Fifteen. Seventy pounds overweight. No plan. No boyfriend. No future. I was the girl who settled for a Tom Selleck poster and a dream choked with a hand to mouth life working two jobs like my mom did-until my grocery cart crashed into a woman in a red cape. Not a costume. Not a kid. A grown-up Little Red Riding Hood, eyes sharp as steel and a jaw clenched against a world full of too many cakes and cookies and not enough hard-cutting honesty.
What came next wasn't a fairy tale-it was a demolition. Every illusion I clung to-about love, beauty, success, and wealth...and the lie that "someday" fixes everything-got torched. I faced my bulging mirror and saw the mountain I had to climb. I had a choice to make: did I want it? Did I really want it?
DO YOU REALLY WANT THIS, DANI?
You think it's a simple question and a simple answer, but it's the hardest thing you'll ever have to decide-a great hurt wrapped in the truth that no one is coming to save you. This isn't your safe-space story. It's a wake-up call. And I'm warning you. My journey out of illusions and into honesty will probably piss you off and break your heart. It might even force you to face a few ugly truths about love, loss and a few facts of life about seeking your dreams if you still have any. Let me tell you, life's no equal-opportunity winner's circle. After a few years of bad training or no training at all, life doesn't hand out equal shots-it hands out consequences. Bad habits. Broken homes. Lazy dreams. They stack up fast and most people just keep adding weight to the pile.
But you don't have to be like them. The question is the same for you as it was for me: are you tough enough to take advice? Can you put aside your illusions long enough to listen? I stopped. I listened. I fought. I changed.
Truth doesn't chase anyone. You have to go after her, catch up and walk with her and talk with her and stop being afraid of her.
This is the first of four books full of dreams and doubts, love and learning, facing a mountain and deciding to climb it.
