Page 10 of My Real Love Affair

My smile faltered. “What? What do you mean?”

I pulled up Femme Curve’s page on my laptop while keeping the live running. I scrolled through the official campaign photos they had posted. At first, I didn’t see it. There I was in the blue dress. The rose-colored pantsuit. The stunning evening gown with the draped neckline.

Then I looked closer. My stomach dropped. The woman in those photos looked like me. Had my face, my hair, my smile. But the body was not mine.

“No,” I whispered.

They’d slimmed me down. Not dramatically, not obviously, but enough. Smoothed away the soft curve of my lower belly. Trimmed my thighs. Reduced my arms. Made my waist impossibly narrow. Airbrushed the slight double chin I got from certain angles. Even my breasts looked different, higher. Smaller when I zoomed in.

The live chat was exploding now.

“They edited her??”

“This is exactly what we’re fighting against!”

“Melody, did you approve this?”

“FRAUD”

“Sell out”

“How could you let them do this?”

“I didn’t—” My voice came out strangled. “I had no idea. I never approved editing the pics this way.”

But no one was listening. The comments scrolled faster, angrier.

“Please, listen. I didn’t know they were going to edit the photos. That was never part of our agreement. I would never do that. You all know how I feel about that kind of thing.”

And then I noticed the word no influencer or celebrity wants to see associated with their name.

Canceled.

The word appeared over and over. Canceled. Canceled. Canceled.

I could barely see the screen through my tears now. The viewer count was still climbing. People loved a disaster, apparently. It was the thing I had been warned about. The higher your pedestal, the harder the fall.

“I’m sorry,” I choked out. “I’m so sorry.”

But the comments were merciless. They were downright mean and hateful and definitely not what I needed to be reading.

My finger found the end button. I tapped it. The screen went black. Silence crashed over me like a wave. For a moment, I just sat there, staring at my reflection in the darkened screen.

My phone buzzed. Once. Twice. Twenty times in rapid succession.

Notifications. Hundreds of them.

I couldn’t make myself look. How had this happened? I reviewed contracts. I had lawyers look at everything before I signed. There had been explicit language about authenticity.

Had there been language about photo editing? I tried to remember, but my brain felt like cotton. Surely, I would have insisted. Surely, my team would have caught it.

Unless they added it later.

My phone wouldn’t stop buzzing.

I picked it up, hands still shaking, and made myself look.

The notifications were overwhelming. Comments on every post. DMs flooding in. Tags multiplying. But it wasn’t just on Instagram. Every social media platform was lighting up.