And my sister, who was conventionally attractive, who spent her every waking hour curating an image of enviable perfection, who had access to everything Maya lacked, did not possess one ounce of that peace, and never had.

Maya had the one thing Gwen wanted most and could not manufacture no matter how many photos she staged: she actually liked herself.

And there is a specific kind of person for whom another’s genuine self-acceptance is not inspiring but infuriating, because it exposes, by contrast, the hollowness of their own performance.

Gwen looked at my daughter glowing on that beach, unedited and unafraid, and she saw everything her own frantic, curated, debt-ridden, lie-riddled life had failed to give her, and she could not stand it, and so she tried to tear it down, to drag Maya back into the hiding and shame where Gwen herself secretly lived.

It was not really about the photographs at all.