Kara
For the first time in my life, when I stare down at the scale, I don’t feel ashamed of the number staring back at me.
I’ve officially lost one hundred pounds.
One hundred fucking pounds of fast food and delivery pizzas, shame-cake, and sugar wine. That’s what I was made of two years ago when I lost the plus-size modeling contract that was supposed to set me up with a career for life.
Do you have any fucking idea how embarrassing it is to get so fat, you can’t even model plus-sized clothing anymore?
Don’t get me wrong, babe—I was never gonna be one of those skinny-armed Kate Moss types—but plus-size modeling? That was supposed to be my shit. I slept, breathed, and ate plus-size fashion…but obviously, I also ate a lot of other shit, too.
It’s fucking crazy how good life gets when you stop thinking of the phrase all you can eat as a challenge.
And now, holy shit. Here I am. Weight goals, baby.
I step off the scale because I can hardly fucking believe it. I look in the mirror instead.
And like, lemme fucking tell you, babe.
That’s pretty weird, too.
The woman I see staring back at me is a bold, beautiful, skinny bitch. She’s got long, dark blonde hair that comes down over her shoulders in messy waves. Her eyes are Barbie Doll blue and behind her cupid’s bow lips―a hint of a smile.
The weird thing is, when I hold my hand up to the mirror, that skinny bitch reaches her hand out to meet mine. When I giggle, she giggles. And when I grin, a smile blossoms on her face, too.
I can hardly fucking believe it.
There’s no way this is me.
I know what I look like. I mean, I’ve seen the pictures. I’m damn fucking aware.
I’m the kind of woman who wears sweatpants because tight little blue jeans cannot contain the bump of my booty. I’m an extended-sizes-only kind of gal. My double chin has its very own double chin—like, seriously!
Not to get all Mulan on you or anything, but who the fuck is this woman in the mirror looking back at me?
It takes me a minute to accept it, but I’ve got to.
This is me now. My body. My face. My cheekbones, which actually look like cheekbones.
And my ass—what the fuck happened to my ass?! It feels like it disappeared overnight.
My jawline…oh my god, I have a jawline.
I’m not gonna lie, babe. I’m kind of fucking hot.
But the woman in the mirror doesn’t look exactly the way I wish she looked, either. She’s skinny…but she’s missing something. Her arms look slender, but they don’t look strong. Her sweatpants are nearly falling off her fucking hips—and I used to love those hips! A wave of nausea hits me—fuck.
I’m everything that I’ve wanted to be for the last two years…and it’s still not enough.
I leave the woman in the mirror to admire her jawline. I’ve got shit to do today, even if that skinny bitch doesn’t.
“So…I reached my goal weight,” I say, emerging from my room in a cute pair of wide-legged pants and a blouse the color of my favorite wine.
My BFF, Holly-Anne, looks up at me from the couch.
“Aww, babe!” she coos, grinning at me from ear to ear. “Proud of you! Come sit down—I’ve already got pizza to celebrate!”
Holly-Anne holds up a slice of pepperoni dripping with orange grease and ooey-gooey cheese. I can smell the garlic on it from all the way across the room.
There’s beer on the coffee table, too—not the light stuff that I’ve become accustomed to, but a full-bodied amber ale from the brewery down the street.
In fact, that’s not the only thing from the brewery down the street in my apartment right now.
“Hey,” says a ruggedly handsome bearded dude, popping his head up from where he kneels on the floor.
“…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.”
“Holy fuck, dude,” the model says, lifting his pen from Evian’s contract and immediately shifting it to mine. He smiles up at me with one green eye, one blue, and even I have to admit that it’s pretty fucking cool—even if he’s a little too pretty to be my type. “You’re serious?”
“Oh, I’m sure she’s serious.” Evian Sprague slides her rose-colored sunglasses down the bridge of her nose and glares at me over them while smoke billows around her from her clove-scented cigarette. “A serious cunt. Run along, Kara Gilmore. The whale show at SeaWorld starts any minute now—it would be so sad to disappoint all of those eager tourists, don’t you think?”
“Man, whatever,” the model says, scrawling his name onto my contract instead.
I get the pleasure of watching the sneer on Evian’s thin, over-lined lips as she pays her check and saunters away. I’m sure she’s got a long day of organizing asshole bleachings and drinking the souls of the innocent with her diet soda ahead of her. I’m happy to see her go.
“So, uh…” the male model says, staring up at me with those mesmerizing blue-green eyes. “What’s the policy on inter-company relationships? Want to bang one out in the bathroom to celebrate?”
He smiles all cocky and shit, like I’m already some kind of sure thing.
“Aw,” I coo. “Look at you. Bet women don’t turn down that grin very often.”
“They don’t,” he flirts. His voice is all breathy and heavy with lust already. “Especially not when it’s coming from between their legs.”
I consider it for a second. Don’t judge me, babe! You would, too.
Like, okay. He’s undeniably hot. If he weren’t, I wouldn’t be signing him.
But real talk for a second? I don’t fuck my clients. Plus, he’s got that slender beach-boy surfer thing going on—not my type.
“You’re going to hear the word no a lot in this industry,” I tell him, reaching for the contract. “Might as well start getting used to it now.”
He catches my wrist as my fingers curl around the document.
“I could tear this up and sign with that Evian bitch, you know,” he says. I can see the bead of sweat dripping down from his perfect hairline—this dude is flustered right now. “I think I might like a little more one-on-one time with you written into my contract.”
I snort and yank my wrist away from him with one sharp tug.
“You want to try it? Be my guest. If you like the idea of fucking your agent so much…”
We both watch as, in the distance, Evian smacks a camera-wielding tourist with her handbag. Poor fucker probably mistook her for Cruella de Vil.
“Tapping that rusty old snatch will be a mandatory part of your package if you want her offer back,” I assure him.
I watch his Adam’s apple bob up and down in his throat.
A second bead of sweat dribbles down his brow.
“I think Wild Rose might be the place for me,” he admits.
“Thought so,” I say, already clicking my kitten heels away…grinning with the satisfaction of a job well fucking done.