Hard Reset

Ash drifted in slow spirals through the air, settling on the hood of the rental car like fine, grey snowfall. The windshield wipers scraped uselessly against it, smearing the dust in streaks across the glass. The air smelled like burnt plastic, like old memories turned to cinders.

Lena rolled down the window, but the smoke was thicker outside. The Hollywood Hills, glowing orange in the distance, looked less like a landmark and more like the end of something.

She wasn’t supposed to be here.

She was supposed to be at an influencer retreat in Costa Rica, sipping kombucha with other women who called themselves CEOs because they had an LLC and a Canva subscription. But then the fires started, and flights got canceled, and suddenly she was in a rental car with a five-year-old in the back seat and no idea where they were supposed to go next.

She should check her phone. Except she didn’t have one.

She had it earlier. She was sure of it. It was in her back pocket when she ran out of the Airbnb, her duffel bag slung over one shoulder, Sophie clutching her stuffed bunny in the other. Somewhere between the curb and the car, it was gone.

The irony wasn’t lost on her.

A social media influencer without a phone was like a pilot without wings.

Now she was standing in a Verizon store, fluorescent lights buzzing overhead, filling out a form with a pen that barely worked.

“Ma’am,” the guy behind the counter said. He was maybe twenty-four, gym-fit, looked like he had once dreamed of being an actor but had settled for commission sales. “You need to fill in your Apple ID so we can transfer your data.”

Her hands were still shaking. “I—I don’t remember it.”

The guy sighed, tapping his keyboard like it personally offended him. “You can reset it.”

She swallowed. Nodded.

Hard reset.

There was a time when Lena could open her phone and watch the numbers climb like magic. A hundred thousand views in an hour. A million by morning.

Her entire career—if you could call it that—had been built on understanding the algorithm.

She knew the rules. Play the trends early. Post at peak engagement times. Engage with comments in the first hour to trick the system into thinking the post had momentum.

She had started like most influencers—desperate to be seen. A girl from Nebraska with big dreams and an iPhone camera. Her first viral video had been an accident. A makeup tutorial where she knocked over her entire setup, sending expensive palettes tumbling to the floor in a chaotic mess.

People loved it.

It was authentic.

And from that moment on, she understood: authenticity was a commodity. But only in carefully measured doses.

She knew how to make people care.

Now?

Now her phone was dead in the rubble of a burning city, and when the new one powered up, the world would have already moved on.

She squeezed her eyes shut.

No. She wasn’t going to be that person. The one who fell apart over an app.

The store TV buzzed with a news anchor’s voice:

"BREAKING: The United States government has officially banned TikTok, effective immediately. Servers have been shut down nationwide."

The words slapped the breath out of her lungs.

Lena’s fingers tightened around the edge of the counter.

The Verizon guy gave her a glance, unimpressed. “Guess that makes your Apple ID recovery a little less urgent, huh?”

The hotel smelled like stale air conditioning and cheap disinfectant.

Sophie was sprawled across the bed, kicking her feet in the air, her stuffed bunny half-crushed under her elbow.

“Lala, where’s my pictures?”

Lena barely looked up. “What pictures?”

Sophie pouted, her tiny brows knitting together. “My draw-wings. I drawed them for you and put them in your bag.”

Lena’s stomach twisted.

The suitcase.

It was still in the trunk. She had packed in a blind panic, shoving clothes, chargers, skincare bottles into a duffel bag, but the suitcase—the suitcase was hers. It had the things she couldn’t throw in a carry-on.

“I’ll get it later,” she muttered.

Sophie wasn’t having it. “Noooo, I wanna show you now!”

Lena sighed, rubbing her temples. “Soph, I’m tired.”

“But I drawed you a new one!”

The little girl scrambled off the bed, feet slapping against the carpet, and yanked a folded piece of paper from the desk. She thrust it toward Lena like an offering.

Lena took it, barely glancing at the scribbled figures—Sophie and Lala, their heads too big for their bodies, their hands stretched together under a lopsided Christmas tree.

“You like it?” Sophie asked, eyes wide with hope.

“Yeah, Soph, it’s great,” Lena muttered, setting it aside.

Sophie frowned. Her tiny fingers curled into her bunny’s fur. “You don’t like it.”

“I said it’s great,” Lena repeated.

“But you didn’t smile,” Sophie whispered.

The news was everywhere. The fires. The TikTok ban. The new president being sworn in while the city smoldered behind him.

"America is entering a new era."

Lena sat on the hotel balcony, staring at the empty search bar on her phone.

For the first time in years, she had nothing to post.

From inside, Sophie’s small voice drifted out. She was talking to her bunny, whispering nonsense words like a secret language.

Lena closed her eyes.

Once, there had been another man in this city. A man whose name was everywhere, whose face was on every billboard, whose voice had rattled through speakers in packed-out theaters. A man who had been unstoppable.

And now?

Now, he couldn’t even remember his own movies.

She tried to remember them herself.

Hard Kill? Die First? Cry Hard?

No.

Not that.

The one.

The trunk creaked as Lena popped it open. The suitcase was wedged in the corner, covered in a layer of fine ash. She dragged it out, unzipped it on the pavement.

Inside, Sophie’s drawings were crumpled between a pair of sneakers and a half-empty bag of travel snacks.

Lena smoothed them out.

One by one, she laid them across the car hood.

There was one from last summer, when she had taken Sophie to the beach. One from Halloween, when they had carved pumpkins. One from Christmas, when they had gone sledding in the mountains.

She had posted the sledding video. It had bombed. The algorithm didn’t like slow moments, didn’t like real smiles.

She had forgotten about it.

But Sophie hadn’t.

Her throat tightened.

This is what’s left.

Not the followers. Not the brand deals. Not the clips and the captions and the filters.

This.

A five-year-old’s scribbles on printer paper.

She reached for her phone—paused.

The urge was still there. To post it. To make it a moment that could be seen.

Instead, she picked up the drawings and folded them carefully into her bag.

When she walked back inside, Sophie was curled under the blankets, half-asleep.

Lena lay down beside her, pressing her face into the little girl’s hair.

“You like my pictures now?” Sophie murmured.

Lena smiled. A real smile. Not for an audience. Not for an algorithm.

“Yeah, Soph. I love them.”

And just like that, she let go.

Of the followers.

Of the persona.

Of the need to be seen.

She was more than a number.

More than a trend.

She was Sophie’s Lala.

And that was enough.