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SEVEN
brooke
“Do you think it was a good idea to tell him what was really bothering me?” I asked my screen, waiting for the woman displayed there to respond.
She ran fingers through her sleek, lavender tresses, pushing her bangs out of her face as she grinned. “I… think honestly is always the best policy. And I know you didn't expect me to say otherwise.”
I nodded. “Duh, Bianca. But you know how these guys get when they think we need protecting.”
“Protective?” She giggled. “What a shocker.”
“I knew I shouldn't have called your ass,” I groaned, letting my head slump on the desk, but keeping my screen in my line of sight.
“No, you definitely should have called the bitch that camethis close…” She held up her fingers, pinching them together. “To running up in her ex’s shit with a bat and getting revenge porned for the whole internet to see. I am actually uniquely qualified to give you what you need to hear.”
I cringed when she put it like that.
Not because she was wrong or even because it was hard to hear. Bianca was very candid about that whole story, in hopes that with the platform she had now, she could influence other young girls out of toxic situations like the one she’d been in.
The shit that happened to her was wack.
“What’s your advice?” I asked, straightening my shoulders as I met her gaze via the screen.
Bianca was a good, good friend of mine, one of very few who wasn’t a photographer. Bianca and I met because of a contract withSugar&Spicemagazine. She’d come to LA to shoot something and because of some resource sharing withGlow Up,I’d been the one to handle her shots. We hit it off at the shoot and had been friends ever since.
The fact that her husband—boyfriend at the time—was Rashad Martin, a celebrity photographer Igreatlyadmired, was really just a perk.
“You are overthinking the hell out of this,” Bianca said, then shook her head. “Actually, no—it's not that you're overthinking it, it’s that you're… giving it too much weight. Are you really going to sit in my face and tell me you like this man, but you're going to continue avoiding a relationship with him because of what some folks on social media might have to say about it?”
“You know it’s more than that.”
Bianca chewed at her lip, nodding. “You told him the rest yet?”
“You know I haven’t.”
“You’ve been in touch with Dr. Layla though?”
“Once a month, faithfully,” I assured. “And no meds since I moved, which is bonkers.”
“Is it?”
That question made me blink hard as I really thought about it.
Anotherelement of my move to the Heights had been the desire—theneed—for things around me to be a little… quieter.
The “grind” culture out in LA wasn’t exactly conducive to the suggested treatment protocol for my professionally diagnosed anxiety.
The trouble sleeping, trouble focusing, the constant fatigue, and even the sudden panicky feelings I would get about events, all the shit I’d thought was the norm for people in my age bracket, in my field… all of it made Jules’ eyes go wide in concern one chaotic afternoon when she’d found me tucked in a corner, damn near hyperventilating about a deadline.
She’d been the one to insist I talk to someone.
I thought she was being dramatic, but… nope.
I wasn’t well.
Nothing that a therapist, exercise, eating better, eliminating stress, and a prescription couldn’t fix.
Unfortunately, with the constant hustle and bustle, I ended up relying a little too heavily on the prescription because it was difficult making the other stuff work.
