“Watch your mouth, Blaire. I’m your mother,” she replies bitingly.

I snort. “Are you? I wouldn’t have known.”

It happens before I even see it coming. The first physical touch in at least eight years from my mom is not a hug or a caress … no. It’s a slap across my face.

How fitting.

My hand instantly covers the sore spot where she hit me. I rub my cheek, trying to soothe the sting of her palm as it spreads heat across my skin.

“How dare you,” she breathes.

“How dare I what? Speak the truth?” A destructive smile sweeps across my face. It feels good. “You know what? Don’t bother. I’m out, and I’m never coming back. And aren’t you glad?” I look her up and down, noticing the expensive clothes she’s wearing. The clothes she couldn’t have afforded. The clothes another man must have paid for. “After all you’ve never cared about me.”

My mother doesn’t even bat an eyelash. “And how do you expect to pay for this? You don’t even have a job.”

I laugh in her face. “Well … how does that saying go? Oh yes, I remember now.” I tap my forehead as if a bright idea has just occurred to me. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, right? I guess in our case that holds true.” I start packing again. My flight leaves in four hours and I have no intention of missing it.

After some silence, I assume she’s already left my room when her answer comes echoing through the air. “Don’t think too highly of yourself, Blaire. Your looks will fade … and you’ll be all alone.”

I close my suitcase, hearing it click shut, then lift it off the bed and put it down on the floor next to me. After I grab my bag and put Winkler and my old paperback of Persuasion in it, I’m able to finally stare her in the eye. “Just like you, right?”

“How dare—”

“Don’t bother.” I reach for the handle of my suitcase and head toward the door, my shoulder bumping against hers as I walk past her. “I’ll be smart just like you, Mom. I’ll make you proud, I promise,” I spit.

As I walk out of my mother’s house, filling my lungs with clean air, a sense of freedom washes over me. And right now, while I take my first steps into the unknown, I realize that there’s nothing holding me back. Nothing. This is my chance to shape myself into the woman I want to be without gossip following my every step, or memories shining like neon lights on every corner with every item I see.

So here and now is where my story begins. My tale. Will it be a love story or a tragedy? Maybe it will be a farce. Who the fuck knows, really. Only time will tell, but I can already see it written…

On a breezy summer morning when the birds sang their beautiful love songs and the sun shone brightly in the cloudless sky above, Blaire White turned eighteen years old. She left her old and forsaken town in search of the American Dream—a big fat wallet filled with lots of green dollars.

And why the hell not? With my body and looks, I will conquer the world.

It’s my destiny.

I am beautiful.

I am beautiful.

I am beautiful.

STANDING NAKED IN FRONT OF A MIRROR, I look at my reflection while chanting the litany my brain is trying to engrave in my heart. It isn’t working. Nothing ever works. I don’t believe it. I never will. Instead, my heart keeps telling my mind over and over again …

You are not beautiful. Look at you. You are worthless. You are unlovable. Not even your parents loved you.

But I am looking at myself, and what I see is breathtaking.

It has to be.

The admiration that follows me everywhere I go testifies to that fact. If only I could remove all traces of those childhood memories that constantly crowd my mind, reminding me how unworthy of love I am. If I could, then I know I could make myself believe what my brain has been telling me all along. I know I could make myself believe the words that countless of men have whispered in my ear while they were inside of me.

Lifting my fingertips to touch my face, I trace the soft angles of my chin, the curve of my winged eyebrows, the shape of my high cheekbones. The way the outer corners of my almond-shaped eyes lift gives me a feline look. The face I see belongs to a beautiful, almost too beautiful girl.

I smile into the mirror as I begin to trace my body with my hand. The hand travels a path from my shoulder down to my breasts, caressing the rosy tips, and then it continues down to my smooth stomach. I can’t help but wonder if this is all I’m about.

Is this everything I’m worth—a body and a face?

A voice inside my head tells me that things could be different if only I’d allow it, but I ignore it. Instead, I take one last glance at my naked body and walk toward my closet, looking for an outfit to wear tonight.

It’s been five years since I moved to New York City and in those years I’ve managed to live a life full of clichés. I’ve become a walking cliché, but I don’t mind because at least I can say that I’m living and experiencing life. I’ve been a waitress, a receptionist, a sales representative in a department store … I even tried acting school for the hell of it. And through it all, I’ve managed to keep my heart intact and my feelings at bay.

Looking around at my expensively furnished apartment—my borrowed dream—I’m surrounded by glamour and false security. A white bedspread and headboard, a white rug, a white night table, white candles, white lamps, and blocks of white canvas as the only thing adorning my lavender walls. White. White. White. I breathe white. I breathe the color of innocence. Yet this place couldn’t be more soiled than the color black.

I shake my head and focus on getting ready for my date tonight with Walker.

Walker Woodsmith Jr.—the name alone drips with money. With his blond hair, sky blue eyes, body of an Olympic swimmer, a pedigree similar to the Kennedys, and the swagger of Jay-Z—he is God reincarnated. And he fucks like one too. It feels as though he brings me closer to God every time he plays my body like a perfectly tuned instrument.

Just thinking about him makes my heart rate rise. With Walker, everything is always fast, angry, hard, painful.

And I love it.

Once I finish applying the last coat of dark red to my lips, I take two steps away from the bathroom counter so I can take a better look at myself. I smile at my flawless reflection in the mirror. Rivers of straight black hair, skin that has never been kissed by the sun, eyes the color of bluebells, and an hourglass figure. This Blaire won’t be bullied by the cool kids in school. This Blaire won’t be ignored.

This Blaire will shine.

Satisfied with the way the little black lacy, see-through dress I’m wearing molds to my curves, the thin layer of lace showing the paleness of my skin, I decide this will do. I look sinful. I look like sex—and that’s what I’m selling. I want men to want me. I want women to be jealous of me. I need to feel desired.

After slipping my feet into a killer pair of black Miu Miu stilettos (and by killer I mean they are as gorgeous as they are painful), I grab a sparkly clutch encrusted with crystals and head out the door.

Standing on the corner outside my building, relishing in the attention I seem to be attracting, I lift an arm, feeling the golden bangles I’m wearing slide down my wrist, and flag a cab. As I wait for one to stop, I look around me, admiring the way the city comes alive when darkness has fallen upon us. It’s not like it doesn’t feel the same way during the day—it’s different—better. As night takes over, there’s a wild frenzy of excitement and licentious behavior that runs deep through the streets of Manhattan, swiping away with it all of its inhabitants. And as I swim in those turbulent waters, my body packed with energy, I’ve never felt freer.