In the light of a new day, filtered by the lavender-orange of my sunglasses, the Princess Hotel looks sweeter than it ever has. I sit in a pink and white selfie throne and watch tourists filter in and out. Some gawk at my incognito outfit as they pass, but not many. Mostly, I’m invisible, blended in with my surroundings: thrones and magic mirrors and me. It’ll be a relief, my mother said once, the end of all that being looked at. She said she wanted it to be just her, no men to show off for and though at the time I didn’t believe she meant it, now I suppose I do. Maybe it was the way Henry looked at me, stripped, the way I’d asked him to look, but today there’s a sort of contentment to invisibility, even if I suspect it won’t last. I suspect I’ll recover, return, and sometimes the wanting will, too: to be beautiful, to be seen, to be loved and never left. Desire like that isn’t a failure, or a girlhood flight of fancy. It’s a fact of every life.

I reach into both pockets of my hoodie. In one, I feel Henry’s cash, the note he left. In the other, I feel my phone. I remove the note, the phone, unlock the screen and save his number. But the sound of men’s voices chorusing sick bro, and laughing, makes me look up, scan the lobby, think of Jake. My heart begins to pound. It’s not impossible that he might be here. We’re both in Los Angeles, anything is possible. Nor is it impossible that he might recognize me beneath the shades, the mask, the passing of years that will show up on my skin soon, thanks to Aesthetica™.