Page 19 of You Will Never Be Me

Anxiety claws up from my guts to my chest, a giant spider stabbing my insides. “Please.”

The receptionist gives me aWhat do you want me to do, lady?look. She says, “Sorry, I can’t help you there. Best thing I can do is make a note, and if we get any cancellations, I can slot you in.”

“But—” My voice cracks, and I stop talking. If I say anything more, I’m going to lose it, I know I will. I nod my thanks at her and turn away, and when I do, I see that everyone in the waiting room is looking at me, all the moms and dads and their kids. The familiar fear rises up again, painfully acidic.They know. They all know.

And worse than that, one of the women has her phone aimed right at me. She doesn’t even look sorry when our eyes meet. She just raises her eyebrows a little and continues recording me. Sabine arches her back again, her signature FML move, and screams. Her whole face is red and wet with tears. I glance over at the woman again. Her phone is still trained on us, the camera following us with ruthless, unwavering interest, and something inside me breaks. It’s just too much, all of it. Not to mention my home life—my husband resents me and my kids hate me, and I can’t take it anymore. Sabine writhes in my arms. I am so close, so close to lunging at this woman. The cruelty of others astoundsme. Who reacts to someone who is clearly distressed by recording them? “You are a ghoul,” I spit at her, and stride out of the clinic, my blood rushing through my veins in a rhythm of fear.They know. They know.

It’s only when Sabine and I are safe inside the cocoon of my car and she’s sucking on a bottle of formula that it hits me. Oh my god. What have I done? I showed my anger to a complete stranger inpublic. I should’ve known better than to do that. I never let my mask crack in public, never. I’m always All Day Aspen, all smiles, easy breezy. But losing Mer has been like having half my soul ripped away. I’m off-balance without her. Tears burn my eyes at the thought of Mer. I miss her so much. She’s the only one who would know how to fix this.

I take my phone out and open up our WhatsApp text chain. Our last messages sent to each other seem like they were sent a lifetime ago. The sight of it chisels at my heart. How could we have let this happen, when once upon a time we used to chat with each other throughout the day, every day? And the times we weren’t chatting, it was because we were actually with each other. Why did we have to have our fight? I type out “I miss you.” But my thumb refuses to hit Send. Instead, I close WhatsApp and open up TikTok.

And there it is. On my Notifications tab, I see that the woman at the clinic has wasted no time in posting about my meltdown. She recognized me, of course she did—was probably a fan before she saw All Day Aspen unmasked.

The footage is horrific. I look unhinged, bouncing Sabine aggressively while she shrieks. I could’ve sworn I was pleading with the receptionist nicely, but in the video, I sound shrill, on the edge of hysteria. A choked gasp escapes my mouth when video-Aspenwhirls around and her furious gaze lands on the camera. The words “Uh oh” appear on the screen, followed by “Guys I think she’s seen me.” Video-Aspen marches closer to the camera, and it adjusts its angle to take in my face. Now, I’m towering over the phone camera. “You are a ghoul,” video-Aspen says, and I put a hand over my mouth to keep from screaming because video-Aspen’s voice is a witch’s snarl, as rough and sharp as a serrated knife. The caption says: “The REAL #AllDayAspen!”

“No,” I whisper to myself. The Likes are only trickling in for now, but I’m sure it’ll turn into a torrent in no time. “No, no, no.”

This is hell. I know it. I’ve somehow landed myself in hell, and I don’t know how to get out ofit.

9

MEREDITH

I did it. That magical Mthat every influencer dreams of, hungers for, would probably kill for. Oh, that beautiful, glorious, wonderful M! “1.2M followers,” it says, underneath my Instagram handle. I can’t stop gazing at it, that M. It’s exactly where it belongs, right under @MerryMeredith. In the last few weeks, since Elea’s iPad fell into my lap, I’ve gained over half a million followers. I’ve shaken off the K and graduated to M.

I hope you don’t think it’s all because of Aspen, do you? I don’t want you to think that all I had to do was copy everything Aspen has been doing and steal her meetings. Simply catching a glimpse of the behind-the-scenes of Aspen’s life wasn’t enough, but they inspired me. They led me to shattering my boundaries—to embracing creativity when it comes to making my Reels. I was always so bound by what I thought was common sense. Of course “morning routine” videos would be recorded first thing in the morning! I never thought to break down those shackles of reality. A whole paradigm shift.And, okay, the meetings were set up by Aspen, but if I didn’t go to them prepared with a whole lot of research and armed to the gills with charm and wit and flattery, they wouldn’t have done anything for me. But here I am, with three new sponsorship deals and four collaborative relationships with huge influencers, and I am finally doing it. I am turning into my own success story. And it all happened thanks to my ingenuity. Okay, and Elea’s iPad.

