I look over my shoulder, checking to see if anyone’s paying attention to me. Once I’m convinced they couldn’t care less, I snap a few photos of the stacks of plates and of my sweaty self in the mirror, trying to find the balance between posing and not looking like I’m posing. I’ve spent hours studying influencers’ and celebrity chefs’ social media. Their pictures are always perfect. Gorgeous people, beautiful food. None of them look like they feel a chest-crushing sickness when they post new photos and watch the likes and the comments and the views roll in.

In the change room, I find a quiet corner and spend too long obsessing over which photos to use, which filter.

I just want to cook.

I only do this because Amy & May’s needs me to. If it were up to me, the only photos I’d post would be of the dishes I cook, the only videos would be of my cat, Fifi.

The gym is supposed to be just for me. It’s an hour of my time, five days a week to clear my head and my heart. Since I spent most of my career working in kitchens with cis men who thought their food tasted better by virtue of their gender, I learned early that I needed a healthy place to expel my frustration. Turns out, for me, the best way to do this is by picking up heavy objects and putting them back down again. But because, according to my agent’s director of social media, there are these things called content pillars, nothing was left sacred.

My finger hovers over the screen, my heart pounding. With this post will come the likes, the comments—some complimentary, some not—and the DMs, mostly from gross men. That’s just a side effect of being a woman on the internet, according to Samantha’s sage advice.

This is the definition of a rock and hard place, trapped between doing the things I have to do for my job and playing Russian Roulette: The Internet Penis Edition, every time I open my DMs.

Screw it.

I send it off into the ether and distract myself by scrolling through my timeline. As my sweat dries it leaves my skin itchy and tight. At this time of the day, Natalie’s studio is quiet, with only one or two coaches and clients in, the early birds having already come and gone and the lunch time crowd not on their breaks yet. So I don’t feel too self-conscious sitting on a wooden bench in my sports bra, my shoes off as I stare at my phone.

I stop my scroll on a photo of a lingerie model turned reality star I met once at a charity event I attended with Paul. She’s white, blonde, built exactly like you’d imagine a lingerie model would be built. Her laugh is the thing I remember most about her, though, the sweet but husky way it melted through me as she’d pressed into my side, her warm hand wrapping around my forearm as I’d done an impression of a producer who’d worked on both of our shows. In this photo she smiles coyly at the camera, her hair in pigtails, the energy drink she’s supposed to be selling secondary to the smooth expanse of skin and curves on my screen.