Truly, Madly, Like Me - Jo Watson Page 0,14

and that’s why I’d been thinking of going keto—you can do a lot with an avo, you know!

I looked down at the pile of food on my plate; it didn’t look appetizing at all, and a sudden need came over me. The need was so strong it was hard to resist. I tapped my fingers on the table and bit my lip, trying to push the need back down. But I couldn’t. I took my phone out of my handbag and tapped it against the palm of my hand—this was usually something that calmed me. But not this time. It only made the need so much worse. So much more intense, too hard to resist. So. Bloody. Hard! I couldn’t fight it any longer, and I wasn’t going to.

I reached for another plate and started putting the food onto it in a more Insta-worthy way. Lining the bacon up by size, smallest to biggest, trying to make the mushrooms into something that resembled art. The sausage, I had to confess, was not photogenic at all. It was fat and oozing and its porky skin had burst open on one side, displaying its insides like a mass of intestines. I moved the decorative vase of wildflowers closer to my plate, hoping it would distract from the sausage. I looked around the room for something, anything, to make this breakfast shot better.

There were only two other people in the restaurant, and I recognized them as the couple I’d met last night. I tried not to make eye contact with them as I rushed over to one of the free tables and grabbed another small vase of wildflowers. I put my plate in the middle of the table, wildflowers flanking it on both sides, salt and pepper shaker on the right, a napkin tossed next to the plate—it took me ages to get that napkin just right. To make it looked tossed, but in a perfect, pretty way.

The light in here was bad. I looked around again—one of the curtains was closed so I walked up to it and pulled it open. A shaft of light rushed towards my table, casting a warm glow across the plate. I scurried back to the table, a manic, frantic energy seizing me, and held up my phone. But the angle was all wrong. I moved around the table, taking different photos, but nothing seemed right. I needed to take the shot from above, so I climbed onto my seat. I turned when I heard whispers behind me. The couple quickly looked away and went back to pecking at their heinous-looking breakfasts. I heard another noise and swiveled my whole body, only to find what looked like the chef standing in the corner of the room. His arms were folded and he was eyeing me curiously. I gazed at them all, and then had another consuming need. To share my thoughts with them in two hundred and eighty characters or less. The need to share something with them felt overwhelming, like the need to make the things on my plate look pretty and take a photo of them. I hadn’t shared what I was doing with anyone in five days, and I usually shared everything! And in that moment, I felt like I was going to burst if I didn’t tell someone something. Anything.

“Hashtag blogger’s life.” The words flew out of my mouth. They just looked at me blankly. So I shot them a thumbs up emoji, expecting some likes back in return, only I didn’t get any. What was wrong with these people? Had they never seen anyone take a photo of their breakfast before? If you went out for breakfast in Joburg these days, everyone was taking photos of their food. No one ate their food when it arrived at the table anymore because everyone was trying to get the perfect #foodporn pic to post and . . .

The realization hit me again. Hit me like a kick to the gut. Why did I keep forgetting this? I looked at the almost-perfect picture of my breakfast and realized that I would not be able to post it. I would not be able to share my breakfast with the world, and for some reason that was once again hard to explain (especially without my mood-tracking app), this thought made me cry. I climbed down off the chair and slumped in my seat. I pushed my plate away and buried my head on the table and wept