About Last Night

Click, Click, don't smile.

"Okay, choose something cute, something...catchy,"

Kira and Kim both stared at me, big black eyes waiting for me to type something creative.
'Kay Roberts' I entered, fingers flying across the keypad and they both sighed. I guess it wasn't original enough. 'Username not available' echoed across the screen in bright red letters.

It was Tuesday afternoon and the twins had convinced me to set up my Instagram account. However, I wasn't completely convinced. As much as I wanted to be apart of the conversation, find out what all the hype was about...could I, though? Could I really just hop on and ignore the real reason for not joining social media in the first place?
'Kay_kay' I typed eventually, and BINGO! It worked.
Besides the basic information such as name, surname, and date of birth, I added a catchy bio. And, of course, the dreaded profile picture.

"This one?" I asked, pulling up the only selfie I had. Their faces fell in horror.

"No, hell no," Kira exclaimed, shoving her cropped bangs out of her face. "You look like a gremlin," she mumbled, and I looked at the photo. Were we seeing the same picture? In the selfie I was sitting on a bench in Green Square. I wore a short green dress and a pretty but simple hairstyle (a cascade of blonde curls), which made my blue eyes stand out. I looked cute, I guess. Or so I thought. Kim pulled me off her bed and positioned me in front of the window in her bedroom. She whipped out her phone.

"Come on," she ordered, "stand here, girl." She finger combed my hair, pushed up my eyebrows and stood there for a few moments, staring at me. "Now give me a straight face—I said straight face. Stop smiling."

I immediately stopped smiling and gazed carefully at the camera, my eyelids fighting against the glare from the window behind her, trying their best to remain open.

"Good girl," she said, and tapped the screen. We took two more pictures before she pulled up Face Tune 2.

In less than two minutes, she transformed me from Shrek to Barbie.
Every single aspect of my appearance had completely been transformed to the point where I couldn't even see me in myself. Now my hair curly blonde was golden rather than brassy, and my eyes were no longer a simple cornflower blue, instead they were piercing. My lips were fuller, cheekbones higher, and jaw line was more defined. My appearance wasn't bad to begin with...but this was completely unbelievable. I was stunning.

"Perfect," Kim said, choosing a filter. "This will do."

She handed my phone Kira. Her almond nails grazing the screen gently as she typed furiously for the next few minutes. "Posted," she winked. And I looked at my phone. "Oh," she said, "I added us to your 'Following', and also Leo and Haily," She leaned over and pointed at my screen, "These are the suggested people to follow,"

A panel of people to follow appeared beneath my username, each with a bright blue tick next to it. Among the people featured was Shawn Blue, Shawn Mendes, Levoskov Nikirov, Adel, Astrid Stars, Dua Lipa, Laura Straus, and Bella Hadid... I scrolled past them all.

"I'll take a look at these accounts later," I smiled, or at least I tried to. As if an elephant was sitting on my chest, slowly crushing my lungs, I couldn't breathe. I looked at my first post again.
Insanity.
This was why people had insecurities, I thought. Not because they're competing with the next person, but because we're comparing ourselves to a hotter version of ourselves.

I clicked the 'exit' icon more times than I should have, to the point where my screen froze. I looked up, at the twins, and they were smiling at their phones.

"I sent you a reel," Kim giggled, and I chuckled dryly.

"Yay," I whispered cheerfully, as four whole years of therapy was slowly being undone, in less than fifteen minutes.