“One, two, three…” she counted.
“…Fourteen, fif…” her count cut off as her foot collided with something. Tumbling to the ground, her prosthetic elbows didn’t lock when they hit and her face pounded against the oaken floors.
“GOD,” she screamed, knowing her caretaker must have moved something. She knew it was 17 steps from her bedroom door to the foyer. She knew because she had to know. The only blemishes to her blonde-framed face were her permanently closed eyelids. Her sapphire eyes had helped her to modeling success before the accident. Now her life was defined by her counts.
She had been the portrait of perfection before that night. No model before had the star power she garnered. She was the crossover queen with acting roles and a number one album. She walked every red carpet from Cannes to the Kodak*.
Now she was a broken recluse. Besides filching her sight, the accident had shorn her arms off nearly to the shoulders.
She suffered constant nightmares. She knew she hadn’t been an ordinary person; the world had been set before her. The difference in lives was the bitterest hurt for her. She knew she could not turn back the clock. No medical breakthrough would soon come to restore her sight or arms.
Her boat, which her agent jokingly called The Bounty, was long sold. Her jet set friends had abandoned her after they drained the cool out of hanging at her bedside. Even Drake Francis, her fiancé had broken it off and departed. Her only companion was her caretaker, a young woman named Polly.
She got herself up and finally to the door expecting to hear Polly’s young voice. Instead she heard the gruff utterances of a delivery driver. “Who would send me anything?” she thought to herself.
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*Note: The Kodak is the theatre in Los Angeles, CA, USA that has hosted the Academy Awards Ceremony for several years.