In All the Right Places

The blinding glare of the flashbulbs was like crushed stars, densely pricking at my eyelids. I lifted my hand to shield my eyes; my fingertips first brushed against a cold string—the sharp facets of a diamond bracelet digging into my palm. This 'Chief Model' award, given by the company on my birthday last year, now felt like a delicate shackle. The noise by my ears surged like the incoming tide. Champagne glasses chimed crisply, someone laughed aloud, and another pursed their lips before the distant camera, a practiced curve forming at the corners of their mouth. Several scents curled around the tip of my nose: the faintly sour breath of Champagne, the sickly sweetness of strawberry mousse, the burnt aroma of chocolate tart settling deeply beneath, and atop it floated a wisp of gardenia perfume, so pure it seemed almost unreal. I am Daisy Shaw. Standing at the very center of Mindy Xavier's debut party, like a ghost who had wandered into a fairy tale by mistake. My heart suddenly constricted. Not a metaphor—it really hurt, as if a cold, damp hand were clutching it fiercely. I should be lying on a hospital bed. The memory from the previous second still burned in my mind: the sharp smell of disinfectant choking my throat, the intravenous line on my wrist cold as a serpent's skin, the monitor's beeping slowing steadily until it stretched into a long, unbroken line. I fixed my gaze on the water stain on the ceiling—like a blurred map, or perhaps a mocking face. At that moment, I kept asking myself: why? Why had I transformed from a 178cm, 52kg model into a fat woman who needed a caregiver's help just to turn over? Why did the makeup artists who once flocked around me now laugh at my belly, saying, "Daisy, your waist could hold two of me"? Why has the magazine cover been handed to Mindy Xavier, while I cannot even pass through the door to audition? But in that instant, I looked down at myself. I wore a silver gown designed by an I-style couturier, cinched precisely at the waist, the silhouette sculpted as if carved by a blade. The scattered diamonds on the skirt danced with every movement; light fell upon the marble floor, spinning a dizzying spectacle. The slender stiletto heels stabbed into the ground with unwavering steadiness.