My stomach growled ominously the moment I pulled in the drive. Between my run and the class, my breakfast was long gone. My body didn't hesitate to let me know it. I'd already learned the hard way to fuel my body properly; when I had just started out three years ago, I'd collapsed during one of my classes after going 18 hours without eating.
Three years later, I knew exactly how much food I needed to consume to keep going—and nothing more. The very real danger of malnutrition lingered, however; I'd long ago starved away every scrap of fat from my body, so there were no fat stores to fall back on if I skipped a meal or two. Everything I ate had to be carefully calibrated to ensure I didn't starve, but didn't gain weight either. And in the age of fitness apps, the potential for going too far had become very real.
This reality necessitated eating the same thing, day after day, so that I neither gained nor lost weight. Today was no exception as I threw open the fridge and combined chicken I'd grilled the previous day, dried cranberries, walnuts, and just a tiny bit of goat cheese onto spinach leaves I'd already washed. I wouldn't have to worry about bloating with this meal—no carbs—but it paled in comparison to something like pasta. I'd had plenty of shoots with pasta, of course, but just because my account seemed like I could eat all of that tomatoey deliciousness with no repercussions didn't mean I actually could.
Placing the lid on my salad bowl, I gave it a good shake to mix the ingredients, then shoved it back in the fridge so that it could settle a little bit while I completed my afternoon shoot. As starving as I was, this was prime pool time, and I couldn't afford to take any photos with my stomach swollen from my lunch.
It growled in protest, so I caved and grabbed a handful of red grapes from the fridge, munching on them as I went to retrieve my equipment. The hunger would settle long enough for me to finish my shoot. It would be fine.
As I trudged up the stairs, I tried to think of the last time I had eaten a meal with no planning, no counting, and no guilt, and failed. I would kill for a donut.
Every gram of carbs also meant putting on three grams of water, so even one particularly carb-loaded—but-delicious—meal within two days of an important shoot created the potential for sluggishness, skin breakouts, and bloating, particularly now that my body was no longer used to consuming such food. And I couldn't afford the social engagement nosedive that scenario would create if I wanted to win the Wanderlust account.
At least with the sunny weather it only took an hour to get the shot I wanted. I sat on my unicorn floaty, legs dangling in the water as I reached for the sky, head cocked jauntily to the sky. In 30 seconds, I was back inside, scarfing down my salad and heading upstairs to my office.
Midafternoons, I was usually faced with two decisions: nap, or edit. Recently, I'd taken to getting some sleep in the afternoon, since I never got enough, what with the nonstop partying. Maybe Travis putting his foot down would end up being a good thing. Even I was really tired of the parties.
However, I'd slept plenty last night, so a nap was the last thing I needed. Which meant that until my evening shoot, I was looking at nothing but editing.
I loathed photo editing. I really had no talent for it, even if my skills had improved immensely since first starting out. Most of the really big accounts had other people editing for them—or a convenient photographer boyfriend to take care of it—but I wasn't in a financial position to make such an expenditure and I was perpetually single, so I had to do it all myself.
Which reminded me. Logging onto my online bank, I checked to see if I'd received the final deposit for the last contract I'd completed. The swimwear company had paid me $800 to model one of their newest suits, half upfront and the rest later. My post was now a week old; I should have received the remaining fee.
I frowned when I checked the balance: $37,742.98. They hadn't paid me. Sighing, I shot off a quick email to their finance department to follow up. Some of these companies were rather slow on the whole paying thing, and you really had to nag them, even if the contract said "final payment within five business days of your post."
This was just so typical; I knew I'd need to nag them. And their swimsuit had sucked too. I'd had to spend three hours just to get one shot I liked because the stupid thing kept slipping. No one should be buying that swimsuit. And I felt terrible that I had to shill for a company I disliked simply to pay the bills. So fake.
I returned to my bank account, staring at the glowing number that represented every penny I'd managed to save after three years of modeling on Instagram. Like every other time I viewed my balance, I was hit by the mixed feelings of pride and despair. Pride, that I'd managed to save so much despite my situation, and despair that I was still far, far from my goal.
My time was running out. Twenty-six was way too old for a model; soon, people would lose interest in my account. I needed to leverage my social capital into something that would give me an actual steady income before the fickle Internet moved elsewhere.
Ironically, it had been Instagram that had given me the idea of how to escape. Despite how much I hated the Instagram lifestyle, I loved working out. I had no formal experience and no actual qualifications, but more than anything in the world, I wanted to design a line of clothing that would motivate any woman to be fit and healthy and happy.
