It’s like seeing a mean email, a troll’s nasty DM, Jake. It’s like seeing every mistake I’ve ever made, blown up and blistered on my own skin, almost beautiful in its honesty. I was supposed to be prepared for this. Following surgery, it’s important you don’t make any major decisions, operate any heavy machinery or rush to self-judgement during the first seventy-two hours, said the paperwork I signed at the Aesthetica Center. Not my first Rodeo, I said, so I should know the drill now, know how to recover. Still, I’m shook. More than that, I’m hot, flushed with fever. I touch my forehead: clammy, not burning. I’m not infected, not literally. I’m finally fixed. Finally, I’m astonishing, sweet, sexy, stelle, And I’m full of rage. I touch my phone, open Instagram, navigate once more to my @annawrey inbox, the Vanity Fair reporter’s string of DMs—you could make a real difference to other women—then to my finsta, then to Jake’s account. Staycation! his story still chortles. It’s so important to spend quality time with family, he tells his followers, in the service of the resort that sponsors his posts. I take my keycard, run my finger over its sharp sides, move my eyes around the room and look for other edges. There it is, the steak knife, still waiting at my bedside. I go to it, take it by the hilt. Wood and steel, serration and a single point. They fit into my hand. The door to the Princess Suite bangs behind me as I leave.

17.

“You literally need nothing,” Jake said. Makeup, clothing, food and drink, all provided. I went home and packed. My toothbrush, my phone, my wallet and pills. They rattled in my backpack as I climbed the gangplank of a private plane en route from New York, stopped in Houston just for me. It was bright out, early morning, that kind of light. It changed when I stepped inside, turned to holes, then girls. Glossed and fresh. Girls like that, I’d thought they weren’t real; when I saw them on Instagram I’d thought they were filtered, Photoshopped. But I’d been wrong. I stood in the door, scanned for a seat, counted. Six espresso-brown blow outs, six boob jobs, six Botoxed foreheads. Six bodies, made like mine, only better, more beautiful, beautiful like I knew I’d never be.

“Hi,” I said. A few girls looked up from their phones, responded with muffled Heys. I slunk to an empty seat and the plane became a guttural whine beneath us. We rolled down the runway. The roll turned to a surge, and speed. I tried to relax my face. We lifted into the air and the whine got louder. Girls adjusted sleep masks, headphones; they reclined their chairs, shifted, settled. I balled up and watched the world shrink.