Prologue

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For as long as she could remember, Demi Lovato had always had a problem with food. But the problem wasn't her own. It was her mother's. It was her grandmother's. It was her sister's. As far as she knew, no one in her family had a healthy relationship with food.

Every thanksgiving since her mother's separation from her biological father, all the sophisticated country hicks who made up her family would filter into the sprawling Dallas mansion that had been purchased by her mother's second husband with Tupperware full of family secret recipes. And every thanksgiving, an innocent Demi would watch the women of her family pick at the food that they had so willingly piled onto their plates.

Her mother would cut everything on her plate into tiny little squares. The meat would be pushed to one side, the vegetables to the other. As time progressed she would mix it all back together again until it looked as if she had actually eaten something. Her Aunt Lisa was a little bit different. She would count as she chewed while tapping her fork against the side of her plate. When Demi turned eleven and was bold enough to ask, Aunt Lisa said that she read in Cosmo that cutting the food in a triangular fashion and chewing it exactly eleven times helped you lose weight no matter what you were eating. It seemed as if every woman in her family had developed some type of technique to avoid eating a full meal, and eventually, Demi did as well.

Growing up in Texas, you really had three acceptable options for after school activities. You could learn to ride a horse, take dance classes, or do pageants. With Eddie's fortune and Dianna's background as a Dallas Cowboy's cheerleader and a proud participant of pageants, Demi ended up doing all three. Pageants taught her a lot. They taught her how to carry herself with grace and class. They taught her to address an audience of people. They taught her how to be confident even when you really weren't. But they also taught her something else, and that was how to hate every inch of her body because it didn't look like the one of the girl before her in the pretty pink dress.

This kind of lesson probably could've been undone if she had a normal mother who didn't suffer from the same insecurities that she did, but Dianna was a stage mom through and through. She didn't care about how Demi cried every time she got fitted for a new dress and the seamstress would tsk in distaste and tell her that she put on weight. She didn't care about the fact that Demi didn't really like pageants all that much. When she finally stopped doing pageants it was too late because she replaced it with something else: modeling. And the world of high fashion was ten times worse than anything she would ever endure in a pageant.

Modeling for Victoria's Secret had never been a huge dream of hers because she knew that it was out of reach. Everyone knew that to even be considered to model for them, you had to be tall, lean, and exotically beautiful, which were traits that Demi just didn't have. But she had gotten signed with Wilhelmina when her manager decided that she needed to expand her brand.

Now she was a singer, an actress, and a model...officially. With the firing of her old manager and the anticipation of a new era, her new manager had decided that she needed something big to start the era off. Instead of a performance, he suggested a campaign with none other than Victoria's Secret because of a lyric in her new song that suggested showing off her lingerie for her beau. Seemingly overnight, Victoria's Secret had agreed to the deal. Not only was she going to be the face of their new campaign, but she was also going to perform at their annual fashion show a few months later. It was a win-win.

So, there she was, twisting and turning in the sexy red lace lingerie set that would be the signature piece in the collection, picking out every single flaw that would hopefully get photoshopped out. And while she was doing this, one of the more seasoned models who Demi recognized from all of their ads came into the room to tell her that she had five minutes to get to the set. Upon noticing how nervous she was, the leggy model entered the room, closed the door behind her, then reached into the pocket of her pink robe to retrieve a little baggy of white powder. And being in Hollywood since she was about 15 years old, Demi knew exactly what that was.

"It's kind of become a tradition to take a hit before a big shoot. Or the fashion show. We all do a line before the fashion show. It's like a rite of passage," she had said with a twinkle in her eye and a shrill giggle, making Demi wonder if she was high. And she didn't doubt that she was.

She had eyed the taller girl, watching her empty some of the forbidden substance onto her vanity and divide it into two lines. Then she rummaged through Demi's purse, pulled out her wallet, and slipped a Benjamin Franklin out of it before rolling it up and proceeding to snort an entire line off of the counter top.

"See? No biggy. You won't even be nervous. And all you have to do is one line. Here." She extended the rolled up bill towards her and Demi hesitantly took it.

Maybe it was because she always had the desire to fit in. She preached about not being part of the cool Hollywood scene and not being like every other star, but deep down, that was all she wanted. It was just like high school. You told yourself you didn't want to be like the popular girls with the shiny hair and expensive clothes, but that's all you wanted to be. And here was her chance. She was about to model for Victoria's Secret. This was her first big modeling gig. And here was this beautiful model offering her to do coke. She had three options: snitch on the bitch, leave the dressing room without doing it, or to snort the coke. The wannabe part of her sniffed the coke, but even now she couldn't decide if she exactly regretted that decision.

Three months later she was in New York snorting a line off one of the model's perky A-cups right before her performance. Cocaine really did help with her performances, not that she wasn't already a kick ass performer, but it just made her bolder, sexier, and more confident. And that drug induced confidence is what caught the eyes of the hottest R&B singer of the year: Trey Songz.

Trey was one of the performers for the fashion show as well but their rehearsals always ended up being at different times so she had never actually met him. Being in the entertainment industry, she was sure they had probably seen one another in passing but besides that, she didn't actually know him. All she knew was that he was one of the sexiest men that she had ever seen and his music always put her in the mood.

So, when she caught his eye while strutting to the sexy single that had sparked this entire Victoria's Secret campaign, she couldn't help but swish her hips a little harder, flip her new extensions to the side, and grind her waist once she stopped. And since all that coke had her feeling oh so confident, she blew him a little kiss along with a wink as well. And that is how Tremaine Neverson ended up in her dressing room after their performances.

She wished that she could say she remembered how it all happened. She wished she remembered the smooth line that he had used on her and the look in his eyes that got her to drop her panties for him after having a twenty minute conversation. She wished she could remember their little exchange in perfect detail because maybe then she could figure out why she just couldn't let this man go. After five years together and so many ups and downs, it was like he could do no wrong. She kept going back, even when everyone told her and everything inside of her told her to stay away. But it was impossible. And there was only one reasonable explanation for their relationship: she was addicted. Just like cocaine, love was one hell of a drug.

Yeah, I got issues
And one of them is how bad I need you...

So that's it! Tell me what you think. For this story, you kind of have to erase everything you know about Demi's past and go with the flow lol. If you want more let me know 🤗

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