My phone dings. I press my tongue to the roof of my mouth. I’m in my apartment—four
corners of unadorned red brick. Fingers shaking, I reach across the couch, praying it’s not a
notification from the clinic. They’ve already pushed my surgery back four times.
        My chest relaxes, a long breath escaping my lungs when I see it’s just a Tinder alert. I
guess that’s fine. Lips twitching, I swipe it open. My eyes widen as a grin spreads across my
face. Okay, Anna from West Town. She’s cute, in a chihuahua type of way.
        The second I think it, my smile fades. She probably sounds like a chihuahua, too. Shrill,
unreasonable. Critical. She’d probably have a lot to say about me. Actually, now that I think
about it, why did she swipe right on me?
        I thumb up to my profile picture, stretching my fingers to enlarge the image of my face.
And there it is. Me, Caleb Withers, from the crease of my hairline to the curve of my jaw. I
cringe, enlarging the photo further.
        My gonial angle is way too large. I’ve known this a long time, but seeing it right in front
of me still hurts. And my eyes… my eyes. They’re sooo far apart. And the canthal tilt is all
wrong.
        I swipe back to Anna the chihuahua. She thinks she can trick me? She thinks I’ll actually
fall for this? For gods’ sake, look at my eyes! I don’t know what she’s after, or if she’s even real,
and I don’t care. I shoot back a nasty text before blocking her account.
        My phone buzzes in my hand. I swallow, pressing my tongue to the roof of my mouth.
It’s a notification from the clinic.

        Time slows.
        Panting, I tap to the email as quickly as possible, as if somehow, that will change what it
says.
        But it doesn’t.
        “Dear Caleb, we regret to inform you that your surgery has been cancelled…”
        No. No, no, no, no, NO! Cancelled? But Dr. Lew was going to make me beautiful! He
promised me a PSL nine. Chadlite-level hotness. And what, just because he accidentally “killed”
someone, now he’s going to break his promise?
        My tongue presses to the roof of my mouth over and over and over again. Frantically, I
throw myself to the ground to do some quick crunches, then pause, shooting up again to grab my
laptop. My hands spasm as I type in the name, but luckily, the autocorrect recognizes what I
want from my search history.
        Bright YouTube videos populate the screen. I watch four in succession, my heart rate
increasing with each one.
        “Like this,” the voice warbles out of the laptop, before the guy in the video runs face first
into the wall. The resulting crunch is a mess of static through my computer speakers. I press
pause, clenching and unclenching my hands as I psych myself up.
        Then I look at the wall. I imagine how it will feel when my face reforms, stronger and
more chiseled than ever. If Dr. Lew won’t do it, then I will.
        My legs straighten, and I take a step towards the wall, then another, then another, each
one faster than the last. The pock-marked brick zooms towards my face, and I wince, bracing for
the pain of impact.
        I’m going to be so beautiful.