33. Chapter Twenty-Eight Georgia Philips
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Georgia Philips
I stared down at my phone. Six calls to George, all of them going to voicemail. Seven text messages, all unread. It had been a couple of hours since we had parted ways at the airport, so I was probably overreacting. He was likely at the university having his work meeting. But what if something bad had happened to him? Or worse… What if he’d changed his mind about us being together now that we were back in New York?
This was why I didn’t put my faith in men. They always disappointed me somehow. He’d said he would call me tonight, but apparently even that was too much to expect from him.
After saying goodbye at the airport, I’d been so sure that George would say something. That he would tell me he was coming with me. But real life hit me the moment we got back .
He had disappeared in record time at the airport. I’d turned around to see if he was there, but he’d magically made it through the long customs line and crowded baggage claim area… and vanished.
Now I was at home, baking to avoid my feelings. I’d missed getting my hands dirty. Kneading dough or stirring batter always had a grounding effect on me.
Stress-baking wasn’t my preferred cooking method. But something had to be done about my emotions, and I would prefer to bake my way through them over anything else. I wasn’t going to eat all of the baked goods, of course, but I was sure I’d find someone to pawn my food onto. I knew better than to swing from the extreme of restricted eating to binge eating.
As the sun began its descent from its noontime peak into the golden rays of late afternoon, I tried and failed to avoid thoughts of George. My texts had started out sane, but gradually became more and more unhinged.
Georgia Philips:
Thanks for the trip! I had a great time
I know I said we would do brunch tomorrow, but how would you feel about dinner tonight? I’ll cook
Or we can get takeout
George?
They were all delivered with no response. Maybe I’d been crazy, high on the memory of him saying ‘I love you’, of how he’d kissed me in Italy.
I’d been crazy enough to believe what he said .
But what if all I had done was finish the vacation fling we’d started two years ago, and now he was done with me? Now we’d run our course, and he’d replace me with someone younger, hotter, smarter, more interesting—just… more .
Georgia Philips:
I guess your phone died?
Katerina says she hasn’t heard from you. Everything okay?
George Cartier Devereaux!!!!!
The last text had been one hour ago.
I hated myself for checking my phone. I hated myself for caring.
I hated that I loved him. That love for him threaded through my veins and nerves like caffeine, a high that buzzed through my bloodstream. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, couldn’t breathe without thinking of him.
I hated that I had thought I could be enough for him—could be the woman he loved—could be enough for him to settle down for. Only to be proven wrong.
Maybe he’d turned right around and hopped on another flight. Too scared of commitment to stick around after telling me he loved me.
Abandoning my culinary exploits—I had started a chicken pot pie, my comfort meal, and moved on to making sheets of pasta for lasagna—I went to the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face. I didn’t want to fall asleep. Didn’t want to lie down with nothing to do but think of George. Where he might be, what he might be doing—who he might be with .
“I am not the kind of woman who anxiously pines away by the phone and waits for a man to call,” I told myself in the mirror. “Or text.”
My reflection looked back, unimpressed. Red-rimmed eyes, chapped lips and sallow skin. Was this the glamorous model on covers of magazines and splashed on the countless Instagram accounts of adoring fans?
Or was it just a woman, trying to understand why the man who had claimed to love her hadn’t responded to any of her messages?
I have loved you with an everlasting love . The words drifted into my mind—a Scripture passage from the sermon I’d heard that one Sunday I’d gone to church with my cousins.
Why was I spiralling just because I hadn’t heard from George in a few hours? Why couldn’t I get a handle on my emotions?
Was there something wrong with me?
I have loved you with an everlasting love . The words, more urgent, seemed to push toward the forefront of my mind again.
Stop chasing love. Stop trying to be enough. Stop finding your identity in being perfect.
Find it in Me instead.
A tear trickled down my face that I hadn’t been aware of. I shut off the bathroom light and went out to the kitchen. Sleep deprivation must be making me lose my mind.
That was the only reasonable explanation I could think of for why I’d texted George so many times, thought up so many irrational scenarios in my head, and was now hearing voices.
Retying my apron strings, I finished making the filling for the chicken pot pie. Then I pulled the blind-baked pie crust out of the oven and added the filling before putting it back in the oven to bake. Now for the lasagna .
But as I was rolling out the lasagna sheets with my sleeves pushed up, I could have sworn I heard the voice again.
I am enough for you. I have loved you with an everlasting love. The love of man will not satisfy you.
Had I been chasing that? Seeking adulation from Internet strangers and industry approval? Seeking my worth based on the most fine-tuned version of my appearance?
And now, was I just transferring my need to be loved—to be liked—onto George?
Even if George did love me, and even if he had answered the phone—would he be enough to save me from this gaping pit in my heart that had always been there?
