c12
Twenty-two felt like it would last forever. I had finally graduated from college with a journalism degree (plus a mountain of student debt that I ignored) and found a studio apartment, a roommate who was willing to split the rent with me, and a food service job that paid just enough to get me from week to week. I was old enough to be totally independent and young enough that it didn't matter that I was striking out on job after job, barely making ends meet.
Sasha, my roommate, had moved to New York City from Florida, determined to make it as a photographer. It felt like it fit perfectly with my goal of becoming a reporter, a real journalist, someone who wrote stories that made people feel as much as think. I dreamt of crafting human-interest stories, deep dives into strange, specific pockets of culture and society. I pictured sitting down with someone and watching them settle into the conversation and realize that I wasn't going anywhere. That they had my full attention. It was what I had dreamt of having as a kid. A person to listen, to ask me the right questions.
Beyond our career goals and the fact that we had left painfully hot climates, Sasha and I had little in common, but that didn't matter much at twenty-two. We were both flailing spectacularly, but determined, and the first time it snowed that winter, we both stood outside with our arms outstretched, tongues stuck out, waiting, still amazed by something as mundane as true, changing seasons.
We both worked odd hours and spent the rest of them chasing various highs—booze, sex, love—and debriefing about our adventures at a diner one block from our apartment, a jumbo-sized plate of greasy fries always placed between us. At the time, it felt like we were in it together. Even after a year of restaurant jobs and bartending and interviews that went nowhere, we weren't as discouraged or as worried as we should have been. I would have said then that it was because we were on our way, that I knew I'd make it at some point, but I know now that I was just distracted. I spent so much time obsessing over the latest bearded guy I had met at a bar, or the cook at work I hooked up with (often enough to convince myself he actually liked me) that I didn't have time to assess anything else. I didn't worry about credit card bills stacking up into infinity, piling neatly on top of my already overwhelming student debt. I didn't consider that I couldn't share a one-room apartment for the rest of my twenties. I didn't ask myself what it would mean if I didn't get hired by a newspaper or a magazine or a website for another year, or another year after that. If I had spent less time with Sasha debating what a text meant or recapping the highlights of a particularly wild weekend, then maybe I would have had more time to make it. Maybe I could have avoided it all. The move back home. The new job. The way I lost the new job. The decision I made with my mom. Everything.
We'd spend entire afternoons nursing fountain Diet Cokes with unlimited refills, the bubbles easing our turbulent, alcohol-soaked guts. Every time, it'd be the same. I cared too much. I wanted too much. I drank too much. And always, for both of us, we were on our phones too much. It became a game between us, eventually.
"I want to put my phone in a suitcase," I'd say, my thighs sticking to the vinyl seat of the booth, straw swirling in the caramel-colored liquid.
"With a lock and a 243-digit combination," Sasha would offer in response, playing along.
"But this lock is also magic, so in order to open it I'd also have to provide the secret musical code," I'd add.
"Ah, yes, of course." She'd nod along seriously. "And that secret code would be the exact lyrics and choreography to Rihanna's ‘Pon de Replay.'?"
"Too easy," I'd quip.
"Hmm," Sasha said. "The exact lyrics and choreography to Rihanna's ‘Pon de Replay,' but…backwards."
"Better, but honestly, do you know me at all?" I'd use a french fry to point toward myself. "That's simply too easy."
We'd go back and forth like this for half an hour, joking about the lengths we'd both go to in order to make sure that we didn't once again call a person who treated us like shit. That we didn't respond to the late-night texts, that we didn't send them ourselves. That we stopped ordering delivery ramen at three a.m. just because we could, and stopped trying to figure out the subtext of a crush's tweet for hours instead of applying to jobs.
"These things are the root of all of our problems, I swear," she'd say, eyes fixed on her Instagram feed as she talked.
It was just a game, of course, but really, it was the perfect way to expertly skirt the fact that if either of us really wanted to, we could stop looking at our phones right now. We could turn them off, put them in a drawer, take a break. We could do it for a day, or a weekend, and we'd be just fine. But we both knew we wouldn't. The other part of the game was knowing that we wouldn't, that we were as chained to our phones as every other person our age—that neither of us wanted to be the one to say, "If you do it, I'll do it."
Neither of us wanted to get rid of the instant ability to numb out, either. It was too easy, too present, more socially acceptable than any other vice we had, though I would venture to guess it wasn't much healthier than any of those things, at least not emotionally. Our phones were a steady stream of distraction from anything that really mattered, a welcome source of dopamine. And the inevitable emotional crash that they brought? Well, I guess we decided, like everyone else in the world, that it was all worth it. Right?
