“…Hey,” I say back.
“Mmmm,” Holly-Anne moans. “Yeah, baby. That’s the spot.”
I approach with caution. Like, I love Holly-Anne, but she’s been crashing at my place for several months now. This isn’t the first time I walked in on a guy going down on her while she lounges on my couch.
“Oh, thank god,” I breathe as I come as near to the pizza and the bearded dude. His face is on the beer labels, I realize—and he has Holly-Anne’s bare, chubby foot cradled in his hand.
Satisfied that I haven’t walked in on anything dirtier than a foot massage, I head to the door to check my mail. The pizza smell follows me all the way over. Even I have to admit: it’s pretty fucking tempting.
Pizza. I haven’t had pizza in two fucking years.
If I’ve ever deserved a slice, it’s now.
When I look at my mail, my resolve is weaker than ever. Bills, bills, bills…and a letter with the Gilded Lily Modeling Agency’s logo on the envelope. I don’t need to look at the return address to know who it’s from, and I don’t need to open it to know what’s inside.
Evian Sprague might have fired me for being too fat, but that doesn’t mean I’m ever going to be rid of her.
I guess it would help if I hadn’t gone right from being a Gilded Lily model to being a recruiter for her competitor…but still.
When I open the letter, I’m once again faced with the same fucking picture staring back at me. It’s a photo of me from 100 pounds ago, wearing a tube top so tight it might as well be a sausage casing and leggings that are giving me serious camel-crotch.
This is what I looked like the day Evian fired my ass: overweight, uncomfortable, out of focus, and completely miserable.
The bitch has signed it, too, in her signature venom-pink pen:
This is who you’ll always be…didn’t want you to forget! Xoxo, Evian
That’s when I feel it. That hungry-hungry-hippo that lives in my stomach—the one who hates spinach with a passion and loves cheese more than life itself. The smell of that pizza is just too fucking tempting—and of all the days for Evian to mail me such a low blow, she chose her moment perfectly.
But what the hell, right? It’s just one day. One piece of pizza. One itty-bitty slice.
…only, it’s like, never just one slice.
I’m about to bite the bullet—and the pepperoni—when I look down at my last piece of mail. It’s obviously something that Evian had sent over to compliment her nasty little letter—or maybe it’s just part of some marketing campaign.
Power Plus Gym, the flyer reads. Be the best You you can be!
It’s printed on fancy paper and looks so high-end, it’s a little intimidating. Still, it’s offering a one-month free trial…
And fuck Evian, right? Giving in right now would tickle that wicked witch as pink as her shitty fucking ink pens.
“Kara? Pizza!” Holly-Anne calls from the couch.
I give her an apologetic grin instead.
“Gotta run, sorry!” I say, grabbing one of my gross detox smoothies out of the fridge and heading out the door.
“Love you!” Holly-Anne calls out.
“Love you, too!”
I really do love Holly-Anne—she’s an awesome friend. But even I know that Holly-Anne’s eating habits are probably kiiiiinda how I ended up gaining so much weight in the first place. It was fun being big, beautiful women together with my best girl—right up until it wasn’t.
There’s no denying that Holly-Anne still bangs some of the hottest dudes in all of Los Angeles…but this isn’t about looking attractive to men for me. It’s not about looking hot for Evian either. And it’s not even about looking hot for myself.
Losing this weight has been about proving to myself that I could do it. It’s about getting healthy. It’s about not being fucking winded when I run up all the stairs to Evian Sprague’s favorite cafe in Beverly Park…just in time to swipe her latest talent right out from under her awful, smug little nose.
“Better gigs,” I announce, slamming my own contract down on the table so hard, the little foam hearts in Evian’s soy latte tremble. “More visibility—access to indie designers on top of all the big names—and Wild Rose can guarantee that you’ll be walking New York, Milan, and Paris fashion weeks by this time next year.”