“I’ve never loved my breasts,” Itty Bitty Titties wrote, “and this is the father of my child! And now that he’s admitted he wants this, I sort of do, too. But I also want to raise my daughter to feel good about herself. What do I do?” DUMP HIS ASS was the only sentence of the columnist’s response. But I couldn’t dump Jake’s ass, not when I was so close to actual work, stardom, money.

I opened Instagram, found Blaze Cannabis. The grid was all images of tastefully lit THC cartridges and flowers, ad campaigns of busty brunettes with impossible waists watering pot plants. Sweet Greens and Bodacious Buds the captions read. Below it, the Blaze logo, a neon-headed panther, bore its teeth. I touched the post. The name of the company owner, Blaze Balzani, showed as tagged. I touched it.

Blaze the man had nine million followers. They left lengthy comments on his posts, called him “KING OF BROS” and “Rey ” and requested his help like he was an actual king: “Please sir, I must leave my country and come to America to live as you do please I beg you to send assistance sir.”

Sad. Especially because it was the women followers wanted, the women who showed them what to want. Blaze’s personal feed, more than the feed for Blaze the brand, was full of them: Blazed Buddies in panther-head string bikinis, a uniform. Blaze himself seemed to have one too: swim trunks or shorts in ironic patterns. Panthers of course, but also Ninja Turtles, prison stripes, pink camo. Through Tulum and Vegas, Hawaii and Thailand he strode, short-shorted, flanked by a herd of augmented Buds. Buds in bubble baths, playing with the foam. Buds on pool floats. Buds on skis. Buds grilling sausages. Buds Jell-O wrestling, mud wrestling, wrestling with giant snakes that clung to their bodies like anxious children. I scrolled. Next to me Jake breathed, every exhale tacked with a sigh. Dump his ass, the columnist had advised Itty Bitty Titties. And what would my own mother say? I thought of a story she told about my dad: a year before I was born, dinner out, her birthday maybe, his eyes on his steak, silk napkin in her lap.

“This back pain is killing me,” she said. “I want to have them reduced.” She gestured at her chest. My father didn’t look up from his plate. “And get rid of your best asset?” he asked. And that was when she knew he would someday leave her.

“I guess I need them now anyway,” she said once he did. In one of my first memories, I sit on her bed and watch her rifle through her drawers for a push-up bra. So what would she say about surgery? Oh honey, no. And what would I have to say to reassure her? My body, my choice.