AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She opens Instagram and shows me a gallery of photos featuring her and her friends drinking brightly-coloured cocktails in front of a string of fairy lights.
“Wow,” I say.
“The drinks were pretty good,” she continues. “These girls are some of my closest friends.” She lists off a bunch of names too quickly for me to remember any of them.
“Cool,” I say. “Maybe I’ll meet your friends some day?”
She hums, turning the phone back to herself. “Maybe. I wouldn’t want to bore you, though.”
“Why would that bore me? I want to learn more about my girlfriend’s life.”
She laughs. “You’re so sweet, Charlie.” She goes quiet for a moment, fingers tapping against the phone screen. “Don’t mind me, I’m just replying to some comments.”
“Sure, go ahead.” I focus on slicing a tomato, and once I’ve made my sandwich, I throw away the scraps. I take my plate to the other side of the kitchen island and sit down beside Cleo.
“You put a lot of effort into your Instagram,” I say.
Her shoulders stiffen, and she looks at me. “Yeah. A lot of people do.”
“I didn’t mean that in a judgemental way,” I quickly say. “I’m…impressed, I guess.”
She tilts her head. “Impressed?”
“Yeah. Most things people put time and effort into are impressive. Unless it’s like building a drug empire or — ”
She cuts me off with a laugh. “Well, I do study this stuff as part of my degree. I want to work in social media management or marketing after I graduate, so looking after my personal accounts is just practice.” She pauses. “My ex thought it was dumb. Shallow, you know?”
“Well, I guess it can be shallow,” I say. “I’m not really a big social media person myself. I just use it to connect with friends, but that’s it.”
“I kinda figured that, Mr no-profile-picture-and-empty-feed,” Cleo says with a smile. “And I agree. Maybe it is shallow. But it’s still important.”
“What do you mean?”
She pauses. “It’s like judging people on their looks. It’s shallow, and everyone knows it, but we still do it anyway. Everyone’s going to treat a young woman who looks like a supermodel a hundred times better than the old man with no hair and missing teeth. It’s just a fact of life.”
“Well…yes,” I say. I know it’s true. I’ve seen the way girls in high school would smile and giggle when the cool, handsome boys cracked a joke in class, but every time I tried to be funny, they’d roll their eyes and call me a weirdo. I’ve heard the way my grandparents would compliment Jemima on her beauty, the way they’d pinch Nate's cheeks and call him adorable, and when it came to me, they’d praise my…interesting personality.
Which is fine. I’d rather be interesting than attractive. But still.
“Well, social media is just an extension of that,” Cleo continues. “Social media is your face and body, just digital. Even if you don’t post photos of yourself, it’s still in the way you post photos of a basic-ass sunset or of an expensive meal at a fancy resort. It’s in what emojis you use. It’s in how you write your captions. That’s what I believe.”
I’m not sure how to respond, so I just say, “Oh.”
“Appearances literally run the world,” Cleo continues, flicking her hair over her shoulder. “Even centuries ago, the whole battle of Troy started because of Helen’s beauty. That’s it. Her beauty.”
“Isn’t the Iliad just a myth, though?” I ask.
Cleo gives me a look, brows arched, and I fight the urge to sink into myself. “A lot of historians agree that Troy was probably a real city. And even if the story is fake, it holds a universal truth. After the war, when the city had fallen, and all those soldiers were killed and all the Trojan women taken as slaves, do you know what happened to Helen?”
I shake my head.
“She went back to Sparta and lived happily until she died. Pretty privilege at its finest.” She sighs. “I’ve learned a lot about this in my advertising class. Beauty is money. Just look at any ad and you’ll see someone hot. Or look at the most popular influencers on Instagram or TikTok. That’s what generates interest. People like pretty people.”
I tap the table. “What about plus-sized models?”
“Maybe those models don’t fit into the skinny body ideal, but they’re still gorgeous. They still have conventionally pretty faces.”
“Okay, then what about all those gamer YouTuber guys? They just look like average dudes.”
