Kat_licious

It wasn’t envy, at least not the sharp, bitter kind. It was a deeper, stranger pull, like reading a diary left open on a park bench.

Lena felt a twist in her gut. Not jealousy. Recognition.

The glow of the phone screen was the only light in the room, painting Lena’s face in cold blues and sterile whites. It was 2:00 AM, and she had been falling, scrolling, for what felt like hours. Not doom-scrolling through news or fighting with strangers in a comment section. She was falling into a single profile: . kat_licious

She tapped the story highlights. The first circle was labeled “ raw .” Inside were shaky clips of city lights blurring past a car window, a snippet of a vintage synth song Lena didn’t recognize, a close-up of a cat’s eye, and a ten-second loop of rain hitting a skylight. No face. Just a mood.

But here, in the deep hours, watching a stranger knead bread with the passion of a heartbreak, Lena felt the walls of her own careful life vibrate. It wasn’t envy, at least not the sharp, bitter kind

Lena quickly locked her phone. The room plunged into true darkness. She could still see the afterimage of Kat’s eyes on her retinas. The question hung in the air: Who’s watching?

She had been Kat once. Or maybe she had never allowed herself to be. She was the version of Kat who organized her bookshelves by color, who RSVP’d “yes” to parties and then found a reason to cancel, who posted photos of sunsets because they were safe. Her own profile, lena_scribbles , was a museum of quiet things: a well-made bed, a perfectly centered coffee cup, a shelf of plants with not a single brown leaf. Not jealousy

Lena’s thumb froze an inch above the screen. A chill raced down her spine. She looked at the view count on the story she had just watched. It was just a number, anonymous and vast. But in that moment, the blue glow of the phone felt less like a window and more like a two-way mirror.