But between design, prototyping, manufacturing, and marketing costs, among many others, I needed at least $80,000 upfront for my portion of the capital required to fund the line—all before I sold a single garment. And after three years, I'd only managed to save a little under half of my goal. Someone else would fund the rest of the line—thus my reason for moving to Spring—but on days like today, I felt so very far away from achieving my dream. The remaining amount might as well have been $430,000, instead of $43,000.
Since my number of followers had just started taking off in the last eight months, I was only now beginning to land larger contracts. Hopefully that meant I could save faster, but I'd been around long enough to know that unforeseen problems arose all the time.
Like the Wanderlust account. I'd been in contact with them for weeks now to see if I could become the face of their new marketing initiative. They were a lifestyle and fitness company looking to work with someone who could inspire their followers to travel around the world and stay in their eco-friendly, beautifully designed apartments—all while wearing their tastefully designed clothing.
To say that I wanted to land that contract was an understatement. Not only would it pay ten grand—from which, after expenses, I'd probably net about seven thousand—but I'd also get an inside look at a company that designed clothing very similar to what I wanted to create. The experience would be invaluable.
I checked my email again. Still no response from Wanderlust.
But my inbox wasn't empty. I frowned at the unread email from an unknown address. The subject line "A proposal" stared up at me. Knowing better, I clicked on the message anyway.
I instantly cringed in horror, unable to look away from the sick message. Someone had written that he wanted to tie me up and lock me away in his apartment forever. As if that wasn't horrifying enough, he planned to make me his wife and sex slave too. A remarkably long list of truly sick things he planned to do to me followed.
A proposal indeed. One I'd never accept in my life.
I quickly deleted the email and blocked the address, stomach turning. Messages like this one were the major downside to a public life on the Internet. Any number of wackos frequently thought they deserved a piece of me.
Unfortunately, this was not the first time I'd received such a message. In all likelihood, the guy was trolling, but whenever I received such awful messages, it absolutely ruined my day. Yet another excellent reminder to never post my current location online.
I opened my editing app, trying to rouse some sort of motivation to work after reading that disgusting email, but paused when the doorbell rang. Frowning, I turned away from my desk and gazed in the direction of my front yard.
My stomach growled ominously the moment I pulled in the drive. Between my run and the class, my breakfast was long gone. My body didn't hesitate to let me know it. I'd already learned the hard way to fuel my body properly; when I had just started out three years ago, I'd collapsed during one of my classes after going 18 hours without eating.
Three years later, I knew exactly how much food I needed to consume to keep going—and nothing more. The very real danger of malnutrition lingered, however; I'd long ago starved away every scrap of fat from my body, so there were no fat stores to fall back on if I skipped a meal or two. Everything I ate had to be carefully calibrated to ensure I didn't starve, but didn't gain weight either. And in the age of fitness apps, the potential for going too far had become very real.
This reality necessitated eating the same thing, day after day, so that I neither gained nor lost weight. Today was no exception as I threw open the fridge and combined chicken I'd grilled the previous day, dried cranberries, walnuts, and just a tiny bit of goat cheese onto spinach leaves I'd already washed. I wouldn't have to worry about bloating with this meal—no carbs—but it paled in comparison to something like pasta. I'd had plenty of shoots with pasta, of course, but just because my account seemed like I could eat all of that tomatoey deliciousness with no repercussions didn't mean I actually could.
Placing the lid on my salad bowl, I gave it a good shake to mix the ingredients, then shoved it back in the fridge so that it could settle a little bit while I completed my afternoon shoot. As starving as I was, this was prime pool time, and I couldn't afford to take any photos with my stomach swollen from my lunch.
It growled in protest, so I caved and grabbed a handful of red grapes from the fridge, munching on them as I went to retrieve my equipment. The hunger would settle long enough for me to finish my shoot. It would be fine.
As I trudged up the stairs, I tried to think of the last time I had eaten a meal with no planning, no counting, and no guilt, and failed. I would kill for a donut.
Every gram of carbs also meant putting on three grams of water, so even one particularly carb-loaded—but-delicious—meal within two days of an important shoot created the potential for sluggishness, skin breakouts, and bloating, particularly now that my body was no longer used to consuming such food. And I couldn't afford the social engagement nosedive that scenario would create if I wanted to win the Wanderlust account.
