Ashly Miles “Borrowed Emotions”

Chapter One: Before Ashly There had been a time when Ashly Miles woke up and simply woke up. Before notifications. Before algorithms. Before everybody had an opinion about everybody else’s life. She used to sit on the edge of her bed in the morning and decide whether she felt good. If she was tired, she admitted she was tired. If she was excited, she was excited. If somebody hurt her feelings, she either confronted them or carried it around until she was ready. Her emotions had once arrived naturally. Now they arrived through a screen. That morning, Ashly opened her eyes at 7:04. Her alarm had gone off four minutes earlier. She reached for her phone without thinking. The first thing she saw was a photograph of a woman standing in front of a luxury car. “Nobody believed in me. I believed in myself.” Ashly smiled. “That’s right.” She sat up. Next post. A man complaining about his girlfriend. “Stop giving people access to you when they don’t appreciate you.” Ashly frowned. She thought about her boyfriend, Caleb. He hadn’t called the night before. Maybe he didn’t appreciate her. Next post. A comedian making fun of people who couldn’t afford vacations. Ashly laughed. Next. A motivational speaker screaming into a camera about discipline. Ashly sat straighter. “I need to get my life together.” Next. A woman explaining why she had stopped dating. “Men don’t know how to communicate.” Ashly rolled her eyes. “Exactly.” She hadn’t even brushed her teeth. Yet she had already experienced confidence, suspicion, resentment, ambition, humor, disappointment and motivation. None of it had come from anything that had happened that morning. She finally put the phone down. Then she picked it back up. There was a message from Caleb. Good morning ❤️ Ashly stared at it. She didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she opened her timeline again. She needed to know how she felt about him. ⸻ Chapter Two: The Indirect Language Tiana knew something was wrong. She just didn’t know what. They sat across from each other at a small café on Saturday afternoon. “You’ve been acting weird,” Tiana said. Ashly looked up from her phone. “I’m fine.” “No, you’re not.” “I’m good.” Tiana leaned back. “You’ve posted six things this week about fake friends.” Ashly shrugged. “If it doesn’t apply to you, don’t worry about it.” Tiana stared at her. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about.” “What?” “You never say anything.” “I just did.” “No. You gave me another line.” Ashly frowned. “What do you want me to say?” “I want you to tell me what I did.” Ashly looked down at the table. There it was. The question she had spent the entire week avoiding. She could have answered. She knew exactly what bothered her. Tiana had canceled dinner. Then forgotten to call. Then posted pictures from another dinner with two other friends. Ashly had seen the photographs. She had felt embarrassed. Rejected. Replaceable. But saying that out loud felt humiliating. So she had posted memes instead. Tiana waited. Ashly picked up her phone. “You see?” Tiana shook her head. “You were about to do it again.” “Do what?” “Hide.” The word landed harder than Ashly expected. She put her phone down. “I’m not hiding.” “Then tell me.” Ashly opened her mouth. Nothing came out. Tiana’s expression softened. “You don’t have to make a post every time something hurts you.” Ashly looked away. “I don’t know how to say it.” “Then say it badly.” Ashly looked back at her. Tiana smiled. “Just make it yours.” ⸻ Chapter Three: Borrowed Anger Ashly’s problem wasn’t limited to friendships. It followed her everywhere. At work, somebody mentioned a coworker’s promotion. Ashly immediately felt slighted. She hadn’t wanted the promotion. At least she didn’t think she had. But a post she had seen the night before said: “Never clap for people who secretly want to see you fail.” So when everyone gathered around the newly promoted employee, Ashly clapped with a smile. Inside, she felt resentment. She didn’t know whether the resentment was real. That scared her. Later that afternoon, she searched the internet for advice about jealousy. She found thousands of posts. Some told her jealousy meant she was insecure. Others told her jealousy meant she was surrounded by people who didn’t deserve her. Another said jealousy was proof she was destined for greatness. Ashly saved all three. She didn’t know which one she believed. ⸻ Chapter Four: Caleb Caleb loved Ashly. At least he thought he did. The problem was that he could never figure out which Ashly he was coming home to. One day she wanted marriage. The next day she reposted something about never needing a man. One morning she told him she wanted to build a business. That evening she posted about people who were “too obsessed with money.” One night she told him she wanted honesty. The next morning she ignored his question and posted a meme instead. Caleb eventually stopped asking what she wanted. He started asking himself whether there was actually a woman underneath all the opinions. One evening, after another argument, he finally said it. “Who are you when nobody’s watching?” Ashly froze. “What does that mean?” “It means I don’t know anymore.” That hurt. More than anything he’d said before. She wanted to defend herself. She wanted to find a quote. Something powerful. Something that would make him feel guilty. Her hand moved toward her phone. Then she stopped. For once, there was no post to hide behind. There was only Caleb. And the uncomfortable silence between them. ⸻ Chapter Five: The Post That Wasn’t About Her The post appeared on a Tuesday. Ashly almost missed it. She was scrolling quickly when the words caught her attention. “If you need the internet to tell somebody how you feel, you’re probably avoiding the conversation.” Her thumb stopped. She read it again. Then again. She felt anger rise through her chest. “Who does