The Vegas Diaries: Romance, Rolling the Dice, and the Road to Reinvention by Holly Madison

hadn’t even brought a book with me! I was convinced I’d be spending the whole day battling raging rapids, without a second of spare time!
    All morning I watched as one of the cast and one of the crew, who were involved in a “showmance,” held hands and stole kisses when they thought no one was looking, laughing at private jokes only they understood.
    I had to admit, I was a bit envious. They had each other to occupy their attention, and I had been hoping that Kent would be there to occupy mine. A small part of me hoped that Kent and I would be having a similar sort of adventure together. I knew we were never going to be involved romantically, but I still loved hanging out with him. Watching her giggle as he tenderly tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear drove home for me the fact that I needed to get my head out of the clouds. I wondered why it was that I felt like I had to constantly have visions of a particular man dancing around in my head. Was I so used to seeking male approval that it had become a habit? What about seeking my own approval?
    “I don’t think I’m into this whole camping thing,” Angel whispered into my ear as she watched one of the crew members attempt to pitch a less-than-sturdy-looking tent.
    “Me, either,” I agreed. “Should we canoe back?”
    Angel got a text from Laura, with a picture of her baby boy cuddled next to a stuffed teddy bear—and I could feel how much she missed him. I, on the other hand, started rapidly texting Hannah to see what she was up to. My stomach started twisting and I nervously wondered what great party was happening tonight that I would be missing out on if I stayedhere. Isn’t there a red-carpet event happening tonight? I wondered, starting to panic just a bit that there was an opportunity to promote the show that I wasn’t capitalizing on.
    When the head of our props department whizzed up on a speedboat to say hello, Angel and I took it as our cue to escape. She was having separation anxiety, missing Roman. I was just having . . . anxiety.
    A funny thing had happened to me since I had seized control of my life. I became addicted to controlling it. Sure, my suite was still a mess half the time and I wasn’t very disciplined when it came to what I ate, but what I really needed to have control over was how I spent my time. If my hours weren’t set aside for work or getting precious sleep, I wanted to be having the Time of My Life, on my terms and my terms alone. After spending over seven years in all-consuming relationships, constantly making excuses for why I was doing things I really didn’t want to do, I realized that living someone else’s life was the only adult life I had ever known. When I finally seized my independence, I went in the complete opposite direction. If I ever found myself in a situation that wasn’t my ideal scenario, a crushing anxiety would sneak up on me, making my mind race and my heart beat faster. Don’t you have something more productive you could be doing right now? the little voice in my head would whisper.
    That was the other part of the equation. Since I had spent so many years as someone else’s accessory, I had to work extra hard to build a life for myself now. I felt almost as if I had awakened from a seven-year coma and desperately craved making up that lost time—both career-wise and socially—on my own terms. Any time someone else tried to tell me what I should do, my instinct was to turn in the exact opposite direction.
    My debut in Peepshow was rapidly approaching. In so many ways, the character I played, Bo Peep, eerily reflected my real life. The character didn’t say much (the show was a musical burlesque revue, so I had lines only in between numbers and during an audience participation bit in the middle of the show), but she was expected to look pretty. I had been terribly introverted my whole life and turned toward a highly sexualized look,perhaps in a subconscious attempt to let my appearance do the