She’s crying in the bathroom, and her first thought is: the lighting in here is actually pretty good. Late afternoon sun through frosted glass. Soft, diffused, forgiving. That vulnerable glow. She could get a decent shot if she angled herself right, caught the tears on her cheekbones before they fell. Crying girl, vulnerable moment. Struggling but staying strong. The engagement would be insane. Mara splashes water on her face and grips the sink. She came in here to be alone. To not perform. To just feel something without simultaneously packaging it. But her shoulders have already adjusted to the imagined camera angle. Her face has arranged itself into an aesthetically pleasing sadness—brows slightly furrowed, lips parted, head tilted at fifteen degrees. Even her breathing has found a rhythm, shallow and delicate, the kind that looks good on camera. She forces herself to stop. To slouch. To breathe normally. Her body resists like she’s trying to move through water.
[DRAFT POST - not posted - saved to drafts - 2:47 PM]
Sometimes you just need to let yourself feel it, you know? We put so much pressure on ourselves to be perfect all the time but the truth is we’re all just trying our best and that’s okay. That’s enough. You’re enough. 💕
#MentalHealthMatters #RealTalk #Vulnerability #SelfLove #YouAreEnoughShe didn’t type that. She doesn’t think she typed that. But it’s there in her drafts folder, time-stamped three minutes ago, and she’s holding her phone so she must have— Mara deletes it. Closes the app. Puts the phone face-down on the counter. Her fingers itch. She counts to ten. Then twenty. Makes it to thirty-seven before she picks the phone back up and opens Instagram. Seventeen thousand notifications. Comments, DMs, tags. Her last post from this morning—a breakfast flat lay, chia pudding and fresh berries, caption about starting your day with intention—has four hundred thousand likes. The numbers make something in her chest relax. Proof. Proof she exists. Proof she matters. She reads the comments: you’re glowing! drop the recipe queen literally obsessed with you my everything 😭😭😭 Good. Keep scrolling. my inspiration perfect perfect perfect i wish i was you Yes. Her lips move. Mouthing. Absorbing. The hollow place fills. Proof. Someone knocked on the bathroom door ten minutes ago. Jessie maybe. Or Tyler. One of the roommates. She said she’d be out in a second but that was—how long ago?
She tries to remember the last time she did something without documenting it. The thought buffers. Fails. 404. She remembers the angle of the light. She remembers which pose got the most saves. Yesterday she went to the beach. No—she went to the beach for content. She wore the white linen dress because it photographs well against blue. She walked along the shore during golden hour because that’s when the light is best. She took four hundred and seventy-three photos, deleted four hundred and sixty-eight, posted five with the caption: “salt in the air, sand in my hair, not a care in the world 🌊” (She’d been anxious the entire time about the algorithm, about engagement rates, about whether anyone would notice she’d used that exact caption six months ago.) Did she enjoy it? The beach? The ocean? The sunset? She remembers the angle of the light. She remembers which pose got the most saves. She doesn’t remember feeling anything except the need to capture it. To prove it happened. Making memories. Living my best life. To make it into something consumable. If you experience something and don’t post it, did it happen? Her therapist keeps asking her to try going offline for a day. Just one day. To see what it feels like. Mara tried it last month. Made it to 11 AM before the panic set in—heart racing, hands shaking, the sensation that she was disappearing, becoming transparent, ceasing to exist because no one was looking at her, no one was double-tapping her into reality. She posted an apology that afternoon: “Tried a digital detox and honestly? It made me realize how much I love connecting with you all. You’re my people. Why would I want to disconnect from that? 💛” Sixty thousand likes. Three thousand comments. Proof. Proof. She made the right choice.
Mara looks at herself in the bathroom mirror. The face looking back is the one her followers would recognize: clear skin (filtered in real life through makeup and good lighting), bright eyes (eyelash extensions, subtle enhancement), perfect symmetry (learned angles, practiced expressions). She looks like her photos. She’s worked hard to make sure her physical body matches her online presence. She smiles. The mirror smiles back, but there’s a lag—half a second where the reflection stays neutral before catching up. Or maybe that’s just her imagination. Maybe she’s been performing so long that her real reactions have slowed down, waiting for the cue, waiting for someone to tell her which emotion to feel. She stops smiling. The reflection stops too. They stare at each other. “Hi,” Mara whispers. The reflection doesn’t answer. But followers do. Comments do. DMs do. Thousands of voices telling her she’s beautiful, she’s inspiring, she’s perfect, she’s their everything, she’s— Her phone buzzes. A text from her manager: Hey babe! Just checking in. Haven’t seen a story post in 4 hours. Everything ok? Remember engagement drops if we’re not staying active ❤️ Four hours. Has it been four hours? It feels like fifteen minutes. Or fifteen days. Time doesn’t work right anymore. There’s only the gap between posts, the space between being seen, the void where she waits to be called back into existence by someone else’s attention. Yeah all good! Just about to post now She opens the camera. Angles it. Catches herself in the frame—bathroom, tears mostly dried now, the soft vulnerable lighting she noticed when she first came in here. She doesn’t remember why she was crying. Does it matter? The tears are real. The sadness was real, probably. Is real. She’s pretty sure she feels sad. Underneath the performance, underneath the curation, there’s something that might be genuine emotion. Isn’t there? She frames the shot. Perfect. Caption: real talk: sometimes influencer life is harder than it looks. behind the perfect posts there’s a real person just trying to figure it all out. thank you for being here through the messy moments too. your support means everything 💕 #KeepingItReal #BehindTheScenes #MentalHealthAwareness #Authenticity She posts it. The likes start coming in immediately. Hundreds, then thousands, the numbers scrolling up and up and up. The comments flood in: we love you you’re so brave for sharing this you inspire me every day thank you for being vulnerable The hollow place fills up. The anxiety recedes. The world snaps back into focus. She exists again.
When she finally leaves the bathroom, Jessie is in the kitchen making dinner. Real food. Not arranged for photos. Just eating. “You okay?” Jessie asks. Mara nods. Smiles. The smile is automatic, practiced, calibrated for maximum warmth and relatability. “Yeah,” she says. “Just needed a minute.” When your roommate checks on you and you remember how important real-life connection is 🥺 Sometimes we get so caught up in the digital world we forget about the people right in front of us. Grateful for friends who see the real me. She didn’t say that out loud. She doesn’t think she said it out loud. But Jessie is looking at her strangely. “Did you just—” Jessie starts, then stops. “Never mind.” Mara smiles again. The smile is perfect. The smile is hers. The smile is what seventy thousand people expect when they look at her. She’s not sure she remembers how to do any other kind. That night, alone in bed, phone plugged in and glowing on her nightstand, Mara tries an experiment. She tries to think a thought that isn’t content. Just one thought. Private. Unpackaged. Not formatted for consumption. A thought that’s only hers, that will never be posted, that exists just for her. She closes her eyes. She tries. The thoughts that come are all captions: Lying in bed thinking about life and feeling grateful for this journey Sometimes the quiet moments are the most important ones Reminder to self: you don’t need to document everything She opens her eyes. The ceiling is white, textured, the kind that would photograph well with a plant in the foreground, maybe her hand holding a coffee mug, caption about slow mornings and mindfulness. Mara reaches for her phone. The screen unlocks at her face—recognizing her, knowing her, seeing her. She opens the camera. She exists.