Page 41 of Before

Nine

“HOW ARE you still notpacked? You leave tomorrow. If you’re waiting for me to help, I can’t. Matty’s coming to pick me up for dinner—cute little Italian place. I’d say you could come but ... wouldn’t want you to show up to Paris with an extra couple of pounds, right?”

Gigi did her best to ignore the nagging of her roommate. It was easier said than done. Her silence and turned back did nothing to curb Cassie’s constant stream of bitching. She wasn’t sure what changed between them. Or when. Maybe when the girl realized Paris and the famous fashion designer who wanted to work with Gigi was a real thing that would happen.

Not just a possibility, no.

An actual thing.

Something Cassie wasn’t doing and might never have the chance to do. The business of modeling was not an easy one—in fact, Gigi thought it was probably one of the most deprecating and difficult careers one could choose to step into because everything was judged, compared, and then rated. And the scales differed for everyone.

Beauty to one was ugliness to another.

Fame was fleeting.

Nothing was easy.

And very little felt real in a world where everyone was airbrushed to perfection constantly; where everyone had a part to play and a mask they put on because whenever the cameras turned on, so did the models being photographed.

Simple as that.

It was something Gigi had tried to keep in mind in the years since she decided this was the path she wanted to follow. Her mother also reminded her regularly that there was a good chance for some people, Gigi was just a steppingstone to something else. Someone they could use on the way to their own top, so to speak. She hadn’t believed that to be the case with people she considered friends; how silly of her.

Turns out ... that’s what Cassie thought she was, too.

Or, that’s how it felt lately.

“Are you ignoring me?” Cassie asked.

She had kept talking.

Gigi just didn’t care.

“No,” she lied, bringing up the browser on her laptop. It made it far easier to pretend like she was doing something more important than having a conversation with her jealous, soon-to-be ex-roommate when her back was turned, and the computer was in front of her. “Just busy. Have a good dinner, though. Say hi to Matty.”

“Why? Not like he’ll say it back.”

Well ...

Cassie wasn’t even trying to be nice now.

Neither would Gigi, then.

Tossing a cool smile over her shoulder, Gigi replied, “Then don’t tell him shit. I don’t care. Did you need anything else? Because I am actually trying to do something here and—”

“Don’t know why you bother. The agency will have everything ready for you when you arrive. There’ll even be a driver at the airport. Right now, you’re their next big meal ticket, and they know it. What are you looking up—how to speak French? Little late for that. Learn as you go, I guess. I hear they have apps for that, anyway.”

What?

It didn’t even matter.

Gigi decided right then and there that she wasn’t even going to bother and try to decipher the multitude of Cassie’s current issues. It could be boiled down to the fact that the girl was jealous, felt like she was being left behind in Gigi’s current success and was lashing out by using her words. She thought it would hurt.

It didn’t.

Not that much.

And it just went to show that Gigi shouldn’t waste her good vibes and energy—at this very best time in her life—on someone who only wanted to bring her down.