“Some girl who goes to NYU. But it’s getting shared everywhere. And I mean, the Stories will disappear, but she added them to her Highlights, and she also put a picture of you two in her grid. Which surprised me, if I’m being honest. I mean, the grid is, like, a sacred space.” She shook her head, her digital-media-dork brain coming into focus.

“I truly don’t get how this generation uses social media,” she said disapprovingly, as if she were an aging grandmother and not someone who had gotten One Direction lyrics tattooed on her back as a dare just last year.

“Can we contact the girl who posted it?” I said, trying to come up with some plan of attack for getting the photos removed immediately. “I need to get this taken down.”

“So I already sent her a DM. But if you just search the hashtag #subwayQTs, all the posts about you come up. They’re being shared.”

“There’s a hashtag?” I said, my voice teetering somewhere between panicked and horrified.

“You’re a hashtag. I mean, look, it’s not a bad thing. Maybe it will help you find a new job?” She was a slick saleswoman now, making her pitch.

“Oh yeah, because that’s what everyone looks for in their new hire,” I hissed.

“Influencers make a ton of money, Fran.” Lola’s voice had a schoolteacher edge to it. “You should see what contestants on The Bachelor make with their Instagram accounts alone.”

I ignored her lecture on Social Media Moneymaking 101.

“You okay?” Lola asked, but I was too stunned to answer. I clicked back through the pictures again. There was a photo of my face pressed against his chest. And even though I’d bumped into him so awkwardly, in the picture it looked like I was deliberately snuggling him, resting on him, smiling at him, enjoying him. A giant GIF of a cartoon face with heart eyes blinked in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. PLS LET THIS BE A SUBWAY LOVE CONNECTION!!!!! the caption screamed in neon pink.

I clicked again, and there I was with my hand on his chest, but now I was gazing up at him with wide doe eyes. I am watching 2 ppl fall in love on the subway and I am officially ded, she wrote. Next pic, me standing next to him with the jacket on, with a crude heart hand-drawn over both our figures. #SubwayQTs Forever, she’d written in bold pink lettering.