this person think they are?” She almost commented. Then she looked at the username. A stranger. She didn’t know them. Didn’t know their life. Didn’t know what inspired the post. Yet Ashly felt personally attacked. She stared at the screen for several minutes. Then something strange happened. She laughed. Not because it was funny. Because she recognized herself. The memes. The quotes. The indirect posts. The fake confidence. The sudden opinions. The borrowed anger. The borrowed happiness. The borrowed pain. She opened her own profile. She scrolled backward. Three years. Two years. One year. She saw herself everywhere. But she couldn’t hear herself. There were thousands of words. Millions of reactions. Hundreds of opinions. Yet almost nothing that sounded like Ashly. She whispered: “Where am I?” ⸻ Chapter Six: Delete Ashly didn’t delete her account. That would’ve been too easy. Instead, she stopped posting. The silence made her uncomfortable. She still opened the apps. Still watched. Still laughed. Still disagreed. But she didn’t immediately share everything she felt. That was harder than she expected. One morning she saw a relationship meme. Her first instinct was to send it to Caleb. She didn’t. She wrote something in her notes instead. I’m angry because I feel like he doesn’t listen to me. She stared at the sentence. It looked strangely plain. No clever caption. No inspirational language. No thousands of likes waiting for her. Just one honest sentence. She added another. I’m also afraid that if I tell him what I need, he might decide I’m too much. She stopped typing. That was worse. Because it was hers. And nobody had told her to feel it. ⸻ Chapter Seven: The Conversation Caleb sat across from her. “What happened?” Ashly looked at him. “I need to tell you something.” He waited. She took a breath. “I’ve been angry with you.” “I know.” “No. I don’t think you do.” She looked down. “I’ve been angry because I feel ignored. But instead of telling you, I posted things online.” Caleb remained quiet. “I wanted you to figure it out.” “I didn’t.” “I know.” She laughed nervously. “I kept thinking people would understand what I meant.” “And now?” Ashly looked at him. “Now I realize I wasn’t giving anybody a chance.” Caleb nodded slowly. “What do you want from me?” Ashly almost reached for her phone. Then remembered she didn’t need it. “I want you to listen when I tell you something matters to me.” “Okay.” “And I need to learn how to say things before I get angry.” “Okay.” She swallowed. “And I don’t want you to agree with everything I say.” Caleb smiled. “That’s good, because I probably won’t.” Ashly laughed. The conversation wasn’t perfect. It didn’t fix everything. But it was real. ⸻ Chapter Eight: The Uncomfortable Silence Healing her relationship with social media didn’t mean abandoning it. Ashly didn’t become one of those people who suddenly believed the internet was evil. She still loved memes. She still laughed at ridiculous videos. She still found inspiration online. The difference was that she stopped letting the internet tell her what she felt. She learned to pause. When something made her angry, she asked herself why. When something made her jealous, she asked herself what it revealed. When something inspired her, she asked whether she actually wanted what she was seeing. When somebody hurt her, she stopped posting. She called them. When she disagreed with somebody, she stopped performing for an audience. She talked to them. And when she didn’t know what she felt? She admitted it. That became one of the hardest things she had ever learned. “I don’t know.” Three words. Ashly had spent years believing she needed an answer. Now she understood that uncertainty was allowed. ⸻ Chapter Nine: Her Own Words Months passed. Ashly’s timeline became quieter. Not because she had disappeared. Because she had stopped using it as a diary. Her posts became simpler. A picture of breakfast. A funny video. A photograph from a walk. A book she genuinely enjoyed. A business idea she was actually working on. There were no hidden messages. No coded insults. No carefully selected quotes designed to make somebody feel guilty. One afternoon, Tiana called her. “You know what I’ve noticed?” “What?” “You don’t post about people anymore.” Ashly smiled. “I still think about them.” “I know.” “So do I.” “But now you actually talk to them.” Ashly laughed. “Most of the time.” “That’s growth.” Ashly looked out her window. For once, she didn’t need a quote to explain what she was feeling. She was proud of herself. Not because somebody online had told her she was strong. Not because somebody had liked her post. Not because a stranger had validated her experience. She was proud because she knew exactly why she felt proud. That belonged to her. ⸻ Chapter Ten: Ashly Miles Years earlier, Ashly had believed authenticity meant saying whatever came to mind. She eventually learned it meant something more difficult. It meant knowing which thoughts were actually hers. It meant questioning the emotions that arrived too quickly. It meant recognizing when someone else’s story had quietly become her own. It meant having conversations instead of captions. Apologies instead of vague posts. Boundaries instead of performances. Silence when she needed to think. Words when someone needed to hear her. Ashly still scrolled. She still laughed. She still shared memes. But the internet no longer drove her emotions. It was a tool. Nothing more. One morning she woke up. Her phone was beside her. She looked at it. Then she looked toward the window. Sunlight was coming through the blinds. She didn’t reach for the phone. She sat on the edge of the bed. How did she feel? Tired. A little anxious. Excited about the day. She smiled. Those feelings hadn’t come from a screen. They hadn’t been borrowed. They hadn’t been approved by strangers. They belonged to her. Ashly Miles. And that was enough.