I tried Jacks Barbacks.
And there it was.
Therehewas.
The profile picture was small, but I recognized him, that reddish-brown hair, slightly messy, and his easy grin. He was mid-laugh in the photo, looking at something off-camera, completely unposed.
jacks_mills_52
847 followers.
His bio read: “former athlete, current barback, Lightning lover” with a lightning bolt emoji at the end.
I tapped through to his page.
The content was sparse.
A few photos of the bar, some shots of food, a group picture with people I didn’t recognize.
There was a video near the top that caught my attention: Jacks attempting some kind of bottle flip behind the bar. He wound up, released, and the bottle spun through the air before bouncing off his forehead.
The camera shook as whoever was filming dissolved into laughter.
I watched it three times.
His reaction was the best part.
He didn’t get embarrassed or angry. He stood there, rubbing his forehead, grinning like getting hit in the face was the funniest thing that had ever happened to him.
I scrolled further.
More bar stuff.
A tailgate photo where he was wearing an FSU jersey.
A candid shot of him and some friends at what looked like a Cuban restaurant.
His posts were infrequent, maybe one every few weeks, but each one felt genuine in a way that most social media didn’t. He didn’t use filters or a curated aesthetic. His images were glimpses of a life that seemed warm and full and ordinary.
I was still scrolling when I realized I’d reached the bottom of his feed.
I’d looked at all of it.
The timestamp of his oldest post was years ago.
I’d spent God knows how long going through three years of some dude’s Instagram.
What the hell was I doing?
I closed the app.
Then stared at clouds in the darkened sky through the tiny porthole.
Then opened Insta again.
And stared at his profile picture.
The plane hummed around me. Murph snored. Somewhere in the back, someone muttered something in their sleep.
