Voiceover

Maybe that’s where it all started, the car. The car that I was so desperate to get rid
of. The car that I was so fed up with. The car that showed everyone how much I was
struggling financially. But I had nobody to help me. My parents kicked me out and I
was only nineteen, paying for everything myself. Rent, petrol, insurance, food,
clothes, heating, water, a social life... all with a wage from being a waitress. It was
all, so hard. I was watching all my friends studying for a career they really wanted to
do. And I just wanted to prove everyone wrong, I wanted to show them that I could
make it, somehow, somewhere, anywhere. I wanted to be a somebody. I didn’t want
this life forever.

That’s when I thought I’d won the jackpot, that day, that quiet Tuesday lunchtime.
Ivy, she was so convincing, so confident, so inspiring. She made me feel powerless
but somehow so... special, I wasn’t used to that. She made me think I belonged
somewhere, somewhere big, I was meant to be something, and can you really blame
a nineteen year old girl for jumping at the offer of becoming a model? I took her card
and wondered to myself if I really wanted this, if I should think about it longer and
harder. I should’ve. I should’ve researched more and found out what could’ve been.
But of course, like any nineteen year old girl, I didn’t. I believed in fate and I thought
that this was what was meant to happen, that after long last the struggle had finally
paid off. I should’ve known about the risks, the consequences. I shouldn’t have been
so… so stupid! But the thought of the glamour, the hair and makeup, the fancy cars,
the celebrity status, it made me feel like I was just being nervous, overthinking it, that
my opportunity arrived and I would be silly to throw it away.

We talked on the phone for hours, hours of Ivy convincing me, brainwashing me.
She knew, she knew this would happen. I was just one of her subjects. Like a year
eleven science experiment. But I reacted. I was doing exactly what she wanted. The
excitement and happiness and sweet talk. It was all too much for me to remember
what could go wrong, what I couldn’t handle, what I could lose.

I felt like everything was exactly how it should’ve been. I would never have to
waitress again. I could show everyone what I can be. That feeling, the feeling of
accomplishment, it was amazing. I wouldn’t even remember what struggling felt like,
or so I thought.

I had to tell my bestfriend, Noah that next morning. But not like this, not over text,
this was something that had to be told at our favourite place to gossip, the corner
cafe. And his reaction did not disappoint, if anything, he was more excited than me!
He had been there through everything, at my lows and at my highs he would be the
one I would call. He wanted me to be successful and he was the most supportive
person I had in my life. I never took Noah for granted before, not after I knew what it
was like to be left alone. He wasn’t just a best friend to me, he was a brother, the
only family that I had left. And even when I had to leave, he always made sure he left
me with a smile on my face for the rest of the day.

I should’ve listened to my gut, I knew that this wasn’t really what I wanted to be
doing, and the nervous butterflies were literally trying to fly me back home. But, I was
thinking about the money and the stupid fake life that I thought I wanted. And as
soon as I stepped through the door, I was roped in. She had me hostage. Just. Like.
That.

The new car, she knew I needed it, she knew it would make me feel special, even
when she made out that it wasn’t a big deal. I was blind, I was blind to it all. I thought
that she was my friend, someone to guide me, a motherly figure. But really, it was all
a game to her. She was using me, lying, cheating, pulling me down. I didn’t know
that this would be the start of it all. The start of me learning to hate myself, losing my
identity.

I felt judged. But I thought it was just nerves. I’d never had my makeup done, I’m just
scared of adjusting to this fancy lifestyle, at least, that’s what I told myself. I felt like I
wasn’t being normal. Like every eye in the room was staring at me. I didn’t know that
this is what it was like, I didn’t have a clue what I was getting myself into. I just stared
at the magazine blankly, hoping that the butterflies in my stomach would go away.

Everything I was saying, everything I was thinking revolved around what they would
all think of me. I wasn’t being myself, I couldn’t be myself. I wanted something
familiar to burst through the door. I wanted Noah, I wanted my friends, I wanted to be
laughing and not caring. I didn’t want the butterflies anymore. I should’ve ran, ran out
of those doors and never looked back. But I didn’t, I sat there, and convinced myself
that this was normal, this was nerves, this was overthinking, this was me being
stupid as always.

I thought that I couldn’t turn back. This was it, I didn’t have a voice anymore. To
them, I wasn’t Olivia like I was to everyone at the restaurant. I was a picture to them,
someone to advertise, something to advertise.

