I can’t stop looking at the folder, the one hidden three layers deep in my photo app, and honestly I feel like a literal criminal just sitting here in the dark with the blue light burning my eyes. It’s 2 AM and I can hear the heater kicking on in this tiny, drafty apartment—this place is such a dump, but everyone back home thinks I’m doing so well because I’m the "graduate student" who finally made it out of the valley. But if they knew what I was actually doing last week, if they saw the turquoise water and the $20 cocktails and the way the sand felt like actual powdered sugar between my toes while my dad was literally hauling crates at the warehouse until midnight, they’d probably run me out of the county on a rail. Is that dramatic? Does everyone feel like they’re living a double life or is it just me? It wasn’t even supposed to be that big of a deal, my boyfriend’s family invited me and they paid for the flights and the villa—which was insane, by the way, I’ve never seen a bathroom that big in my entire life—and I told myself I deserved it because grad school is a meat grinder and I haven't slept more than five hours a night since October. But then I think about my mom. I saw her last Sunday, right before I left, and her hands were so swollen from the double shifts at the clinic that she couldn't even unscrew the lid on the pickle jar. She was laughing about it, saying she was just "getting old," but we both know it’s because she’s working sixty hours a week to pay off the imaging bills from my dad’s surgery that the insurance didn't cover because of some stupid loophole. I just sat there and watched her struggle and I didn't say a word about the packing list in my head. I actually lied and said I was staying on campus to help a professor with a research project over the break, which sounds so noble, doesn't it? "Oh, our kid is so hardworking, such a scholar," that’s what they tell the neighbors at the grocery store or the people at church. It makes me want to scream. Why do they have to be so PROUD of me when I’m such a liar? I spent four days in a bikini that cost more than their monthly electric bill and I kept thinking, if I just don't post anything, it didn't happen. But I have the photos. I have a video of me laughing while a waiter brings us a tray of oysters. Oysters. My parents are literally eating canned soup three nights a week so they can afford the physical therapy copays. Is there something fundamentally broken in me? Like, am I just missing the part of the brain that makes you a good person? The worst part is the paranoia, because this is a small town and people talk, they talk so much it’s like a sport here. I’m terrified I’m going to run into someone who saw a tag on Instagram or maybe someone saw me at the airport three counties over when I was flying out. I keep checking my privacy settings, over and over, until my thumbs ache. I feel like a monster. But then—and this is the part that makes me feel even worse—there’s this white-hot spark of anger that I even have to hide it. Why can’t I just have one nice thing? Why does my entire existence have to be defined by how much I sacrifice for a debt I didn't even rack up? Does that make me a narcissist? I feel like I’m suffocating under the weight of their expectations and their poverty and it’s not my fault they’re sick, but then I look at the photo of the sunset in Tulum and I hate myself so much I can’t breathe. I remember when I was a kid and we’d go to the creek behind the old mill, and that was our "vacation," and I was so happy then. We’d catch crawfish and my dad would tell stories about when he was a boy, and everything felt simple. Now, everything is just numbers and bills and the sound of my mom’s heavy breathing as she climbs the stairs after a sixteen-hour day. I tried to offer them some of my stipend money once and they got so offended, like I was insulting their ability to provide, so I just stopped asking. But I didn't stop spending. I didn't say no to the trip. I chose the beach. I chose the luxury. And now I’m sitting here in a room that smells like damp carpet, staring at a screen of things I can never show anyone, and I just feel DISGUSTING. My dad called me today to tell me he found a way to work a few extra hours on Saturday—his only day off—so he can buy my mom a nice cardigan for her birthday. He sounded so excited, so genuinely happy to do that for her, and I just sat there on the phone and said "That’s great, Dad, she’ll love it," while I was literally scrolling through a digital receipt for a $300 dinner I had on Tuesday. I didn't even blink. I just lied. And tomorrow I’ll go home for the weekend and I’ll wear my oldest jeans and my faded hoodie and I’ll play the part of the struggling student and I’ll probably even let them buy me dinner because it makes them feel good. It’s a performance. My whole life is just a series of performances and I don't know how to stop. Does it ever stop? Or do you just keep lying until the lies become the only thing left of you?