‘You’re a beautiful girl, Jhanvi …’ Why was I thinking about my mom? ‘But you need to look after yourself. There is going to come a time when Dad and I can’t be there to beg you to eat.’ What the hell was wrong with me? I pulled my attention back to my screen, willing my eyes to focus on what was happening to my account. For the first time since I had got on social media, my numbers were decreasing. Perhaps it was a glitch. I had heard of followers being deleted for no reason, and a quick email sorted the issue out. But I couldn’t focus. My body fought my brain that begged for some sleep.

‘Oh, for goodness sake!’ I stood up in frustration after dropping my phone for the umpteenth time. Somewhere in this mess was another box of dieting tablets, I knew that. Frantically, I searched under piles of clothes for the clear blister pack. I wanted to cry, to scream. Why could I never find things when I needed them? I picked up a bag of makeup and emptied it out onto the rug. The pink pills stared back at me. I grabbed the pack and marched through to the kitchen.

‘You need to look after yourself,’ my mom’s words continued to echo in my mind.

‘Shut up!’ I screamed, as I pushed four tablets out onto the kitchen counter, frantic to stay awake and fix whatever was happening with my online life. I grabbed the bottle of vodka on the counter and swallowed the pills. Ignoring my body’s reaction to the alcohol, I grabbed an energy drink out of my fridge. Back in the living room, I retrieved my phone from where it lay on the floor and sat on the couch. I had lost twenty thousand followers overnight. Why? Nothing was untoward—I had posted as I usually had. I checked every detail, down to the spelling of my hashtags, trying to figure it out. Finally, I convinced myself that it was a system error. It had to be! I typed an email asking the powers that be what had happened to my followers. Unlike other influencers, I didn’t buy my followers, there were no fake accounts on my profile.

I opened my messages to respond to Kavya, hoping that we could reconcile, wanting desperately to have her back in my life. Six messages from her. I held my breath, expecting a tirade of angry words from her. I deserved it after what I’d said to her.

‘Sure.’

‘Are you okay?’

‘Jhanvi?’

‘I see you are at a club opening.’

‘Jhanvi! Are you okay?’

The last one was sent ten minutes ago.

‘I saw what happened at the club on social media?’

What the hell did she mean? What happened at the club? My stomach rolled in the same way that it would if I was at sea. The bathroom. Those girls. The flash.