Finsta and the Betrayal Feed

Fin stared at me from his bowl, bubbles rising like tiny thoughts I couldn't quite catch. He was my only confidant since the Incident, the one who didn't look at me differently. Sometimes I felt like a goldfish myself — three-second memory, constantly circling the same tank of awkward interactions, locker room whispers, and carefully curated posts.

"You wouldn't get it," I told Fin, dropping another flake into his water. "You don't have Instagram."

My phone lit up. Jada, my best friend since sixth grade, had finally responded to my finsta post from last night — the one where I'd admitted how weird it felt being the only brown girl in AP Chem, how I missed summer camp where nobody knew my family drama.

"Wait," I whispered. Jada's reply wasn't in my DMs. She'd screenshotted my caption and posted it on her main feed with the caption: "Some people overshare way too much 💀"

My stomach dropped. That account was supposed to be safe. Only ten followers, all chosen carefully.

Then I saw the comments. Everyone from our friend group was there, laughing, tagging each other. And beneath it all, a tiny detail: Jada had been logged into my account weeks ago to "help me with my bio." She'd been watching my private posts ever since.

"You've been spying on me?" I typed, my hands shaking. "That account was for ME, not content."

The typing bubble appeared, disappeared, appeared again.

"lol it's not that deep, you're being dramatic"

I looked at Fin swimming in circles, trapped in his glass world. Was I trapped too — in this cycle of performing friendship, of being someone's entertainment?

I hit "unfollow." Then "block." Then I deleted the finsta account entirely.

"New plan," I told Fin, who surfaced expectantly. "No more hiding. Either people get the real me, or they don't get me at all."

Maybe a goldfish doesn't need a three-second memory. Maybe what I needed was to stop circling the same old tank and finally swim somewhere new.