Average Availability: The Hypnotic Downfall Of An Actress

I've been with an award-winning actor for seven years. We've been secretly married for five of those seven years. For the sake of his career, I drink so much that I get a stomach perforation. I also allow others to trample over my pride and dignity. Yet he goes on lakeside dates with another woman and kisses her underneath the fireworks. He even has the nerve to tell me not to be unreasonable. Later, I get caught in a landslide when I'm on a business trip. I make one last call to him in fear. All I hear is him singing his lover a birthday song. I ask for a divorce after losing hope in him. That's when he suddenly begs me not to leave. He even announces our relationship to the world on the day he wins an award. Our seven-year relationship is finally public, but I don't want it anymore.

In the fifth year of being locked up in a psychiatric hospital, my husband, Cole Foster, finally agrees to discharge me. But when the ward door is opened, I see multiple cameras aiming at me. "Congratulations, Ms. Lawson. The five-year reality show in the psychiatric hospital has officially come to an end!" R-Reality show? I look thunderstruck by the news. At that moment, Cole, who's supposed to sweep me into a hug, shows up. He says calmly, "Joanna, this is a reality show that Natalie has planned. You're just a trial subject whom I've chosen to help her record this show." 300 million people have participated in the voting session. Just like that, Natalie Jackman becomes the most popular director in the reality show world. Meanwhile, I've gotten electrocuted to the point I keep shuddering violently. It's a norm for me to drool subconsciously and go into lapses of haziness from time to time. Cole personally unlocks the handcuffs that have bound me for the past five years. "Now that the show is over, you may go home."

The moment I decided to leave Vincent Graves, I did three things. First, I recalled the pregnancy report I had been about to forward to him and replaced it with a scheduled breakup message. Second, I called the bridal boutique and cancelled the custom order for my wedding dress. I had been measured three times for it. I had waited five months. I never wore it. I never would. Third, I called Dr. Helena Shaw and accepted the invitation I had turned down a week ago. An eight-year medical research program. Completely sealed. No contact with the outside world. Before he could spring the proposal he had been planning, I vanished from his life completely. He never noticed that while he let Cora take my place at the wedding rehearsal and stayed out all night, I was quietly erasing every trace of myself, step by step. I became exactly the wife Vincent always said he wanted: reasonable, gracious, unbothered. But after I was gone, he lost control and asked me, "Why aren't you angry? Don't you love me anymore?" I said nothing. I only remembered the flirtatious voice messages Cora had sent him, the ones I had heard from his phone. And I calmly dialed the number that would take me away.

After a devastating public scandal engineered by her college boyfriend destroys her reputation and her faith in humanity, a hardened young woman reinvents herself as a premium girlfriend for hire, only to find herself locked in a high-stakes corporate and emotional war with that very same ex, now a powerful CEO determined to win back her trust.

I suffered from severe skin hunger syndrome. Every waking moment, I wanted to cling to Charles Hansen. At night, I craved his touch even more obsessively. In Oakhaven's social circle, everyone knew me as the clingy, brainless rich wife. When I once again insisted on tagging along on Charles's business trip, a series of floating comments suddenly appeared before my eyes. [The cannon-fodder wife is at it again. She just has to follow him and ruin this client meeting too. The moment the male lead comes back, he finally files for divorce.] [She's unloved by both parents, emotionally unstable, and suffers from skin hunger syndrome. In the end, she develops depression and dies alone beneath a bridge.] [Good thing our heroine saves the deal and helps the male lead secure the client. This is also when he starts falling for her.] [I can't wait for the romance arc! Cold CEO x secretary is such a perfect pairing. Can this annoying side character disappear already?] I slowly looked toward Daisy Allen, the secretary waiting by the door to leave on the trip with Charles. Then, for the first time, my arms loosened from around him.

It was never part of my plan to get attached. I was just a freelance model, newly signed under a rising modeling agency in town. Everything was supposed to be simple; work, exposure, growth. Then came Dr. Aria Williams — dermatologist, surgeon, and the woman who was supposed to fix me. Chaos started the moment I met her. The way she talked, the way she looked at me felt like she was studying every inch of who I was. Every word I said, every silence I made, she read me like I was her favorite patient. It made me uncomfortably hot, and yet... I kept coming back. I told myself it was part of the therapy, the strange pull I felt toward her was part of it. But the way she looked at me; cold, curious, almost hungry, said otherwise. I hated her for it. I felt it every time her voice softened, every time her fingers lingered on my skin longer than they should. She called it treatment. I called it control. What started as therapy turned into something dark and deeper. I wanted to be beautiful, to be ready for the public, but what we craved became something private, something only between us. And the more sessions I had with her, the stronger the connection grew. Until one day, her eyes focused on someone else. And every time their eyes met, it burned through me. When she saw it, she offered something that challenged me. To be her slave and she'll be mine— alone. Soon, I found myself following her every order, fulfilling her desires without question. Along the way, I realized her obsession had become mine too. And before I could stop, the hate I once felt for her turned into something else.