[beginning of ch. 2] first page of it…a little less actually.

Chapter 2: Jealousy is a disease. Get well soon.

Secret #1: In Chloe's quest for fame, the press was her number one ally. Without magazines, add campaigns, television, and radio, we might never hear about the important situations in life, like when rap moguls get arrested for toting guns in nightclubs. Oscar-nominees shoplift from major department stores, pretty young starlets come out of the closet, or when a very well known actor cheats on his fiancée with his latest costar. Fame is a media-driven industry, and if you want to work in this town again, you have to realize the press is the ultimate introducer to an adoring public.

Chloe was ninety-nine percent sure she was dreaming. The reasons were quite plausible. Giselle was lounging on a cheetah chaise in the midst of Chloe‘s bedroom, looking like a store-front mannequin. Her ridiculously long legs were folded underneath her, and she was fiddling with her long caramel tresses, a sure sign that she was thinking about something. Giselle brushed her hair into such a tower of beauty, people populating heaven dropped their harps just to admire it. Yawning, she stretched out on the extra-long chaise like she was relaxing poolside. Her palms were pink like the bottoms of her feet, her elbows darker than the rest of her, and for some reason the sight of them filled Chloe with tenderness. The essence of being alive is loving acceptance of yourself, for once we accept ourselves we unleash the beauty that lies within our soul. Am I crazy? Chloe wondered. Crazy people who are creative are geniuses. Crazy people who are rich are exquisite. Crazy people who are neither productive nor rich are just plain crazy. Geniuses and crazy people are both out in the core of a bottomless ocean; geniuses swim and whirl, senseless people drown. Most of us are assembled safely on the shore. Chloe wanted to take countless chances, get her feet wet. A question that sometimes drives everyone hazy and muddled: am I or are the others fanatical?

The heart is the place where we live our passions; it is frail and easily broken, but wonderfully durable. Chloe believed she possessed some sort of miraculous sixth sense, because she felt tremors slide along her spine. She felt shivers and shudders along her skin, a traveling current that moved up her spine, down her arms, pulsing out her fingertips. She was practically radiating. Breathless, Chloe pondered what her heart desired to tell her. When it comes to the future there are three kinds of people: those who let it happen, those who make it happen, and those who wonder what happened. Her heart beat kicked it. Chloe asked Giselle if she could hear it, it was that loud. Passion was waiting in the darkness of her heart. It stirred, opened its jaw, and howled for an escape. Passion is the source of our finest tears… the joy of love, the goodness of hatred and the ecstasy of grief. It hurts sometimes more than we can swallow. When we are motivated by goals that have deep meaning, by dreams that need completion, by pure love that needs expressing- then we truly live life. Chloe wanted to blaze with a scorching fire never to be extinguished, she wanted to feel alive. A life without passion is not living, its merely existing.