The internet was quiet. Too quiet.
Not in the literal sense—no, TikTok was still a cacophony of dance trends, oversharing, and people whispering into microphones while unwrapping skincare. But her feed was silent.
She hadn't posted in four days.
For a content creator whose entire livelihood relied on staying visible, it was practically digital self-sabotage. Her DMs were overflowing with messages like "are you okay?", "pls tell me you're alive", and "girl if you ghost us now I'll cry fr"—messages that used to make her laugh. Now, they just made her anxious.
She sat cross-legged on her couch in her sunny east London flat, wearing the avocado hoodie she should probably burn at this point, scrolling aimlessly through her own profile.
So many videos. So many punchlines. So much effort to seem effortless.
Behind the sunglasses and sarcasm, she wasn't sure who she was anymore.
Her real name was Emily Hale, though almost no one online knew that.
She'd grown up in a semi-detached house on the outskirts of Norwich, the kind with squeaky floorboards and mismatched mugs that had somehow multiplied over the years. Her mum had been a primary school teacher, her dad a postman who never missed a birthday. They weren't wealthy, but they were warm and funny and loved her loudly. Lena carried that love with her like a second skin—even now, in this sleek London flat that didn't feel half as much like home.
She'd moved to the city right after uni, chasing a half-mad dream of making people laugh. Stand-up gigs in damp basement pubs. Writing nights with other hopefuls over two-for-one pints. She'd scraped by on temp jobs and caffeine, certain it was only a matter of time.
But time dragged. And money dried up.
Then came the lockdown. The gigs stopped. The auditions fizzled. Her flatmate moved out to live with a boyfriend in Surrey, and Lena was left staring down the silence of her own ambition.
Out of boredom—or maybe desperation—she started making videos. Short ones. Funny ones. Satirical little rants with captions and filters. She didn't show her face at first, partly because she thought it made the jokes funnier and partly because the idea of being seen—really seen—was terrifying.
She didn't expect them to go viral.
But one did. Then another. Then a brand sent her free lip balm and it all snowballed from there.
Now, two years later, Emily had over 400,000 followers, a management agency that occasionally ghosted her, and a spreadsheet full of brand deals James insisted on tracking for her. She paid her rent on time. Wore nice boots. Got invited to things.
On paper, she was doing well.
But something inside her felt brittle.
James, of course, thought she was thriving. He always had the numbers—her engagement rate, her reach, her ad revenue. He'd been there from the start, ever since that first viral video. He'd believed in her when no one else did. Helped her script sponsored content, edit videos, pitch to brands. He was steady. Smart. Strategic.
But James was also… cold, sometimes. Calculating in a way that made her skin itch.
They weren't together—never had been, despite the internet's assumptions. He had once dated her uni flatmate, Sophie, a fling that had ended with more slammed doors than tears. Lena had always been the safe friend, the one who didn't complicate things.
Still, when the engagement video went up, James played the part with practiced charm. He smiled in the background of Instagram stories. Put his hand on her back at events. The performance was flawless. Too flawless.
The truth was, there was no spark. Not even a flicker. When he kissed her on the temple for a TikTok teaser, her only instinct was to laugh—and not in the good way.
She wanted more.
God, she wanted so much more.
She wanted to feel dizzy. Off-balance. Like the floor might drop out from under her at any second. She wanted passion, heat, all the cheesy clichés she pretended to mock in her videos. She wanted someone who made her forget to breathe, not someone who scheduled their affection between meetings.
But that kind of love was dangerous. Vulnerable. It meant opening up, letting someone in past the punchlines and the curated chaos. And Lena wasn't sure she could do that—not again. Not after how things ended with Theo. Not after everything she'd built depended on pretending she was fine.
She leaned back on the couch now, legs tucked under her, scrolling aimlessly through the comments on her last video. Most were heart emojis and "I knew it!"s, but one stood out:
You don't seem happy. Just sayin'.
She stared at it.
Deleted it.
Then went to her DMs.
His message was still there. The one from the guy in tech. The one she hadn't replied to. She didn't know why it stuck in her mind. Maybe because it didn't try too hard. Maybe because it sounded like someone who saw her, even from behind all the filters.
She wondered what he looked like. What his laugh sounded like. What he'd say if she told him the ring wasn't real and the whole thing was a stunt.
Probably run for the hills, she thought.
Or maybe—just maybe—he wouldn't.
But that was a fantasy. And Lena Hale didn't believe in fairy tales. Not anymore.
She turned off her phone and curled into the corner of the sofa, wrapping the silence around herself like armor.
Outside, the city kept buzzing. But inside her chest, something ached.
And for the first time in a long time, she wasn't sure who she was performing for.
Her phone buzzed.
She grabbed it instantly. Just a notification from TikTok. A comment on an old video. She threw it down again and flopped onto the couch with a groan.
She was unraveling. And not in the sexy, introspective, Gwyneth Paltrow way.
She needed advice. Not James-brand advice, but actual, human-level, no-BS wisdom.
She texted Maya, her old roommate from uni—the one James had dated before things got weird. Maya had always seen through the glitz, and she never let her get away with self-sabotage disguised as "branding."
You up for a call? she texted.
Seconds later: Always. FaceTime or phone?
Phone. Hoodie apocalypse happening.
Maya answered on the second ring. "Okay, what's happened and do I need wine?"
She exhaled. "So... I might be fake-engaged, crushing on a stranger, and possibly losing my mind."
"Ah. Tuesday, then."
They both laughed, and the tension in her chest loosened just a little.
She told her everything. The engagement stunt. James's sudden enthusiasm for monetizing their fake love. The man on the balcony. The unread DM that still haunted her.
When she finished, Maya was quiet for a moment.
"Okay. First, James is still a tool."
"Noted."
"Second, you've got feelings. Real ones. You've built this persona to keep the world at arm's length, but now someone's cracked the fourth wall and you're terrified."
"...Rude. But accurate."
Maya's voice softened. "It's okay to want more. You don't have to keep performing. Not for us. Not for him. Not even for the algorithm."
A lump formed in her throat. She didn't cry. Not often. But something about those words hit deep.
She wanted more. She always had.
After they hung up, she sat in the dark for a while, scrolling through her old videos. There she was, being snarky about influencer culture, ranting about ghosting, making avocado jokes. The comments were full of love. Her followers adored her. But there was a difference between being adored and being seen.
She opened her inbox.
There it was. His message. The one she never replied to, even though she'd read the message at least twelve times.
She hovered for a second.
Then tapped it open.
"Your take on corporate America's desperate attempts to seem relatable is spot-on. As someone who works in tech, I can confirm it's even more absurd behind the scenes."
There was something so... normal about it. No emojis. No weird pickup line. Just someone laughing with her instead of at her.
She hit reply.
"Can confirm: my nan now identifies as a UX specialist because she fixed the Wi-Fi once."
She hit send before she could talk herself out of it.
And then—almost instinctively—she got up, grabbed her tripod, and stepped onto the balcony.
It was time to post again.
No engagement rings. No "life updates." No carefully curated irony.
Just her.