I look in the mirror, at the shadows that mar my face, wondering how the fuck I got here.
Wondering what bad deeds I did in my past. Who I’ve made hate me enough to cause this vindictive character assassination.
Because it must have been something really fucking bad.
Thank god for Soren and his unwavering support.
I don’t know what I’d do without him.
CHAPTER 40
IVY
The next few days crawl by, testing my sanity.
Time becomes irrelevant—my days no longer filled with meetings or strategy or posting. I try to read articles to keep my knowledge up, but it feels futile.
What’s the fucking point? No one’s going to hire me after this.
I try to busy myself, pottering around in the kitchen. Opening cupboards. Studying ingredients. But then slamming them closed at the roiling in my gut.
I flick through TV channels, but nothing catches my eye. Or what does just seems to rub it in. Successful businesswomen, living their best career lives—not even real—still making the point that I’m sitting here, rudderless.
Sleep doesn’t come easily. I try to nap during the day to pass the time, but after falling asleep briefly I wake with a gasp as it all comes back.
Even Pilates offers no pleasure—moving my body only makes me angry.
Soren tries to lighten things up. He’s attentive, thoughtful. Always there.
But I find myself snapping at him. Because I’m embarrassed—an entire piece of my identity gone in an instant.
And it’s terrifying relying on him for financial support. I don’t want to be dependent, having to ask for things that I’d normally get for myself without a second thought.
I know he can afford to assist me, technically—that’s abundantly clear by the way he lives. By the walls and roof that surround us, and the ease with which he moves through life. But we haven’t been together for that long, and I didn’t come into this with expectations of being a kept woman.
Scariest of all, there’s no end date to any of this, and based on past experiences I know just how quickly financial resentment can brew. Even if he doesn’t turn out to be like that—even if he wanted to support me forever—the relief seems short-lived.
And without my own financial independence, the walls feel closer. Like he’s in control of another aspect of my life, whether he means to be or not. That my choices have constricted. My world shrinking again.
I’m losing another piece of myself.
And I don’t have many left.
It’s funny how timing works sometimes.
One day you’re canceled. The next, you find your biggest client.
Or they find you.
I receive a message a few days after the ‘scandal’ hits.
At first I ignore it—assume it’s a joke or a cruel prank.
But then there’s a follow-up message, and then another. Inviting me to pitch for the business of a reclusive celebrity who needs social media management.
She’s pretty well-known, and it’s impressive how she’s taken what started as a one-person act and turned it into a variety of different spinoff businesses.
I sigh. She must not be big on social media—must have somehow missed my giant fuck-up.