Ava started hiding her hands when the whole granola girl aesthetic died out. The dirt permanently smushed into her cuticles from tending to her garden clashed with the clean girl aesthetic, even though brown was a neutral. Nothing was as clean and pure as white, so Ava looked the other way as her vegetables burnt to a crisp on the balcony. 

She started hiding her face when her esthetician stabbed it with tiny needles over and over again and said to avoid the sun for two weeks. It was around that time her friends noticed she was in her self-improvement era.

“Girl, why did you do that? What about our hiking trip?” Taylor’s face was soft and young and un-stabbed through Ava’s phone. Without a blur filter, though, Ava could still see her sebaceous filaments on her big nose. 

“You saw my wrinkles. I’m not about to go out in public looking like a corpse.” Ava gestured to her swollen, very-stabbed cheeks.

“Well, now you can’t go out at all. Who’s a corpse, anyway? You’re twenty-two.” Ava knew her skin was burnt and blemished from her homesteading era, and Taylor was just being nice. She really wasn’t into hiking anymore, anyway. Her legs were getting a little too big for her ass, so she knew entering her pilates princess era would give her that nice, toned look you just couldn’t get from stomping around with guys in the outdoors like an animal. 

Coquette aesthetic girls didn’t sweat or stink either, so hiking, along with gardening, also had to go. “If you start proactively anti-aging now, we’ll still look like we do now in twenty years,” Ava insisted. “Besides, I haven’t found a sunscreen that gives me that dewy look and doesn’t clog my pores.”

🩸

Ava knew she wasn’t being a true sleepy girl as her phone grilled her eyes way past midnight. But it was alright, the ten-step K-beauty holy grail caffeine serum and eye patch and brightening and tightening ampoule routine she followed in the morning would hide it well enough. She couldn’t sleep yet because she had just recently discovered that she had a double lip line, and when you had a double lip line, you couldn’t do your lipstick like everyone else, especially not if you were a bunny-pretty type as opposed to the much more desirable fox-pretty type. 

Taylor didn’t even know she was fox-pretty, and she was wasting it all on her golden retriever boyfriend with an NPC job who barely ever used his phone instead of looking for a more high-value man. Ava knew Taylor would come crying back to her soon enough when her body was all deflated and used up after their baby was born, apologizing for ignoring all the links Ava sent about how your stomach just hangs there like a shriveled watermelon after kids unless you apply coconut oil—no, castor oil—no, snail mucus—no, sheepskin essence—every day. Not to mention your ass disappears and is replaced with a mom butt, and everyone is an ass man these days. 

🩸

Ava thought Taylor had really let herself go when she visited for the first time since the baby was born, holy shit. Stretch marks clawing apart your keto-flat abs while some little parasite sucked the life out of you? Couldn’t be her. 

Ava watched Taylor totter after her daughter, who was crawling on the floor for the first time. That depressing millennial-gray vinyl plank really needed to be switched out for something less modern farmhouse and more moody, dark academia, Ava thought. At least the mountains of bright and clunky baby toys were aligned with the moment maximalism was having—minimalism was passé at this point. 

“You know, I found this really good reel for hip dips,” Ava said. 

Taylor paused the recording of baby Isla on her phone. “For what?” 

“Hip dips,” she repeated over Isla’s squeals. 

“The fuck are hip dips?” 

Ava stood up. “You know, this part of your hips.” She cringed as her hand sank into the soft flesh of Taylor’s side. So cottage cheesy. Ava wasn’t sure what kind of mom Taylor was yet, but she should probably at least try being a crunchy mom for her own good. “Even though heroin-chic is coming back, I kind of feel like that’s just a lie to get us to buy more clothes. Like, most guys still prefer pear-shaped bodies.” 

The look Taylor was giving her would definitely make her new eleven lines worse. Luckily, Ava had enough botox to freeze her whole forehead, which was especially helpful right now as Taylor snapped at her, “Okay, so where’s your man, then?” 

“Don’t have one. Everyone gives major red flags,” Ava said with a shrug. “You should see my DMs though. Guys will for real fall for the most basic thirst traps.” Taylor touched her on the shoulder and she winced. It was still kind of tender from her DIY chemical peel. 

“Ava…I’m trying to figure out a nice way to say this.” Taylor hesitated. Ava prayed she didn’t notice she was accidentally dressed in warm autumn clothes when she was obviously a cool spring, and that her jacket, while appropriate for mob wife aesthetic, was not right at all for her gamine-classic body type with ingenue essence fashion.

“I think you need help. Like you need to touch grass. I can barely understand what you’re saying anymore. What happened to your garden or like, other stuff you liked? What have you even been up to, lately?” 

Ava shook Taylor off of her as she turned to leave. “I appreciate the concern, but I can’t touch grass for forty-eight hours after my laser appointment tomorrow.” 

🩸

To most effectively combat cellulite, dry brushing twice a day for fifteen minutes at a time offered the best results, according to Ava’s research. She had to admit it was a little difficult to add that much more time to her self-care routine, what with the ten-step K-beauty holy grail depuffing treatment having ten steps and all (and it didn’t work unless you did all ten steps), but at least the demure amount of food required for girl dinner didn’t cut into her schedule that much. A few crackers would pair perfectly with her sleepy girl mocktail, even though her sleep had kind of been trash lately. 

With eating out of the way, it was back to dry brushing. Ava made a little hole on the floor for her to sit in among the pile of plastic Shein bags stuffed with clothing returns from last month’s haul (coastal grandma wasn’t the right choice for her essence, either). Her room was decidedly not cozy girl aesthetic with the amount of junk everywhere, but she’d be out of there soon enough anyway with the rent overdue again. 

