I strip out of it, with great effort, and change into a baggy T-shirt and my favorite sweatpants. Gray, full of holes, and soft as a cloud. Down one leg they say Burchell; down the other leg, Hawks. My high school gym pants. They’re soft in the way only well-made, decades-old cotton can be.

I wipe off every ounce of makeup, which takes about half a pack of Clinique wipes, then double cleanse my face, deciding to skip most of the fourteen-step regimen of serums and acids by which I usually abide. I put my product-laden hair into a ponytail, leaving the extensions in a creepy pile on the side of the infinity tub like a scalped Barbie.

I take my phone, headphones, and champagne out onto the covered balcony. The heat has gotten even heavier in the air, and I plug in the fan and lie back in the macramé hammock, looking out at the wet, starless sky. Well. Stars are there. You just can’t see them in this city.

Deciding to lean into my misery, I put on Phoebe Bridgers and let the melancholic notes enrapture me, the Vornado blowing rainy mist onto me every now and again.

Phoebe sings Jesus Christ, I’m so blue all the time and it resonates so deeply that I feel guilty.

I know I have no right to be this miserable. I can’t even say it out loud. I can’t say it to my parents, who would think I’m ungrateful for my success. I can’t say it to Grayson, who thinks the cure for unhappiness is, under every circumstance, a good workout. I can’t say it to my friends because I don’t really say anything to them at all. They know me as I was most of tonight: boisterous and fun, charming and spontaneous. Not this version of me, who thinks all of this is kind of, somehow, bullshit.

No one has sympathy for you when your life looks this good from the outside. It’s like complaining that your enormous boobs make it hard to find clothes that fit properly. Or whining that you’re afraid of heights when you’re at the top of an ivory tower.

No one wants to hear it. And no one believes it, even if it’s true.

I feel like my life is an illusion and even I can’t see quite through it.

I did tell my therapist about my discontent, though honestly, I didn’t fully open up. And yes, of course I have a therapist. An Angelino without a therapist is like a Taylor Swift song without a story. It simply does not exist.

My therapist told me to search my past. To find when I last felt truly happy. I admitted that I genuinely couldn’t think of when that would be. She said to go back through my photos and videos. See which ones made me feel happy, not shitty.