You’re told to put your head down. Stick it out. Grit your teeth until they break. Shut up and be grateful. Remember that you’re living out every girl’s dream, and nobody wants to hear about the nights you lie awake hurting, so hungry you could gnaw on your own hand. Because there’s a literal line of people waiting to replace you the moment you tire, and they’re all prettier than you, or prettier in a different way, and they won’t complain.

“From the second I walked into that photo shoot, everything felt off,” I say, finding my voice again. “The whole theme was meant to tie back to ancient China, but I was the only person there who was even Chinese. And then the backdrop just looked … It looked like someone with the vaguest idea of where Asia was on a map had thrown it together overnight, and the clothes they asked me to put on were supposed to be traditional robes, but they didn’t even remotely resemble what I was wearing earlier tonight, and the skirt was so much shorter than I was comfortable with, and I just felt so—exposed. In every way.”

“Leah, I’m sorry,” Cyrus tells me, his features tight, like he’s in pain thinking about it. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that. You shouldn’t have had to.”

When he pulls me to his chest, I feel something inside me fissure.

Everything I’ve been forcing back, every memory I’ve buried, all the hate I’ve harbored, the blame I bore. I’m so sorry you had to go through that. Here, at last—someone to understand and smooth my hair with his palm and hold me tight, tight enough that the memories retreat to the edges and I let myself sink into him. I never even told my parents exactly why I left. I didn’t tell anyone, because I thought, foolishly, that I could digest the shard of glass in my stomach given enough time.

“I just couldn’t do it anymore,” I whisper against his shirt. “The day after the photo shoot, I woke up and I thought: I can’t go on like this. And that was it. I couldn’t. I didn’t have the strength to.” I swallow. “Does that make me weak?”

After all, there was a certain narrative prevalent in the documentaries I watched: the rise and fall and inevitable rise again of the hero. The shocking pain of the fall itself was only relevant because it paved the way for their return to the spotlight, their grand victory. Everyone loves an underdog, so long as they ultimately win in the end. Otherwise, the story isn’t complete.

But for every singer or actor or model who’s achieved the kind of breathtaking ascent people dream of, how many have simply disappeared like me? Quit halfway through? Changed courses?