Black Soul

It’s crazy how life can change in the blink of an eye. How one decision can alter the course of your life.

Growing up, I was the victim of a narcissistic abusive father and neglectful mother. After 18, I made the decision to leave them the same way my brother Elio had four years earlier.

He decided to join the military just to get away from that man.. Our father.

At 18, I made the decision to move in with a man 10 years my senior. A man who claimed to love me, but made me become a stripper to collect the income.

Holding the job against me in a jealous fit of rage. He’d abuse me for it.

At 19 years old, I made the decision to secretly apply for fashion school to get one step closer to living my dream.

On nights where I wanted to cry myself to sleep, I would imagine myself being an accomplished fashion designer and stylist. I’d live somewhere extravagant like New York, one of the hubs of fashion.

I’d be like Carrie Bradshaw, of Sex and the city. A show I discovered when my mother left the television on for once while dad wasn’t home. I wanted to work for Vogue. I wanted to be fabulous.

And I’d imagine all of it every night in my bed.

When I got accepted into fashion school across the country, in Los Angeles, I made the choice of actually running away from my abusive boyfriend. Cutting him and my old life entirely, as I had the first time.

I was the elusive Mia Fiore, a girl with no roots and only one person I loved. My brother Elio, who was in the military for many more years after all that.

I was alone, but I didn’t let it stop me.

It’s when I moved to New York to be with Elio that my life truly changed forever.

I met my brother’s mysterious best friend, Domani De Luca. A man with a dark aura and an alluring blue gaze. A man I was afraid of, yet attracted to.

I made the decision to let myself fall into Dom’s company. Even when Elio wanted nothing more than for us to stay away from each other.

I betrayed my brother over the allure of that man. I couldn’t fight it, and we’d both given into it, until Elio discovered the truth. Domani De Luca promised to stay away from me.

All that coincided with a job opportunity that Dom himself procured for me. I was to become an intern for a very well known stylist. A woman who worked for herself, and alongside big names within the industry.

One step closer to my dream...only there was another choice attached to the offer. Another choice I was asked to make.

Helen Barton asked me to join her in Paris for a 6 month internship. With Dom ignoring me, I couldn’t think of a better time than that to give myself some distance from that man.

That’s not how that ended up going though.

Somehow our paths continued to intertwine until we were lost in each other. He always confused me with the back and forth of what we were to one another. Calling it a physical thing, even when his actions contradicted that.

After 3 months in Paris, Dom came to me with a surprising ultimatum.

Again, life can change in the blink of an eye.

It started as a conversation, and ended with Domani De Luca slamming the door in my face when he walked out on me.

I had 3 more months of this internship I wanted to finish, and Dom didn’t wanna wait for me.

I don’t think he gave me much of a choice at all. When I didn’t immediately agree he took my wanting both the internship and him to be his answer.

The answer being no.

Even after Dom stormed out I tried contacting him. I didn’t want things to end between us. But he was just so angry that I didn’t wanna uproot my dream internship to go back to New York.

I texted, called, and asked around about where Domani De Luca was, but he’d effectively shut me out. He never spoke to me again.

So, when my 3 month internship was up--and I was meant to move back to New York--I was offered another life changing opportunity.

Cynthia Dupont, of Vogue Paris magazine offered to keep me on for another 6 months as an intern for just her, not Helen. Helen was leaving Paris.

I can’t say what my answer would’ve been if I stayed in contact with Dom, but I knew my answer when he left my life.

The answer being yes.

A lot happened after that, and it went by so quickly. I can almost feel the whiplash of my choices and outcomes quickly flying forward like a crash.

When our lease was over, Sophia ended up moving back to New York. Since I wasn’t working for Helen we couldn’t keep that apartment. I was moving to another, on Cynthia’s dime.

I would’ve rented with Sophia if she had a choice, but Dom refused to pay her rent to stay here. I know it was to spite me, and it hurt that he’d go so far as to use Sophia to harm me.

Since Sophia’s never worked a day in her life, she lives off of her bank account that Dom fills each month.

I love Sophia, and Paris wouldn’t be the same without her, but I had big opportunities heading my way...and so I blinked. I watched my life morph.

It was nothing I expected and everything I dreamed of.

With Cynthia Dupont as my boss and mentor I went to fashion runway shows frequently. I also did all the grunt work back at the offices, along with my friend and fellow intern, Celine.

What really changed everything was winning the contest campaign I’d submitted to Chanel.

It was to submit our personal vision for the Chanel Spring Collection. I worked long and hard to design some pieces that I thought would be an asset to the collection.