I crouch down outside of Luca’s playpen and smile at him. He grins back, drool trickling out of his mouth. “You are a little stinker, aren’t you? But I’m so glad we’re in this together.” Having him was definitely the right decision to make.

Before, when I was still struggling to make it as a momfluencer (Oh, how easily I shed that past struggle! In the Before Times, when I was still struggling…hah! As though it has been years and not mere weeks since I managed to turn things around. But that’s success for you; it’s frighteningly easy to get used to), I’d sometimes look at Luca and wonder if I’d made the right decision to have him. Is that awful for a mom to think? No, I refuse to believe that I was the only mother to ever pause and think, during the lowest moments of motherhood:What the hell have I done?(Yes, maybe those thoughts occurred a lot more with me than what’s socially acceptable, but who’s counting?)

Can I tell you a secret? One so deep and so dark that I have never told a single person this, not even Aspen, and we were inseparable right up until our friendship ended. I’m hoping that you understand, by now, why I did it. That you might not judge me so harshly. You have heard of the painful years I spent toiling away at growing my brand, at passing on all of my hard-earned knowledge to Aspen.

Mer,you might say, stop delaying, I already know you stole achild’s iPad and used it to sabotage her mother, who is supposedly your best friend. What could be worse than that?

Alright, here it is. After years of striving in the beauty and fashion genre of social media, I realized that I simply didn’t have what it took to stand out in that department. Plus, at twenty-nine, I was getting too old. Most of the people who are interested in beauty and fashion are on TikTok, not Instagram. The ones left on Insta are all new moms who don’t have the time to keep up with the latest beauty trends. They wear their hair in messy mom buns and spend what precious little time they have on social media trawling Instagram for the latest infant products. I knew this because I watched Aspen’s accounts exploding with new followers as she hawked her babies and her recipes online.

I can sense your impatience.You’re stalling,your eyes are saying. Out with it.

I just needed to give you the context, okay? I knew that if I didn’t do something—something big, something drastic—that my career as an influencer would soon be over. And so I made the decision to shift from beauty/fashion to something more…age appropriate. Like being a momfluencer. Except I didn’t have a baby. So yeah.

No, I did not decide to have Luca solely for social media purposes. That would be insane. (Or would it? People have had babies for far stupider reasons, haven’t they?) I was also lonely. Aspen was my best friend, but I could sense her slipping away from me, sucked into the ever-growing vortex of her family. And when she announced she was pregnant again, I just—I knew that she would soon be gone. With three children, a husband, and her millions of needy fans, she wouldn’t have time for me. Not unless I was on the same journey she was.

You must give me some credit. I didn’t just hook up withrandos at some LA club. I went to a fertility clinic and chose a donor (Caucasian, 6’2”, UCLA Law graduate, blue eyes, brown hair. Mixed-race babies are so adorable, don’t you think?), and two months later, I told Aspen that her baby would have a playmate for life. Never mind about the baby’s daddy, I assured her. I was determined to do this on my own. With my bestie right beside me, of course. Then I set about shifting all of my content from Beauty to Pregnancy.

Why am I telling you all of this? I guess I just wanted someone to understand why gaining that M was the best moment of my life. I needed someone to know just how much I sacrificed for that moment. But I digress.

Life is very different for someone with a K behind their follower count versus someone with an M. I know, I thought it was an exaggeration—that the change, if there even was one, would be so subtle and so gradual that I wouldn’t even notice it happening. But it was more like a light switch being flipped. Darkness at first, feeling your way through uncertainty, groping blindly, then suddenly a voice whispers, “Let there be light,” and the stage lights thrum on, the music blares, and the entire production springs to life.

DMs galore! Okay, I always had DMs galore in the Before Times, but now, those DMs are from people with blue checks next to their names. People belonging in the M club. People who are Someones.

In the last few years, my invites mostly dried up. Especially after I moved on from beauty/fashion to the world of moms. No longer was I spending my evenings party-hopping the hottest locations in LA. But I wasn’t getting invited to any mom gatherings either. Stuck in purgatory.

But not anymore. It’s only Wednesday and already, this weekalone, I’ve received five invitations to various events. There is a maternity brand launch party, a baby shower for some momfluencer, a party at a mega-influencer’s Hollywood Hills mansion, and two others I can’t even remember.

I stand and give myself a once-over in my full-length mirror. Tonight is the house party, and I’ve rented a gold-colored, long-sleeved midi Fendi dress. Underneath it, I’m wearing shapewear so unforgiving that if I dared take a deep breath, my ribs would crack. I look phenomenal. With not a small amount of difficulty, I bend down slowly, wincing at the way the corset bites into my belly, and pick Luca up from his playpen.

“Ready to go to Aunt Clara’s?”

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