Jake rolled over. I closed my phone, my eyes. I waited for sleep that didn’t come. I knew it didn’t matter if Itty Bitty left her man or stayed. His words were fastened inside her now, implanted.

IN THE MORNING Ella texted, “Come with me to the med spaaa?” and I wrote back “Yessssss,” eager for escape, girl time.

Her injector, Shonda, was powder-faced, her cheeks and lips like marzipan, technically edible but also artificial, too rich to chew. “Welcome to my world of beauty,” Shonda said when we arrived. She led us to a treatment suite and Ella sat in a pistachio green recliner, feet dangling like a child, hands clutching the handle of a giant mirror Shonda passed her. I sat in a normal chair next to the door, phone in my lap, buzzing, checking, closing, opening.

“Okay babe, what are we doing today?” Shonda asked and Ella held up the mirror, stared at herself.

“I think I need more Botox here,” Ella said, and pointed at the middle of her forehead.

“Correct,” Shonda said, “your elevens need softening.”

“And I think I need a lip refresh also.”

“Move the mirror, let me see,” Shonda said, and I could tell she was trying, but failing, to frown.

“Let’s do one unit of Voluma filler and if as I inject it starts looking like too much for your lips, I’ll place the rest of the syringe here.” Shonda pointed at the faint lines hanging like curtains around Ella’s mouth. Ella held up the mirror again. “I never noticed those,” she said.

“Nasolabial folds,” Shonda said. “Everyone has them, yours are just a little deeper than I like to see.” She removed four syringes from a mini-fridge. I swiped open the camera on my phone, examined my own folds in selfie mode, nowhere near as deep as Ella’s. Shonda stuck her head out the door and yelled, “Becky!” and an assistant came in and tapped Ella’s forearm, “Just to, you know, take the focus off the pain a little.”

Shonda injected Ella’s forehead and the assistant tapped and talked about whose lips, chins, cheekbones she liked, and whose she didn’t. “Personally, I think Kylie looks best with three syringes,” she said. “It’s when she goes for four that things get weird.” I pulled up Kylie’s Instagram, pinched to expand each picture. I thought she looked better with her lips maxed out, full to bursting. But I kept that to myself.

“Oh for sure,” Shonda said. She switched syringes then jabbed a needle into Ella’s top lip. I closed my phone to watch. “I mean, everyone has at least a syringe in there at a time, and everyone’s different, but I draw the line at five.” She pulled the needle out, put it back in. Ella’s eyes watered. Her lips went red and swollen.