two.
He turned to the door, shoulders stiff, fists clenched.
“Ace—”
He didn’t look back.
“I won’t be here when you fall again,” he said quietly. “I can’t.”
And then he was gone.
I sat in the silence, rocking slowly, thumb back in my mouth, the taste of salt and shame filling me as the night swallowed the room.
The last thing I heard was the faint echo of his footsteps down the hall — fading, fading, until they were gone.
Chapter 18
Brittany
The Past-Age 22
The next few months drifted by like a fog I couldn’t shake off, a blur of blurred mornings and empty nights. I wasn’t living — not really. I was just floating, surviving each day with no anchor, no direction. The hospital episode with Ace haunted the edges of my mind, but like everything else, I stuffed it into the shadows.
Jasper found out. He called — again, and again, and again. I stared at his name lighting up my phone, heartbeat thudding painfully in my chest, but I never picked up. And then… the calls stopped. Just like that. He didn’t come. He didn’t fight his way to me. Maybe I expected him to. Maybe part of me wanted him to break down my door. But he didn’t.
Instead, my mother swooped back in — a hurricane in heels. She took control, sharp as a blade, slicing through what little was left of me. My modeling career? Hers now. She bypassed me entirely, going straight to my agent. My social media? Managed by her team. My contracts? Signed without even a glance in my direction.
I became a puppet in her hands, a doll she dressed up and paraded around. And when the strings tangled, when I stumbled, she pulled harder.
But the childlike episodes… they didn’t end.
It happened the first time at dinner.
I remember the clink of silverware against fine china, the chandeliers glittering above us. My mother sat across the table, sleek and perfect in a navy sheath dress, going on about a potential campaign in Milan.
“Brittany, you’ll need to cut two more pounds,” she said sharply, sipping her wine. “Your last shoot, the camera added ten pounds, darling.”
I blinked at her, fingers curling around the edges of my napkin. The room tilted slightly, voices melting into a strange, muffled echo. A soft giggle bubbled in my chest, slipping out before I could catch it.
“Brit…?” My father frowned from the head of the table.
I clapped my hands together excitedly. “Guess what I did today!” I chirped, my voice unnaturally high. “I painted a unicorn! It was pink and sparkly, and — and —”
“Brittany.” My mother’s voice sharpened, slicing the air. “What are you doing?”
But I didn’t stop. I kicked my legs under the table, swinging them like a child on a playground, the words tumbling out in a dizzy rush. “And then I got a lollipop! It was cherry — my favorite! Daddy, do you want one too?”
The panic in their eyes didn’t register.
Not until my mother’s chair scraped back, and she came around the table, crouching beside me, fingers gripping my shoulders.
“Brittany. Look at me. Stop this.”
I giggled, twisting a lock of my hair around my finger. “Mommy, can we go to the park tomorrow?”
That night, they rushed me to the doctor.