Apparently they agreed, because I was suddenly addressed by the man I’ve idolized for half my life. Karl Lagerfeld.

He’s the creative designer for Chanel and Fendi. And he’s a famous photographer for plenty of other brands, magazines, you name it. He even has his own brand which is of the same name, Karl Lagerfeld.

I never expected to win, but it was one of the reasons I told Dom I didn’t want to leave Paris. And look...if I left I wouldn’t have experienced all this.

Karl Lagerfeld is infamous for his designer suits, dark sunglasses, low white ponytail, and his black leather fingerless gloves. The man is a legend in the fashion industry and skilled in so many things.

Exactly how I wanted to be. Designer, stylist, and maker of clothes.

We got along instantly. I’d met him once before in passing while working for Cynthia. And then again after I continued on with Vogue.

When we started working on the spring campaign, is when we really got to know one another. He’s strange, mysterious with the details of his life, and actually very funny.

He told me once that normal people think he’s insane. All I see is brilliance.

Watching your drawings come to life as real clothing, on real models, was a gratification so strong it took my breath away each time I saw it. And lived it.

I worked alongside my idol for months. And when the show finally came I got to witness something that young, sad, and abused little Mia would shut her eyes and pray for at night.

Karl told me I had a very photogenic way about me. He asked to photograph me, and of course I said yes.

Again, another decision that altered the course of my life.

He started photographing me all the time. For fun sometimes, but then it turned into more. I posed for Chanel and Fendi, both brands Lagerfeld is a part of.

When I told Karl I still wanted to focus on design he told me this, “Design is forever. Beauty fades. Model now and the rest will come.”

And I believed him.

It’s been 9 whole months since Domani De Luca walked out my front door... I remember the pain in my chest when I kept trying to call and text him. When I realized he was done with me.

I cried many nights at the thought of what almost dangled right in front of me.

He broke my heart for doing that to me. But I had no choice but to tough it out while working extremely long hard hours to make this dream happen.

For 9 whole months I’ve poured myself into my work, trying not to think about that handsome, sinful man who occupied way too much of my mind in the beginning.

After the first three months--with Sophia still around--it was very hard for me. Her blue eyes would remind me of him. And sometimes she’d slip and mention his name.

That sting so fierce it sears you, would shoot through me each time. When I’d have a dream with him in it, I'd wake up flustered.

After Sophia moved back to America it was still hard, but I stopped crying about it.

After 6 months of thinking maybe Dom would give into his urges to finally talk to me, I hadda let that go. I had to let him go.

When I started working for Karl I met his PR Julien and we got along well. As friends, but still he was the first male friend that I felt even slightly attracted to.

Julien’s French-American. He’s handsome. Like not in the sexy as sin way, but downright handsome in a good looking way- if that makes any sense at all.

His beard is close shaven and lined up like the rest of his hair. The top has short textured curls that fade down the sides in his line up. He has perfect teeth. He’s a smooth guy.

Julien has light toffee brown flesh. Without any tattoos, but with abs. He likes sports and plays them when he isn’t too busy representing Karl Lagerfeld.

I notice little things about him that I haven’t done to a man since Dom. Like how he favors blue suits. And they look damn good on him. He isn’t always in a suit like Domani De Luca.

I realize I have to stop comparing the two at some point.

Julien became very flirtatious in the beginning, and I decided to be honest and tell him about Dom. About how I wasn’t in the place for a relationship or anything.

After 8 months of total silence from Dom, I finally decided to give into my sexual needs, and I did start hooking up with Julien casually. We’re more so friends than anything else, but I won’t deny his good looks and our attraction.

It isn’t a drowning, suffocating, almost scary attraction like I’ve felt in the past. This was easy. Fun.

It took me 8 whole months to wash the stain of Domani De Luca’s dangerous inked hands off of me. Another month of having sex with a man completely opposite to him.

And yet...my internship with Cynthia is over this week and that means I’m returning to New York City. It means I’ll be entering HIS domain again.

I’ll run the risk of seeing him. And I know, as much as I tell myself I’m done being upset over him, that I’m actually truly terrified of going back.

9 whole months of silence. Of disappearing without a trace. Even when I went to New York between the time I ended my internship with Helen, and started up with Cynthia, right before the holidays.

I spent Christmas and New Years with my brother, and still Dom was like a ghost. Almost like a figment of my imagination- if he didn’t taint me so deeply the stain of him wasn’t still felt as proof.

Even when Elio came to visit me in Paris during my next six months there. I’d heard nothing about the man and was too afraid to ask Elio about it directly.

After all this change in my life, I feel as though I’m coming back as a new person. I’m coming back to New York and damnit if it isn’t terrifying.