She rifled through the bags for her new matching silk pajama set and flinched when her toe jammed against the weight of her old hiking boots. With a frustrated sigh she shoved them under her bed among her dusty gardening books and gave up looking for the pajamas. If she didn’t start dry brushing now, she’d have to reduce her red light therapy mask time by five minutes to make enough time for her heatless curls and jade roller routine, and then she would be drinking her sleepy girl mocktail too late at night so she’d have to wake up and pee, which would probably make her oversleep and be late for her first pilates class. 

It was a lot. But she could do it. 

Thankful for the botox that gave her a pretty crying face, Ava blinked back a tear. Now she definitely didn’t have enough time to gratitude journal because of the dry brushing, and she once again failed to get her 10k steps in for the day. Skipping one day wouldn’t turn her into a Taylor, but weeks? 

Her stomach clenched. That couldn’t happen. She could do it.

She would spend every waking moment of her life making sure of it. 

Coarse bristles burned her red skin. She hissed as she dragged the brush up her body towards the heart to promote circulation and encourage cell turnover and collagen production. She knew dry brushing was supposed to be very gentle, but maybe pressing harder would speed up the process since she was short on time. 

Taylor’s cells hadn’t been turned over in months, or maybe ever. She was stagnant. Left behind. How could she not even know what hip dips were, when those have been around just as long as thigh gaps? 

Thigh gaps. Thigh gaps, thigh gaps. Ava still didn’t fucking have one even after all the lymphatic drainage gua sha tips that took just ten minutes a day and spot-reduction workouts and juice cleanses. And since everyone had the same twenty-four hours in the day to work on themselves, Ava knew she was just a lazy piece of shit, a lazy piece of shit with her cottage cheese legs pasted together. 

She raked the brush over her stretch marks that still wouldn’t fucking fade away with a whine. Fuck, did that hurt. But the circulation was worth it. The stagnation—Ava had to get it out of her. Had to detox. The free radicals were gonna kill her. She scrubbed and scrubbed. Bright red skin, bright new cells, cells that weren’t old and used up but perfectly new and pure, why did they hurt so fucking bad? Her bunny-pretty, pretty-crying, microneedled frozen face was screaming and screaming until she knew she had an ugly-crying face. 

Her thighs were ripped red and raw and bleeding on the carpet. Ava reached for her phone under the bags of clothes and snapped a picture for her finsta stories because it was good to be raw sometimes, and she paid a lot of money to have a pretty crying face. 

The Shein bags cushioned her head as she leaned back to search for thigh redness tips and cellulite that won’t go away. Same old shit she already clicked. Search results were getting worse by the day. Just a bunch of stupid ads to get you to buy something. 

She cleared her search, her fingers trembling over the screen. It was way past red light therapy mask time and ten-step skincare routine time and sleepy girl mocktail time, so fuck it. She’d start over again in the morning, in her healing era. 

What happens when you turn 30 

Life after 30 

Easy keto recipes 

How to stay young 

Best brow shape for my face 

How to stay young forever 

How to live forever 

How to never die 

When she finally saw it after hours of searching, she was so relieved she hadn’t reached her monthly overdraft limit yet. She was just a girl doing girl math and deserved a little treat.

🩸

A human body could go for about two weeks without food and about three days without water, but the first few pounds people lose is always water weight, so Ava was figuring she might make it a little longer than three days. 

Even without the fasting, the type of clear, total-body wrap Ava found deep into her doomscrolling was better than any shapewear she had ever impulse bought and thrown in the Shein return pile shortly after. She couldn’t even move, but that was the idea—moving caused inflammation and wasn’t very coquette girl aesthetic. 

The bespoke chemical cocktail infused into the wrap felt really, really good, too, probably because Ava took her time filling out the customization quiz before placing her order. It was a shame that her cells didn’t turn over fast enough on her thighs before she wrapped them, but she realized she honestly had the right idea all along, to get the toxins out of her.

During the embalming process, she learned all the nasty stuff like blood and organs is removed first to perfectly preserve the body, so she was actually jumpstarting the process the other night. Ava couldn’t remember the rest of the video that well at the moment. Things were getting a little… 

The wrap’s slow-embalming technology made sure the bespoke chemical cocktail drew all the toxins out of you so slowly that your cells would turn over faster than they died, so Ava figured it must be working on her brain right now. 

She wasn’t so sure the rest of her cells were turning over as fast as she’d like as she laid there, immobilized and naked on her bed, and the reviews didn’t really mention how hard it was to breathe when you applied the wrap tight over your mouth and chest (it had to be tight enough to make sure all the old skin melted off your lips— crepey lips were a telltale sign of aging), but at least she had been able to catch up on some sleep. It was hard to stay awake with her eyes wrapped shut and the curtains drawn. Ava didn’t mind the darkness, though. Imagine going through all that just to let the sun bake away all the progress! 

Even still, it was getting really dark. 

Almost nothing got rid of strawberry skin, though, so maybe a little longer… 

A distant thud, then another banged at the fuzz in her mind, through the plastic entombing her head. More thuds, getting louder, then a snapping and splintering, then a voice. “Ava?” 

A retching sound. Taylor. 

“God, what is that smell?” 

Ava wanted to tell her that the formaldehyde was a really important part of the bespoke chemical cocktail. She wanted to give her the discount code so they could start their wellness girlie era together. She wanted… 

What did she want again? It was so dark she couldn’t remember. 

Another voice, a man. “Babe, wait. Don’t—” 

Muffled footsteps, the sound of her door fighting to open against the Shein bags. A gasp. Wailing. 

“Holy shit, holy shit. Brian, I think she’s dead. What the fuck—” 

Dead? Ava wanted to tell her that wasn’t right. Perfectly preserved at twenty-two, she would live forever. 

But it was really dark.