Mina
One month later
Am I a dirty person? No—not as a lifestyle. Sexually? In theory, but not in practice.
Am I atidyperson? On a good day,eh. On a bad day, Marie Kondo couldn’t save me. But with my current hobby/project/passion/questionable life choice? I need to be put down.
It’s so messy that my head is pounding, and I can hear fucking colors.
My foot catches on another bag of clothes on the floor, and I almost land flat on my face. Great. Just great. Iloveliving in this hellhole of my own making. Squeezing my eyes shut, I stand in the middle of the bedroom, taking deep, calming breaths that my high school counselor would be proud of before reopening them and wishing I could boot myself back into make-believe land.
Nope. Not looking. This bomb site doesn’t exist. It’s all in my head.
I trip again and nearly scream in frustration. What is it this time? Clothes from a drop-ship site? My will to live—that would be nice to find, actually.
It’ll all be worth it,I remind myself. Not that I know for certain it will be. Or if anything will come of this.
What Idoknow is that the sooner I take pictures in the clothes, the sooner I can return them, and I can live life in luxury by consuming something other than instant noodles and shitty store-brand cereal. Because, as it turns out, myinwith the Duvals is really expensive to achieve.
As in, my savings have dried up.
If I’d put my two brain cells together, I would’ve realized sooner that reaching my goals involves buying a whole new wardrobe—several times over—and starting a social media platform from the ground up. Which, unsurprisingly, is basically a full-time job—where the pay is abysmal to none, there are no benefits, no health insurance, and in exchange I lose my sanity.
Huffing, I drop onto my bed and hear my wallet screech in the distance as my laptop skitters to the edge of the mattress. If someone is praying for my downfall, the gods are going through their backlog today.
I click between YouTube and Lightroom. This is all so tedious. I want to be sedated. I experience a whopping zero amount of joy living in Adobe, inputting a bunch of random numbers in the slider, and hoping that the image doesn’t turn into utter shit. Graphic design is not my passion.
Whatever. It must be done. The potential federal offense must go on—or whatever the saying is.
I snatch my phone off the duvet and open up Instagram to check on my two new accounts.
Jasmina Santos Mendoza. That’s my full name.
The book world knows me as JT Santos—or Tee, as most people in the writing world call me.
Sabrina Duval and the fifteen thousand follower bots and human followers I amassed over the past month know me as Tala Mendoza: rising fashion influencer. Hence the clothes strewn all over my room, and my near-empty bank account—andthe countless hours I’ve spent taking photos, editing videos, upping engagement, scouring the internet for clothes, wading through the trenches of Pinterest, and hysterically sobbing thanks to body dysmorphia and my inability to not compare myself to literal models.
It’s exhausting, and my endometriosis is hating me for not napping 24/7 even though I’m not on my period. Tucking the hot water bottle against my abdomen, I have to take another nice, tense, calming breath at the picture Sabrina sent me of her latest purchase.
Cool. When it rains, it pours.
I know for a fact that the blouse costs more than what I make in a week. I aspire to have her level of financial freedom.
It takes every ounce of energy I have to pull myself upright so I can snap a picture of the skirt closest to me and reply:
Mina: I just bought this. Now imagine it with lace tights, socks, and loafers.
Her response is instant. It’s like I can’t catch a break.
Sabrina: OMG! YES. You better wear a knit vest with it. OOH or a little harness???
She’s the loveliest person I’ve ever interacted with. I used to feel guilty about conning her into becoming my friend, but I haven’t completely lied to her. Talaiswhat I called myself for the first ten years of my life because I liked it better than my real name. She doesn’t need to know that I’m an author. Or that most of my followers are bots.
Or that I made this entire account just for her.
Admittedly, it wasn’t hard to get into her good graces, or get my feed up and running to a standard that might be worthy of her attention. Still, our relationship is very much surface level. I don’t think we’ve ever spoken about anything other than clothes.
My initial theory was that if I got close enough to her, she’d start inviting me places, and eventually I’d cross paths with Leo. All this pain, money, suffering, and anguish will be worth it. But just in case it doesn’t get me anywhere, I have another plan.