At least with the sunny weather it only took an hour to get the shot I wanted. I sat on my unicorn floaty, legs dangling in the water as I reached for the sky, head cocked jauntily to the sky. In 30 seconds, I was back inside, scarfing down my salad and heading upstairs to my office.
Midafternoons, I was usually faced with two decisions: nap, or edit. Recently, I'd taken to getting some sleep in the afternoon, since I never got enough, what with the nonstop partying. Maybe Travis putting his foot down would end up being a good thing. Even I was really tired of the parties.
However, I'd slept plenty last night, so a nap was the last thing I needed. Which meant that until my evening shoot, I was looking at nothing but editing.
I loathed photo editing. I really had no talent for it, even if my skills had improved immensely since first starting out. Most of the really big accounts had other people editing for them—or a convenient photographer boyfriend to take care of it—but I wasn't in a financial position to make such an expenditure and I was perpetually single, so I had to do it all myself.
Which reminded me. Logging onto my online bank, I checked to see if I'd received the final deposit for the last contract I'd completed. The swimwear company had paid me $800 to model one of their newest suits, half upfront and the rest later. My post was now a week old; I should have received the remaining fee.
I frowned when I checked the balance: $37,742.98. They hadn't paid me. Sighing, I shot off a quick email to their finance department to follow up. Some of these companies were rather slow on the whole paying thing, and you really had to nag them, even if the contract said "final payment within five business days of your post."
This was just so typical; I knew I'd need to nag them. And their swimsuit had sucked too. I'd had to spend three hours just to get one shot I liked because the stupid thing kept slipping. No one should be buying that swimsuit. And I felt terrible that I had to shill for a company I disliked simply to pay the bills. So fake.
I returned to my bank account, staring at the glowing number that represented every penny I'd managed to save after three years of modeling on Instagram. Like every other time I viewed my balance, I was hit by the mixed feelings of pride and despair. Pride, that I'd managed to save so much despite my situation, and despair that I was still far, far from my goal.
My time was running out. Twenty-six was way too old for a model; soon, people would lose interest in my account. I needed to leverage my social capital into something that would give me an actual steady income before the fickle Internet moved elsewhere.
Ironically, it had been Instagram that had given me the idea of how to escape. Despite how much I hated the Instagram lifestyle, I loved working out. I had no formal experience and no actual qualifications, but more than anything in the world, I wanted to design a line of clothing that would motivate any woman to be fit and healthy and happy.
But between design, prototyping, manufacturing, and marketing costs, among many others, I needed at least $80,000 upfront for my portion of the capital required to fund the line—all before I sold a single garment. And after three years, I'd only managed to save a little under half of my goal. Someone else would fund the rest of the line—thus my reason for moving to Spring—but on days like today, I felt so very far away from achieving my dream. The remaining amount might as well have been $430,000, instead of $43,000.
Since my number of followers had just started taking off in the last eight months, I was only now beginning to land larger contracts. Hopefully that meant I could save faster, but I'd been around long enough to know that unforeseen problems arose all the time.
Like the Wanderlust account. I'd been in contact with them for weeks now to see if I could become the face of their new marketing initiative. They were a lifestyle and fitness company looking to work with someone who could inspire their followers to travel around the world and stay in their eco-friendly, beautifully designed apartments—all while wearing their tastefully designed clothing.
To say that I wanted to land that contract was an understatement. Not only would it pay ten grand—from which, after expenses, I'd probably net about seven thousand—but I'd also get an inside look at a company that designed clothing very similar to what I wanted to create. The experience would be invaluable.
I checked my email again. Still no response from Wanderlust.
But my inbox wasn't empty. I frowned at the unread email from an unknown address. The subject line "A proposal" stared up at me. Knowing better, I clicked on the message anyway.
I instantly cringed in horror, unable to look away from the sick message. Someone had written that he wanted to tie me up and lock me away in his apartment forever. As if that wasn't horrifying enough, he planned to make me his wife and sex slave too. A remarkably long list of truly sick things he planned to do to me followed.
A proposal indeed. One I'd never accept in my life.
I quickly deleted the email and blocked the address, stomach turning. Messages like this one were the major downside to a public life on the Internet. Any number of wackos frequently thought they deserved a piece of me.
Unfortunately, this was not the first time I'd received such a message. In all likelihood, the guy was trolling, but whenever I received such awful messages, it absolutely ruined my day. Yet another excellent reminder to never post my current location online.
I opened my editing app, trying to rouse some sort of motivation to work after reading that disgusting email, but paused when the doorbell rang. Frowning, I turned away from my desk and gazed in the direction of my front yard.
