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ABIGAIL MANGIN 7
“I’m proud of you,” he said. “You made the right choice. Besides, modeling can’t be worse than this life, can it?”
It could. And it was.
Fashion Week, 2019. Ava was twenty-four.
A mirrored runway drenched the world in reflective silver, washing away all the depravity and filth of Manhattan. Snowflakes rained upon eyelashes and coated the tips of tongues, like a dusting of sugar.
The snow was real. The white peacock feathers were freshly harvested.
Everything Visage made was earthy. But it felt like a dream.
New York Fashion Week was an arctic wonderland. Dresses covered in white winter moss. Icicles frozen into flower crowns. Pine trees rose from the mirrored runway floor, sparking
golden fireworks from their tips.
Backstage was not as pretty. Ava’s fellow models were hunched
over in makeup chairs, a halo of golden branches keeping their innocence intact. Cigarette smoke hung in the air like smog above them, as artists masked the jaundiced hue of the girls’ cheeks, the shadows around their eyes, and the baby fat that clung to their young faces. Their plush cheeks were swaddled in fur scarves, shielding their faces from prying eyes.
A model’s face never mattered. The bodies were all that had value.
The girls couldn’t text. The agencies had confiscated their phones. But the few who borrowed the stylist’s cell managed to text their families: “Te amo,” “I miss you,” “Je t’aime,” “Ik hou van je,” “I love you.”
But Ava was not covered in golden glitter, flower crowns, or fake snow.
She woke up in a dark closet backstage. The room cocooned her, roughing her elbows with gritty brick. Her hands were invisible