@Lorainne-TX4ever: why you feel the need to degrade your body this way?

@nolachica333: Shame on you

@carmella_paul: your narcissism is out of control

—I also knew my mother would agree with them. The week before I left for LA, she sat across from me at the kitchen table, poking her phone with a pointer finger as if examining the aftermath of something violent. When she turned it toward me, my own account was on the screen, like evidence.

“You look angry here,” she said. “I know Instagram is a ‘business venture,’ but I’m concerned you’re slipping into a disconnected place.” She removed her glasses, touched her face. “I will not let that happen. I’m going to keep an eye on this from now on.”

She had started her own account. Her handle was @Naurene48. Her profile was blank, just an anonymous, disembodied head, belonging to a man. Only sometimes did she show up on my feed, not often enough for me to worry about her presence there. “I’m out doing other things,” I imagined her saying. “Real things,” real life. Sorting library books and issuing cards. Sipping cold decaf coffee from the special Starbucks mug I’d given her for Christmas. Cleaning the car. Depositing paychecks at the bank in person, still distrusting of the mobile app; “real things.”

@Naurene48 did not comment on my Artist’s Way post. It was a hit—

@tinsley_dohertay: You r my idol

@Imaobsessed: Babe

@shugcloudlyfe: Damn

@kellydae405: You’re a work of art

@crazyjkid5.0: Gawd!

@Taylorleanne: This is a VIBE

@thisisnikkiZ: So hot!

Jake posted an hour later like an answer. “Gorgeous night,” he wrote beneath a tagged photo of me at the Rainbow Room. My silver dress caught the low light, glimmer filtered. 27,468 likes. I watched them tick. 32,000, 36,700, 40,100. They grew with a sick speed, real and thrilling and never enough.