Page 65 of The Artist and the Muse

An alert dinged on my phone. I checked the screen to see a notification from a magazine I was subscribed to.

La Mode mag’s fall issue: A Sneak Peek.

I clicked on it out of curiosity, dusting off the flour on my hands and setting down my spoon. A flood of pictures bombarded me, all from the shoot I’d done with Sergio.

But what got to me wasn’t Sergio’s image in them—it was my own.

If you could even call those pictures ofme.

In those pictures, I looked so haunted. So broken. So sad.

They’d airbrushed out the bags under my eyes and the stray strands of hair, but they couldn’t hide what I knew had been the fear and loneliness in my eyes. They’d smoothed out the wrinkles in the clothing and the ones forming by my eyes, but they couldn’t hide how my posture seemed defeated, sad. And they’d even slimmed down my thighs, toned my arms, given me an impossibly flat stomach and thin waist—but they couldn’t hide that on the inside, I was dying. Breaking.

I didn’t recognize that woman in the picture. She was me, with all the rough edges polished off and the ragged pieces sanded down, but… she was nothing like the woman I wanted to be.

As I stared at that magazine article, I didn’t want to be that woman any more. But I wasn’t sure how to stop. I was sure people would tell me there was some hill I had to climb, some twelve-step program I could embark on. But I wasn’t sure any of it would actually fix me.

I’d never been an overachiever either at school or in life. My most extreme act had been the crazy diets I’d done while modelling to lose weight or maintain my physique. But I knew somehow that if I wanted to change, it couldn’t be merely a self-imposed transformation that I forced myself to stick with or a strict regimen that I white-knuckled through.

It would have to be a different kind of change. Because I was, admittedly, incapable of effecting that kind of change by myself. I would need help. I would need…

God.

I’d need God to change me. After all I’d learned in Italy about Him from Jamie, I knew I would need him to save me from the lies I’d wrapped myself in. The lie that my appearance made up my value. The lie that if I counted calories and took enough steps and measured myself enough times, I’d achieve whatever perfection and security and happiness I’d failed to have for so many years.

I wasn’t sure how to let go of those lies. But praying seemed like a good start.

“God,” I began. “I know we haven’t really talked before. But I’d really appreciate it if You would listen.”

What was I saying? He had probably been listening to my thoughts before I even said anything.

“I know I’ve hurt myself, and others, and You. I know I’ve lied to them about what I’m doing, and how I’m feeling, and about modelling most of all. And I know… I know what I’ve done to myself isn’t right. It isn’t good. And I’d like to change. I know that I can’t change myself. That I need Your help. That I need to die to myself—” recalling a conversation I’d had with Jamie on the plane — “and live for You. I don’t know how I’ll do that, or even fully what it means, but… I’d like Your help to do that.”

The woman I wanted to be was imperfect. She knew her imperfections and didn’t spend every second of her life pretending they didn’t exist. Nor did she constantly try to be someone she wasn’t, for the sake of pleasing others.

The woman I wanted to be didn’t exist in a magazine or on a billboard campaign. She didn’t walk on runways or pose for catalogues.

She was happy, though. More than happy, she was free, and fulfilled, and liberated from others’ expectations and desires for her—not because she followed her own. But because she followed the Lord.

I put down my phone. I didn’t want to be that girl anymore. Though I knew it would take more than one afternoon cooking spree, I also knew that I didn’t have to let my past hold me down anymore.

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Georgia

Iwas eating a slice of chicken pot pie when the apartment door opened. My heart raced, thinking it might be George. Which was absurd, since my doorman would have buzzed me to let me know he was coming. I'd given him my address once when he'd given me a ride home, but I'd never invited him over before. Instead, my mother walked through.Giggling. Actually giggling like a schoolgirl.

“Mom?” I said with a yawn as I put down my fork and knife and went to the door to give her a hug. “Where have you been all night?”

I checked the clock. It was eight pm. She was usually in bed by that time if she wasn’t working a night shift at the cafe.

She squeezed me back. “I just came back from a girls’ night with Ava.”

Ava was Uncle Aaron’s wife, from whom he’d been estranged and even divorced for years before recently getting back together.

“I didn’t know the two of you were friends.”

“Oh, we are. We even went to karaoke together.” She slung an arm around my shoulders as she took off her heels, tottering to one side as she leaned on me. She didn’t smell like alcohol, which was a good sign—she was just off balance because she didn’t wear heels often. “Then we started talking about our children, and, well, we lost track of time.”

“When did you guys meet?” She hadn’t been here to pick me up from the airport when my plane had landed this morning.

---