In my most clearheaded moments, I'd scroll through my phone and see the damage of a weekend spread out like an intervention: The messages I shouldn't have replied to. The Instagram posts I shouldn't have liked. The credit card statement that made my throat tighten. I'd see it all and consider, for a minute, that I should buckle down. Get serious. Fix my life. But am I really that weak? I thought. Did I really have that little willpower? Why should I be the one that has to give up the dopamine, the fun, the excitement? It was the first time in my life that I wondered if maybe Evie and I were feeling the same way—that maybe she had always felt this way.
I'd often think to call her during moments like these and remember that she was in school, that by the time she'd be home I would be working at the restaurant. I'd check her Instagram instead, making a note of the ads, the organic posts, the small details. Evie was twelve then, not quite a teenager yet, but I could see the ways her content was shifting, maturing. Each month, there were fewer partnerships that seemed to be handpicked by our mom and more of her own content. Silly stuff. Off-the-cuff, in-the-moment photos and videos. I could still spot the photos that had been Facetuned, but the edits were a little more obvious. It made me think that she was doing it herself now, rather than Mom. I didn't know if that made it better or worse.
I texted her once that year, thinking of Sasha's and my game.
Do you ever wish you could just throw your phone to the bottom of the ocean?I wrote.
It was a few hours before she replied, my phone buzzing in my back pocket as I walked home from a waitressing shift.
Boy troubles?her text read.
I almost snorted in surprise, and then I felt my face go hot. I still liked to think that Evie thought of me as her older, cooler, important sister living in New York. Her sister with a journalism degree from a prestigious college. An apartment in Brooklyn. Is this the image she had of me now, from Mom, or maybe just my own Instagram?
First of all: How dare you, I texted back.
Second of all: No. I just don't think I've ever asked you if you ever felt as overwhelmed with it as I do. I mean, you must. Times like a thousand. Right?
This time, she replied instantly.
Idk, not really? Is that weird?
Yes, I thought. It is kind of weird.
Before I could say anything, though, she texted again.
Mom says when you love something, nothing is ever *that* hard. It's kind of like that, I guess? idk
It should have comforted me, maybe, this idea that social media was my little sister's passion. If other kids had soccer and piano and poetry and she had…Instagram, that was fine, right? But it unsettled me.
I typed out three different responses before I deleted them, conscious of sounding judgmental, or harsh.
So you never think about what it would be like if you woke up tomorrow and it was all just gone?I wrote.
I'd feel like I was living on a different planet lol
If there ever was a time to destroy my phone, or at least put it away for a few hours to protect my mental health, it's now. Four days after the podcast went live, the updates from the detectives have become few and far between and the media attention is constant. Suffocating in a way that is anything but helpful. I scroll through Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok like a zombie and all I can think about is the game I used to play with Sasha. Locked suitcase. A 243-digit combination. I want to get this thing far, far away from me.
Even the most promising tips that have emerged since the interview—the few that have stuck out among the heaps of utter bullshit and attention-grabbing fake headlines—have proved unhelpful. Still, it's only too easy to keep refreshing the feeds, keep staring at the photos, type out a message to some online amateur sleuth posting an obscure theory and then delete it, even if I knew she wasn't in any of the beautiful places people wanted her to be. A yacht. A beachside bar. A tiny mountain town. I felt it.
What's worse is that it's all become a steady stream of entertainment for the world; there are even TikTok accounts dedicated to posting updates on the case, so they can be the first to share the latest news. The "news" is almost always an unsubstantiated rumor.
I hate the phrase the case. I hate that even now, there's a new way for the world to dehumanize my sister, to boil her down to a single word. A case. An influencer. A girl. But I can't stop looking at any of it, either. I'm afraid if I do, I'll miss something. An update. A call. A sign. Every time I scroll, it feels like the very next thing I see will lead me to something useful. Or maybe it's the thing after that. Or the thing after that.
Until finally, it does.
I'm refreshing my Instagram feed for the tenth time in an hour when I see the post. Shiny and new, no likes yet. It takes me a minute to realize it's real. That it's not from a fan account or spam or an imposter. No, it's Evie's account, the thumbnail of her profile image the same as it's been since she was twelve, a close-up of her eye partially obscured by a swoop of auburn hair. It's hers. A grid post with some text. I force my brain to slow down, to stop jumping to the end or reading every other word, searching for something important instead of starting at the beginning.
Hi everyone! I know there's been a lot of speculation about where I've been. But I wanted to let everyone know that I'm doing absolutely fine. Better than ever, really. Thank you for your messages. I'll see you in the real world.
I read it again.
And then a third time, then a fourth.
By the fifth time I read it, I hear my mom scream upstairs.