About Last Night

Selfie Queen?

Five thousand likes. FIVE THOUSAND LIKES.
I stared at the screen of Kira's iPhone, the obnoxiously hot pink phone-case only half distracting me from the throng of comments listed on the screen below my picture.
'Who knew Kay was actually this beautiful?' user Natasha_Sky01 had said. This must've been that Natasha. Tall, glistening brown skin and perfect curly hair...vicious... Yes. It must've been her.
'I don't mean to brag or anything,' AntTheAnth had commented, 'But she's actually my friend in real life😌'
This comment had received twenty likes, four comments listed below. Leo_Lightsaber, HailyGreen, Key-ra and KIM had all comment the exact same thing: 'She may be your friend but she's our bestfriend😏'
I smiled at that. Aside from Natasha's comment, two other's caught my eye; One from KingLuc and Hanna_A. The former commenting, 'Damn, half of me is regretting all those things I use to say, KayKay' and the latter commenting, 'PhotoShop, a gift from God to the ugly.'

I didn't read the rest, I read one and I read them all, most were thirst traps either way and the others were depressing reminders of the past. So I pushed Kira's hand away and gazed through the glass doors at the end of the hallway. The weather was crazy with dark clouds swirling over an eerie gunfire grey sky, and despite my thick black coat, I was still inches away from shivering. I remembered that I was in school and that the 9th circle of hell was frozen.

"The weather is perfect," Kim said, snapping me out of my daze. "We can head on over to the bleachers before class starts and snap a few pictures there,"

"All you need is a little blush on your nose," Kira added, "and perfecto, you'd be sure to blow up again, maybe round out your total of 95 followers to a solid 200 in the process,"

"It's going to rain," I said finally, and started to walk away. "And I don't want to take pictures, not today."

The two of them exchanged a look and hurried after me, "It was the comment from Hanna," they said simultaneously and I cringed. The truth is, it was, but what she had said was not the part that bothered me. I have heard worse things said to my face. It didn't matter to me that she called it Photoshop, because that's what it was. The worst part was that the picture was considered flawless by all standards. The lighting, the pose, the angles were all perfect but—it was ugly.
Maybe hate was my curse.

I slung my bag over my shoulder, "It's not that," I said, scrambling for an explanation, "I just want to learn this social media thing at my own pace, take hold of my own account and maybe break it into something more than just pictures of me...." I let the lie dangle in the air, and they believed me. They didn't press the subject any further, nor was I given useless advice. As a result, they walked me to class and gave up the idea. I guess the same way I joined Instagram for them, they became photographers for me—all in the hopes of inclusion. Half way through French class, I realised my DMs were filling up, mostly from sketchy people I didn't know, a few messages from the squad, a couple from fellow classmates, and finally a message from KingLuc. When I saw Lucas Morris' username, I shivered.

'Hey,' it said, 'I hope you don't mind me being forward by saying this...but you're stunning😻 sorry, I just couldn't resist...but I'd like to apologize about everything, Kay.
If it's okay with you maybe we can hang-out sometime?'

Is he being serious? The trauma, the torment, the—I didn't consider the fact that the twins didn't know the whole truth when I took the screenshot. In fact, I never even knew Lucas was ... well, Lucas, the poster boy of the nearby preppy Prescott Academy. Once I hit 'send' on WhatsApp, I realized I'd made a mistake.
My past was hidden under a frozen lake of nonchalance and I had just unknowingly tossed a brick on its very fragile icy surface.

It was too late to stop it now. The cracks were already starting to show.