Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty
It takes barely any time for him to accept.
I have thirty-five more ‘friends’ than I did when I last checked Facebook, and scroll through the random faces hurriedly until I breathe a sigh of relief when I spot the one I have been looking for. Noah.
I immediately click onto his page and am pleased to discover that my hunch was correct– now that I am ‘friends’ with him, I have access to many more posts than before.
I start on Noah’s page. He hasn’t updated it since last night, but I go through all his photos until I find another one he uploaded of himself with the beautiful, dimpled blonde. It looks like it was taken on the same night as the first picture I saw, judging by their outfits. Other photographs from this night out show a flurry of faces I don’t recognise.
I click onto the photo of Noah and the blonde and see that while he hasn’t tagged her, someone has mentioned her in a comment below, giving me access to her full name.
Lilah Andersson looking fab as always! Xxx
My nose wrinkles and I click onto her page, ready to absorb her life into my brain. Born in Sweden, one year younger than me. Of course she’s Swedish– with her beautiful honeyed skin, golden-blonde hair, sparkling blue-green eyes. Her mother was a model according to a photo of Lilah and an older, very similar-looking woman tagged as Maja Andersson with the caption Hot Mamma model mum A quick scan of Maja’s page and I can see the resemblance instantly. Lilah has inherited those sickeningly sweet dimples framing her full lips, and that pert little upturned nose. For a split second, an invasive thought enters my mind. Why couldn’t I have inherited more of my mother’s looks?
I shake the thought away, then see myself in the reflection of my laptop screen, a distorted shadow grimacing. How could I ever compete with literal model genes?
I switch on the webcam on my laptop and begin an excruciating process of self-inspection. It feels like I’m torturing myself, my face blinking back from the camera with, beside it, Lilah’s photograph still visible. My eyes flit quickly from myself to the photograph, drowning myself in comparisons. My flesh looks pale and pillowy, hers is toned and tan. My lips, shapeless and boring. Hers are juicy, topped by a perfect cupid’s bow. My carefully groomed eyebrows suddenly seem outdated, hers naturally bushy and perfectly framing her eyes. How did Noah ever find me desirable in comparison? The more I look at both of us side by side, the more my body morphs into something grotesque. Have I been deluded all along? I’ve always been told I was pretty, in a quiet, bookish sort of way. Was that just everyone’s way of saying that, in fact, I’m repulsive?
Because Lilah … she’s a goddess. The Male Fantasy personified. I continue reading, reading, reading, scrolling through Lilah’s page and drinking in her life like it’s an elixir.
She went to an all-girls school until she moved to the UK, and she now works at an international fashion retailer as a content director, whatever that means. She has a master’s in marketing from Exeter University. She’s a keen kickboxer. She loves animals. She drinks green smoothies. She goes to hot yoga (gross). She smokes menthol cigarettes when she’s drunk. She edits all her photos to look like they were taken on an 8mm film camera. She goes to a spa for a facial once a month, and drinks white wine spritzers. She goes home often to visit her parents and her sister. She dabbles in watercolour painting.
And she has been dating my fiancé since before I even met him.