Everything was becoming overwhelming when I went into that studio. The changing
rooms were small and cramped, I felt trapped. Breathe Olivia, breathe I told myself. I
couldn’t, my heart felt like it was pumping out of my chest, I couldn’t breathe, I
couldn’t talk, was I having a heart attack? My chest was tightening, everything was
closing in around me. This had never happened to me before, it hurt. My brain felt
like it was frazzled, everything blurred. And then, even though my breath came back
...the feeling of security didn’t. I felt shaken and alone, nothing felt right, but I couldn’t
show them that. I couldn’t let them down. I felt like I owed something to Ivy, who I’d
known for one day, she had her power over me and there was nothing I could do
about it.
It should’ve been a sign, the lack of support should’ve been a sign. Why didn’t I see
that? Why didn’t I run when I had the chance?

It was such a whirlwind of emotions. First I felt like I could do this forever, that I
enjoyed it, that my co-workers liked me and that I was living what I thought was the
high life. I thought everything was working to plan, that everyone would see me on
the front covers and wonder why they weren’t able to do that. I wanted people to feel
how I felt when I was carrying coffee cups to tables whilst they were carrying books
to class. My head was telling me that this was right, that this was success. But why
was my heart begging for familiarity, for the anxiety to go away? And the bigger
question was, why didn’t I listen to it?

I thought that this was how it should be. That this was just them being nice, not them
leading me into the darkness that I wasn’t meant to be in. I didn’t think I could be
anything more, I didn’t think that I could turn back and start something new.

That’s when she really started to trap me, when she really dug her claws in. I didn’t
think I had a choice, a voice, a reason to say no. I thought ‘what’s the worst that
could happen?’. My main focus was trying to get them all to like me. But I should
have thought ‘what's the best that could happen?’ ‘what good will come out of this?’
Anything, anything other than convincing myself against my own morals just to make
someone else happy, someone who didn’t care, someone who would give anything
to see me break down and crumble into their hands. I did it, of course I did it. I let her
convince me, a stupid nineteen year old. I let her see that I was vulnerable.

I felt...regret. So much regret. I didn’t know what happened, I didn’t remember. This
wasn’t how I imagined everything to turn out. Why could I not say no? Because I was
being manipulated, thats why. And I wasn’t strong enough, I wasn’t strong enough to
have something to fall back on and I wasn’t strong enough to realise that this wasn’t
all that it seemed... that modelling was only glamourous from the outside, not within.

She told me that I couldn’t talk about the night before, the drugs, the pressure.

She told me I had to lose weight, to throw my food away because otherwise they
would get hate on their instagram page because I was too fat. And yet, I still believed
that this was all part of the modelling life. It was part of the modelling life. But it
wasn’t what people saw. The calorie limits, the anxiety, nobody saw that. Nobody
saw how my life went from one extreme to another.

I felt...blank, numb, like nothing could make me smile anymore, nothing apart from
the sight of that camera lens. That bought the smile out, but not a real one. Fake.
Just like everything in the industry. Fake.
And then that’s when it hurt. It hurt so badly. Ivy was right, the comments, they
stung, like a thousand wasps stinging my body. They made me feel like dirt, not
human, not glamorous. Fat, ugly, disgusting. Why was it happening to me? I
couldn’t even cry, it just hurt. I needed to make this pain go away, I yearned for the
numbness, my heart was begging to forget everything, and there was only one way I
knew how.

I knew I shouldn’t have done it, I knew it was wrong. But so was all of this, so were
the people who commented. So was the drugs that Ivy gave me. All of it was so
wrong. This would only add to the ongoing streak of everything going south,
backwards, upside down…wrong. This would only add to everything going wrong.
And I couldn’t sit there with my own thoughts anymore.

Every morning, here we go again. The hangovers, they became normal. The pain,
that became numb. The stomach rumbles and the 500 calories per day, that became
routine. The pretending to everyone that I was fine, that became easy. But even with
an obvious blank face, none of them asked if I was ok, none of them told me that Ivy
was poisonous, evil. It’s like they were all in on her plan. But it wasn’t her plan, was
it? It was the industry, societies views of perfection. And I wasn’t good enough for
them, I wasn’t good enough to receive anything other than nasty comments. There
was nothing familiar anymore, not even my friends.

I knew he just wanted to help me, but I thought that I couldn’t be helped anymore.

And he was right, everything he said was right. But I couldn’t tell him that. I wanted
him to believe that I was fine, I wanted him to believe that my mental health was fine.
I was trying to convince us both that it was all just fine. I thought that my job meant
more than what was going on in my head. I thought I was being over sensitive.

I cracked.

Now, I didn’t have friends either, I had nothing. I had nobody. It was all gone, ‘there's
no point’ I told myself. Nothing could take this pain away. I needed something
stronger, so much stronger. I needed to feel numb, completely and utterly numb. All
the pain, I needed it to go away properly. I just wanted it to end. Nobody needed me
here anymore, nobody wanted me. I couldn’t live, not like before, not happily. It was
all too much. It was all too….