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Maybe someday when she was an accomplished, world-famousdesigner in her fifties, with a short, gray bob and tortoiseshell glasses, she’d get hired to be the creative director at a luxury heritage brand, putting her stamp on something that would be seen and worn by millions of people.

Lola had never bothered to try to picture herself at midlife.

Imagining it now made her feel tingly all over.

***

A few days later, she decided it was time, at last, to face her followers.

She couldn’t hide from them forever.

Wearing her dress made from the Gucci scarf and polka-dot shift dress, she sat at her desk and turned her ring light on. She placed her phone on its stand. She didn’t have a plan, but maybe, she thought, as she opened Instagram, that was good. Maybe she should just speak from her heart and not try to curate the truth.

She hit the little icon to post and then toggled over to LIVE.

Her face was reflected back to her, a nervous gloss of sweat on her forehead, her skin still tan from the summer. Behind her, her office was a chaotic mess.

She watched as ten people joined, then twenty.

“Hi, guys,” she said. “I’ll just wait for more people to get here.”

She picked at her nails as she watched the count go up and up. When there were two hundred people watching, she started to talk.

“I totally understand why you all canceled me,” she began.

Five hundred people now. Then six hundred. She forced herself to stop watching the number.

She continued. “I said something problematic. I deserved the criticism. If we can’t criticize each other, there’s no point to community, to any of this. I’m glad that I was given the opportunity to learn thatwhat I did was wrong, and I’m even glad there are consequences to doing the wrong thing. I don’t want to live in a world where people can say offensive things and not be held accountable.” She took a breath. “Of course, I didn’t imagine my life would fall apart in the way it did.” She laughed nervously, briefly wondering if this was a mistake, but willed herself to keep talking. “Just for context, my boyfriend ended up leaving me. My team put me on pause. I thought my life was over. I didn’t know who I was anymore. But when I started thinking about it, the truth is that I haven’t known who I am for a long time.”

She paused. A series of hearts fluttered up from the comments.

“The most unexpected part of all this was that after my life fell apart, I fell in love. With a woman. With the specific woman who called me out for losing myself. I’m sure you all read her article. What Aly wrote about me was true: I stopped standing for anything. I stopped being myself. And because she saw me, like really saw me, I fell for her. And what we had this summer was beautiful.

“But that experience is not my identity. I don’t know what my identity is. It sucked to have our relationship leaked on the internet, because it robbed me of the chance to define it for myself first. I would really appreciate you guys giving me some grace here. I don’t know if I’m bisexual or queer or just a straight girl with really good taste in women. But whatever the case, I think I deserve the right to figure it out away from scrutiny.”

She paused, not wanting to get too upset. More hearts popped up from the comments. There were suddenly 10k people watching. She swallowed and then kept going.

“But I guess what I’m trying to say is that who I am is more than who I’m dating. And I’ve put off figuring that out for a long time. I hid myself in relationships and brand deals, and I lost sight of what Iwant and what makes me happy.”

She felt suddenly like she was going to cry and blinked back the tears before continuing.

“Listen. Being loved is great. I was loved by someone for five years, and it was the best. And I was loved by all of you for so long. But ultimately love and adoration and money and brand deals and likes don’t make you who you are. That’s not enough to sustain a person. What sustains you is the fire inside you. And you need to keep that fire lit whether you have a girlfriend or a boyfriend or a million followers or one. My problem was I let that fire die. I forgot who I was. And I’ve decided that the only way to find myself is to be alone for a while. Otherwise, I think I’ll just keep distracting myself with what other people want from me.”

She imagined Aly hearing this. She hoped she would.

“I don’t know if my life is supposed to be about sponsored content and brand deals. All I know is it stopped feeling meaningful. And I know that it’s an incredible privilege to say that about something so lucrative. But it’s the truth. I started to feel empty, and I don’t want to live that way anymore. I want to do something creative. Something fulfilling. I feel like I’m starting over. We should all be so lucky as to get fresh starts sometimes, I think. So that’s what I have to say. If you’re all cool with it, I would love to start posting again as I figure out this new chapter of my life. But if not, I guess you’ll let me know. Thanks for listening to me ramble. I hope this made sense. I hope that if you’ve experienced something similar, you feel less alone.”

She wasn’t sure how to sign off, so she simply ended the livestream.

Within seconds, her DMs started filling up.

But she felt afraid to read them. She didn’t want to hear people yelling at her, telling her what she’d done wrong this time. So she simplyflipped her phone over and went to bed.

***

Lola woke up to the sound of her phone vibrating on her nightstand, a jarring, loud buzz.

She squinted at the screen as her eyes focused. It was a little after 8:00 a.m. Ryan was calling. He never called her this early.