Page 10 of The Love Haters

For me, in particular. Because I was basically the opposite of everything that’s valuable at an awards show. I wasn’t famous, or rich, or stunningly gorgeous, or even particularly talented.

All I had, ultimately, was my connection to Lucas. Which wasn’t nearly enough to protect me.

I learned this the hard way at my very first Billboard Music Awards the first year Lucas was famous. I was so proud of him, and I felt sweetlygiddy at the prospect of doing something so glamorous. I went shopping and found a vintage-y, floral-print dress that I, personally, thought was gorgeous. I had my hair done and my nails painted. Imoisturized my calves.

I fully expected to feel like Cinderella at the ball.

And guess what? I did. At first.

Until I started getting texts that the internet hated my dress.

Photos of me next to Lucas started popping up all overeven before the show was overwith questions like,Why did Lucas Banks bring his mother to the Billboard Awards?andWho is the frumpy lady with Lucas Banks?andIs Lucas Banks dating Mrs. Doubtfire?

Sorry—did you miss the one where someone thought I was Lucas’smother?

I wastwenty-six. And he was four years older than me!

And, for the record, none of those comments was actually true. I did not—anddo not—look like Mrs. Doubtfire.

Now you’re wondering what Idolook like.

For a long time, that was a hard question for me to answer.

I don’t know. I just looked… pleasant.

Unremarkable, but friendly—like your nonthreatening best friend. Five-five. Collar-length brown hair. Arms, legs, boobs—the usual. The single most remarkable thing about me was that I had nondescript hazel-ish eyes with a blurry little pie-piece section in one iris that was light brown. And it wasn’t even that noticeable.Inever even noticed anymore. And as far as I knew, Lucas had never noticed at all.

Which was probably lucky, in the end. The last thing I needed was some song about me called “Pie Eyes” or something.

The point is, the most unusual thing about me was something you could see only if you were really, really looking.

And none of us were. Myself included.

I guess I was kind of like those before-and-after pictures of women who’ve had cosmetic surgery where you’re like, “Why did she do that to herself? She was fine before.”

I was the “fine before.”

Or, at least, I’d thought I was.

Until the entire internet disagreed.

Did I cry myself to sleep that night? And declare I’d never leave the house again? And then wake up the next day and immediately decide to remedy my frumpiness by starting what you might generously describe as a “starvation diet”?

Like you wouldn’t believe.

Have you ever heard of those starvation experiments they did back in the 1940s with conscientious objectors to the war? The ones where the men ate so few calories that they lost their minds a little—and one of them accidentally-on-purpose chopped off some of his own fingers?

That was the regime I decided on.

In fact, I watched a whole documentary on it. They gave the men in those studies just over 1,500 calories per day.

So I set my own limit at a thousand.

If those guys had gone crazy, I was going to gocrazier.

Which felt, in the moment, like a power move.

My goals were twofold: (1) to be a size zero—or less, and (2) to never let the tops of my thighs touch each other again.

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