Chapter 34 #2
I’m seen, of course, as the rich bitch who’s never wanted for anything, while Ivy has struggled for every single thing.
That’s fair. My struggles have always been mental; they’re all of my own making, and that’s not anyone else’s problem but mine.
Ivy’s never had agency like I have. She’s been let down by the system; she’s spent her whole life until now moving through a kind of justice vacuum with grace and humility, so of course they’re going to back her.
Of course she deserves the happy ending so much more than I do.
I don’t blame Ivy anymore. I haven’t for a long while. And I don’t even resent the nation’s fawning over her, because I get it. She’s great.
The problem is that every article, every op-ed, every comment says the same thing, and each one is a vicious little paper cut to the insides of my already bruised and wounded wrists.
No wonder he chose her over that phony, uptight bitch.
When Xavier showed up that morning and walked away from our engagement, it was the confirmation of everything awful I’ve always known about myself.
Now the entire world knows it, too.
That’s what makes this so awful. It’s not just having thousands of people assassinating your character online—although that on its own feels like open heart surgery without anaesthesia. It’s that every single comment is additional evidence for that confirmation Xav already gave me.
It’s more than plain old humiliation.
It’s proof.
I worked so hard on every bloody front: the education, the looks, the social polish.
For so long, I thought they were all positive attributes, assets that credentialised me to marry Xav, but the press and the public have condemned them as liabilities, every trapping rendering me phonier and phonier.
And phony is the cruellest, most reductive descriptor of all, because I can’t argue with it, even if it’s a take on my personality that I didn’t intend.
I can’t deny that I make myself into what I believe people want from me—my parents, my teachers, my friends, my fiancé, even my husband.
But it’s not supposed to be a form of deception.
I find it hard to explain, but to me, it feels more like safety.
If I know what they want, and I give them what they want, they’ll have to hold me in esteem, surely?
I’ll admit my frosty persona doesn’t lead everyone to like me, but they respect me, and that’s more important to me.
I’ve never been a people-pleaser—I’m too prickly for that—but I’ve spent every waking minute of my life striving to be valued, and apparently, that’s a social crime.
Until I learnt that Xav had chosen Ivy, a woman who couldn’t compete against me on any of the metrics I’ve valued and cultivated (except for beauty, obviously; she’s bloody gorgeous), I hadn’t understood that there might be another game on a whole other chessboard, one I didn’t know any of the rules to, or worse—that some people don’t play games at all.
As far as I can tell, Ivy was too busy surviving to play any games, and that makes her more genuine than me.
It legitimises her in a way that negates every single facet of my personality that I was taught to care about.
I was taught that life is a meritocracy: if you work hard enough, and perform well enough, and present a perfect enough version of yourself, you’ll be rewarded.
I thought that by being flawless, I’d be chosen. I’d be safe.
Now I don’t know what’s real, and I don’t know what to do with the person—or persona, if the public is to be believed—that I am.
I’m cornered, trapped in a sticky web of deceit of my own making, and everything I’ve always valued and admired about myself has been twisted into a source of shame and humiliation.
I ignore every plea from Ben and Ewan and I rabbit-hole with the best of them, unable to stop myself from scrolling and scrolling through the sea of hate in the comments sections of the news sites.
not selena wentworth trying to rebrand being dumped as a love story. girl we have EYES
the funniest part is that selena’s whole brand is literally “aspirational lifestyle” like babe the aspiration is to NOT be you right now
ivy cooper in dungarees and a bandana outsold selena in couture valentino and i think that tells you everything you need to know
this woman would marry a labrador if it had a coat of arms
she’s stunning but in a scary way?? like you know she’d step over your body to get to the last jar of la mer
i used to follow wentworth home but honestly now it just feels so fake knowing the woman behind it is basically a professional liar
am i the only one who thinks she looks miserable in literally every photo with xavier. like GIRL the signs were there
The Reddit thread has amassed thousands upon thousands of new upvotes and comments, too.
devils_advocate_here: Genuinely asking—what was Selena supposed to do? Her fiancé dumped her days before the wedding. She had two choices: public humiliation or marry his brother. I'd probably have done the same thing tbh
groomswap_truther: yeah but she didn't just marry him. she actively participated in a fake press release designed to deceive the entire country. that's not survival that's PR
Action is my habitual ally against spiralling, but I can’t think of a single thing to do in this instance.
If I go into the office, I’ll get papped.
If I stage some PDA with Ben, it’ll get called out for being exactly that: staged.
Commenting publicly is out of the question; I know that.
Even if I could, there’s nothing I can say to make this situation better.
Ben keeps telling me that no one is entitled to an explanation, that we and the royals never complain, never explain.
He says we should sit tight and let it all blow over, but I like closure.
I like things wrapped up in big, tidy bows.
The idea of just sitting with the chaos and not trying to wrangle it into some sort of narrative, some sort of shape, is like an itch in my brain that I can’t scratch.
It’s insanely melodramatic to say, but I don’t just feel humiliated.
I actually feel like I’m in the middle of an existential crisis.
I’m completely disoriented; I no longer know which way is up.
I want to check into some hospital and ask them to restore my factory settings and start again from a nice, clean slate—like a wiped iPad.
I would really like to be a wiped Selena right now, stripped of all the stuff she got wrong and ready and waiting for the download of Selena 2.0.