They told me all of my cages were mental

So I got wasted like all my potential

And my words shoot to kill when I'm mad

I have a lot of regrets about that

~ Taylor Swift, this is me trying

AGE 18

My vomiting turned into dry heaves over the toilet until I couldn't breathe anymore. The room was spinning and my ears were ringing loud enough to blissfully drown out the commotion in the other room of the hotel suite.

"Breathe, Bella," Kate sighed, worry staining every breath of her own.

There was nothing left in my system to throw up, but it didn't stop my stomach from trying. Over and over again. "Can't," I gasped, my knuckles turning white as I heaved again. Tears streaming down my face as I sobbed, "I can't."

Kate had my perfectly curled hair in one hand as her other slid up and down my bare back. She had quickly unzipped the suffocating dress as I collapsed in front of the toilet twenty minutes ago. If two years of being attached at the hip hadn't killed any idea of modesty between us, this moment would have.

I wasn't even sure what had set it off. It could have been a dozen different things. I hadn't had an appetite for anything other than coffee in weeks, too tired to even pick up a fork during the press tour. After the success of the first Tainted film, expectations were so much higher this time around and I couldn't get through an hour without someone asking me how I dealt with that pressure.

Turns out: I hadn't.

I wasn't sure how many countries I had been to in the last month. I couldn't remember what I did yesterday or the names of the twenty reporters I had spoken with this morning.

All I could think about was them. The people that showed up to every premiere and waited twelve hours just to watch me walk down a red carpet. The ones who had such high expectations for the film, who knew the book inside and out and wouldn't hesitate to rip the film to shreds if we didn't do it justice. The people that had somehow lifted me onto a suffocating pedestal that I didn't deserve.

I couldn't pinpoint the moment it happened, when the exhaustion and anxiety and fear had completely overridden everything else. Those feelings had been there for years. My whole life, to some extent. But I was always quick to shove them away.

They were too heavy to shove, now.

As I stood in front of the mirror, Chrissy fixing my makeup and Alex making sure every curl was in place, an overwhelming need to run flooded my veins. I wanted out of the hotel, out of my job, out of my own skin.

I couldn't walk another red carpet with people sobbing my name. I couldn't smile and talk about the film that had left me emotionally and physically drained day after day as we shot it. I couldn't pretend I was okay posing for photos that would only end up being ripped to shreds online as anonymous people called me disgusting names just because they felt like it.

For years, I tried. I tried so fucking hard to earn the praises that everyone sung to me. Even when I hated my own performance, when I started to hate the sight of my own face, I put on a smile and played my part and pretended that I had come into my own.

But, every night when I went to bed I knew it was a lie. I had been doing this for two years and I was still just as lost and confused and insecure as I was that first day on set.

My legs shook as I tried to stand, Kate's arm supporting most of my weight as she handed me a toothbrush. She left the room quietly, but her voice was easy to hear through the door once she was out.

"She's not going."

"Yes, she is."

"She's exhausted and hasn't eaten in days. She can't keep anything down. She's skin and bone!"

"She's an actress, they're all skin and bone. This is her job. Every fucking teenager in the country watches this award show. The movie comes out in seventy-two hours. She's going."

I rinsed my mouth and wiped away a few streaks of mascara that had fallen down my cheeks. The anger in Duncan Zane's voice was the slap across my face that I needed.

Zane was the head of the production company that funded the Tainted movies. He was in town for the premiere, conveniently staying at the hotel where we were getting ready for the award show tonight and where we'd get ready for the premiere in a couple days.

I had met him on a couple different occasions, and he had been nothing but smiles. I wasn't sure how he ended up in my suite, but it wasn't a good sign that he was here now.

Swallowing back another round of dry heaves, I zipped up my dress as best I could on my own. All eyes turned to me when I rounded the corner.

"Ms. Swan," Zane sighed, no hint of the smiles I remembered. "Almost ready?"

My stomach churned and tears threatened to spill down my cheeks.

I want to go home.

The thought floated through my head quickly. But it was long enough for me to question where home was. Home was comforting and quiet and safe, and I wasn't sure where I felt those things. I wasn't sure the last time I had felt them.

It was a devastating blow to realize I didn't have a home. I didn't have parents that would hug me and listen to my problems. There were no friends I could truly trust not to go run off to the tabloids if I told them something juicy enough. All I had a career that I was an inch away from fucking up for good.

I nodded, swallowing back the sob that was lodged in my throat. A smile that would have sent cameras flashing covered my face. "Of course."

Zane gave me a curt nod, stalking across the room to where Lawrence hovered. Lawrence, at least, gave me a melancholy smile before walking out with Zane.

"Bella–"

"I'm fine, Kate," I gasped, my lungs tight as she finished zipping my dress.

My hands shook as I got into the car. It took every ounce of willpower to keep tears from streaming down my cheeks. But, I had a smile on my face in every picture captured of me that night.

I even managed a smile to the paparazzi camped outside of the rehab center the next morning as Kate walked me in.