Somehow, I thought the answer would be no.
I loved George. But he couldn’t be the one I put on a pedestal, whose every opinion needed to be consulted before I did anything, or the one who I turned to whenever I needed saving.
He couldn’t be my purpose. Nor could George Devereaux be my reason for living, the one I formed my identity around, the thing I found my worth in.
It would have to be something else. Something that wasn’t external, wasn’t dependent on my appearance or performance or productivity.
I wasn’t sure what that could be yet. But I was willing to look for it.
As I layered pasta dough with ricotta cheese and tomato sauce, my thoughts fell on Italy, and how much everything had changed.
I’d missed so many meals that I could have been enjoying. I’d ruined so many days I could have been living to the fullest. All because of my desire to be some warped genre of perfection that only mattered to people who didn’t care about me .
On impulse, I’d deleted Instagram from my phone during the plane ride home. After powering off my phone, I’d spent an hour of the flight chatting with Jamie, promising to keep in touch after we got back to New York. We’d hugged goodbye at the airport, before Pennington had shown up to take me back to my apartment.
Now, I was in the middle of the kitchen, remembering all the meals I’d made while waiting for my mom to come home from work. I’d always enjoyed cooking for others; seeing the joy on their faces as they took in their favourite dish. But I’d never thought I’d be any good at it—at least, not good enough to consider it as a profession.
But what if I could be, and I was holding myself back because I was too scared of being imperfect to try?
An alert dinged on my phone. I checked the screen to see a notification from a magazine I was subscribed to.
La Mode mag’s fall issue: A Sneak Peek .
I clicked on it out of curiosity, dusting off the flour on my hands and setting down my spoon. A flood of pictures bombarded me, all from the shoot I’d done with Sergio.
But what got to me wasn’t Sergio’s image in them—it was my own.
If you could even call those pictures of me .
In those pictures, I looked so haunted. So broken. So sad.
They’d airbrushed out the bags under my eyes and the stray strands of hair, but they couldn’t hide what I knew had been the fear and loneliness in my eyes. They’d smoothed out the wrinkles in the clothing and the ones forming by my eyes, but they couldn’t hide how my posture seemed defeated, sad. And they’d even slimmed down my thighs, toned my arms, given me an impossibly flat stomach and thin waist—but they couldn’t hide that on the inside, I was dying. Breaking.
I didn’t recognize that woman in the picture. She was me, with all the rough edges polished off and the ragged pieces sanded down, but… she was nothing like the woman I wanted to be .
As I stared at that magazine article, I didn’t want to be that woman any more. But I wasn’t sure how to stop. I was sure people would tell me there was some hill I had to climb, some twelve-step program I could embark on. But I wasn’t sure any of it would actually fix me.
I’d never been an overachiever either at school or in life. My most extreme act had been the crazy diets I’d done while modelling to lose weight or maintain my physique. But I knew somehow that if I wanted to change, it couldn’t be merely a self-imposed transformation that I forced myself to stick with or a strict regimen that I white-knuckled through.
It would have to be a different kind of change. Because I was, admittedly, incapable of effecting that kind of change by myself. I would need help. I would need…
God.
I’d need God to change me. After all I’d learned in Italy about Him from Jamie, I knew I would need him to save me from the lies I’d wrapped myself in. The lie that my appearance made up my value. The lie that if I counted calories and took enough steps and measured myself enough times, I’d achieve whatever perfection and security and happiness I’d failed to have for so many years.
I wasn’t sure how to let go of those lies. But praying seemed like a good start.
“God,” I began. “I know we haven’t really talked before. But I’d really appreciate it if You would listen.”
What was I saying? He had probably been listening to my thoughts before I even said anything.
“I know I’ve hurt myself, and others, and You. I know I’ve lied to them about what I’m doing, and how I’m feeling, and about modelling most of all. And I know… I know what I’ve done to myself isn’t right. It isn’t good. And I’d like to change. I know that I can’t change my self. That I need Your help. That I need to die to myself—” recalling a conversation I’d had with Jamie on the plane — “and live for You. I don’t know how I’ll do that, or even fully what it means, but… I’d like Your help to do that.”
The woman I wanted to be was imperfect. She knew her imperfections and didn’t spend every second of her life pretending they didn’t exist. Nor did she constantly try to be someone she wasn’t, for the sake of pleasing others.
The woman I wanted to be didn’t exist in a magazine or on a billboard campaign. She didn’t walk on runways or pose for catalogues.
She was happy, though. More than happy, she was free, and fulfilled, and liberated from others’ expectations and desires for her—not because she followed her own. But because she followed the Lord.
I put down my phone. I didn’t want to be that girl anymore. Though I knew it would take more than one afternoon cooking spree, I also knew that I didn’t have to let my past hold me down anymore.