Lena quickly locked her phone. The room plunged into true darkness. She could still see the afterimage of Kat’s eyes on her retinas. The question hung in the air: Who’s watching?
Lena zoomed in on the hands. There was a tiny scar on the left thumb. She wondered if it was from a knife, a fall, or something else entirely.
She clicked on a recent post. A selfie. Kat was looking directly into the camera, no smile, just a level, knowing gaze. Her hair was a mess. Mascara was faintly smudged. And her eyes held a question Lena couldn’t articulate. The caption read: “Who’s watching?” kat_licious
The glow of the phone screen was the only light in the room, painting Lena’s face in cold blues and sterile whites. It was 2:00 AM, and she had been falling, scrolling, for what felt like hours. Not doom-scrolling through news or fighting with strangers in a comment section. She was falling into a single profile: .
But here, in the deep hours, watching a stranger knead bread with the passion of a heartbreak, Lena felt the walls of her own careful life vibrate. Lena quickly locked her phone
Lena felt a twist in her gut. Not jealousy. Recognition.
The second highlight was “ loud .” This one was a party. Strobe lights, glitter on collarbones, a scream-laugh into the microphone of a karaoke machine, a toast with a bottle of cheap champagne, the foam spilling over. Kat’s face appeared here, but always in motion, a blur of joy and reckless abandon. She was beautiful in the way a wildfire is beautiful—something you admire from a distance but suspect would leave you scorched. The question hung in the air: Who’s watching
Kat’s grid was a masterclass in curated chaos. One post showed her laughing, head thrown back, a smudge of chocolate on her chin, a chipped mug of something frothy in her hand. The caption was a single period. The next photo was a hyper-aesthetic flat lay of a broken high heel, a wilting rose, and a tarot card—The Tower—on a rain-streaked windowsill. No caption at all. Then a video: just her hands, nails painted a glossy black, kneading bread dough with a fierce, almost angry tenderness.