The Kids In The
Mirror Shades

The bass doesn't just thump, it colonises. It takes up residence in my ribcage, evicting my actual heartbeat and replacing it with something mechanical, relentless. The air in the warehouse tastes of vape smoke (definitely strawberry cheesecake, sickly-sweet on my tongue), spilled Stella, and someone's expensive perfume. Something woody and floral that probably cost more than my monthly rent.

We're in Ancoats, in what used to be a cotton warehouse back when Manchester made things instead of just Instagramming them. Now it's all exposed brick, properly exposed, not the fake distressed stuff they put in chain restaurants, and iron girders strung with fairy lights that cast everything in a golden, forgiving glow. There's a DJ booth built from reclaimed pallets, because of course there is, and a girl in a hi-vis vest is stationed by the fire exit with a clipboard, because even our rebellions are health-and-safety compliant now.

This is the launch party for Aura, a sustainable trainer brand that makes shoes out of coffee grounds or recycled ocean plastic or compressed good intentions. I honestly can't remember which. It's my third event this week. Tuesday was a skincare popup in the Northern Quarter. Wednesday was a "conscious fashion" sample sale in a Salford car park. Yesterday was prep for next week. And tonight. Tonight is, as they say, a vibe.

My phone is already up, camera eye scanning the crowd like a predator selecting prey. This is them. My people. The kids in the mirror shades. Every single one is a small miracle of personal branding. That boy in the pristine Y2K Adidas tracksuit that probably cost two hundred quid but made to look like it came from a charity shop. That girl with neon-green box braids and a leather harness worn over a Nirvana tee. The non-binary person in a flowing skirt and chunky Doc Martens who looks like a forest spirit that just discovered techno and decided humans were worth saving after all.

They see my camera. Something ripples through the crowd like wind over water. Spines straighten. A girl adjusts her fringe. A boy angles his jaw. Candid laughter becomes slightly more photogenic, just a degree more performed. They're so used to it now, this constant state of being perceived, that the shift is automatic. Muscle memory.

I flip the camera to face myself, summoning the smile. The @MiaMakes smile I've practiced so many times in my bathroom mirror. Mouth open just enough to show teeth, eyes slightly wider than normal, head tilted at precisely fifteen degrees. It arrives on command now, like a well-trained dog.

"The vibe in here is just... well... everything," I say, pitching my voice into that warm, inclusive frequency that the algorithm rewards with reach. Relatable but aspirational. Enthusiastic but not manic. "The energy is insane. You guys are literally the future."

I post it to my Story and lower my phone. The smile dissolves instantly, like it was never there. The bass is giving me a headache now, a dull throb behind my left eye. The sea of beautiful faces blurs into a single, overwhelming mass of expectation.

Literally the future? Or literally a room full of kids trying to sell each other trainers made from recycled coffee cups while the planet burns? Call it what it is, Mia. This isn't a revolution. It's a product launch with good lighting.

I give my head a tiny shake, an old tic to dislodge the thought. My hand moves unconsciously to my earlobe, pinching it between thumb and forefinger. Another tic. My therapist, from before I dropped out of uni and lost access to student services, said it was to "ground myself in my body." I don't know about that. I just know it sometimes helps.

It doesn't help now.

"Mia! Oh my god, you made it!"

Chloe materializes at my side like she's been teleported in. She's the founder of Aura, twenty-three years old and running on approximately four hours of sleep and pure, distilled ambition. When she hugs me, I can smell jasmine perfume and the musky tang of stress-sweat underneath it. Her hands are shaking slightly when she pulls back.

"It's incredible, Chlo," I say, and I actually mean it. The sheer force of will it takes to pull something like this together, to convince suppliers and investors and influencers that your idea matters, that you matter, is staggering. "You've absolutely smashed it."

Her whole face lights up. "It means so much that you came. Everyone's buzzing that you're here. Everyone." She gestures vaguely at the crowd, and I feel their collective gaze like heat from an oven.

"I need to grab a drink," I say, touching her arm gently. "Catch you in a bit, yeah?"

I extract myself and drift toward the edge of the room, accepting a can of something alcoholic and vaguely tropical from a girl with a tray. It's already warm, and when I sip it, it tastes like metal and artificial mango. I find a spot against the brick wall — the surface is cool against my shoulders through my vintage band tee (vintage meaning I bought it last week from Depop for thirty quid) — and just watch.

From here, I can observe them properly. Study them like the visual arts student I used to be, back when I thought I needed my degree. Back when I spent Tuesday afternoons in life drawing classes, learning to really see the human form, to trace the line between how something looks and what it actually is.

Look at them. They're here. Together. That's not nothing. They're trying to build something better, even if it's just with trainers and tote bags for now.

The thought arrives gentler than the first one. Steadier. It's the same argument I have with myself every time I go to one of these things. The push and pull. The fire and the water.

A boy detaches from his group and walks toward me. He's nineteen, maybe twenty. Young enough that his face still has that soft, unfinished quality. Anxious eyes that dart to my face and then away again. His outfit is perfect: faded cargo pants, a band tee for a group that split up a decade before he was born, scuffed Vans that look authentically worn rather than distressed by design. But his hands are shaking. He's gripping his phone so tight I can see the white crescents of his knuckles.

"Sorry... Mia?" His voice cracks slightly. He flushes brick-red. "Hi. I'm Ben. I just... I don't normally do this. Properly can't believe I am doing this. But your video? The one about imposter syndrome?"

He stops and takes a breath. I can see him gathering courage like someone collecting dropped coins.

"It proper got me through my first year at uni. I was ready to drop out. Like, I had the email drafted to student services and everything. It just felt like... like you were talking right to me, you know?"

The sincerity in his voice cuts through everything — the performance, the noise, the bass that's still colonizing my chest. This is real. This is the reason I started doing this in the first place, back when I had forty followers and posted photos of my sketchbooks just because I liked sharing them.

This is the why.

My throat feels tight. "I'm so glad it helped," I say, my voice coming out quieter than I intended. All the @MiaMakes polish has dissolved. "Honestly? I still feel it all the time. Pretty much every single day."

His eyes go wide. "Really? But you're..." He gestures at me, at all of me, like I'm evidence of something. "You're successful. You have it figured out."

I almost laugh, but it would come out wrong. "Nobody has it figured out, Ben. I promise you that. We're all just... y'know... doing our best and hoping it's enough."

We talk for another few minutes. He tells me about his illustration course at MMU, about wanting to work in animation but being terrified he's not good enough. About his tutor who seems to hate everything he makes. I tell him about dropping out, about choosing the online career, about how some days I wonder if I made the right choice.

I don't usually tell people that part.

When he walks away, there's something different in how he carries himself. His shoulders are back. His grip on his phone has loosened.

He thinks you have the answers. One day he's going to realize you're just as lost as he is.

Or he'll see that being lost and still trying is the entire point. You didn't give him a map. You just told him he wasn't the only one without one.

Both thoughts arrive at once, competing, contradicting. I'm about to do something, what I don't even know, when the DJ drops it.

The opening lines of "Make Room" slice through the air like a blade through silk, and the crowd roars. It's the song I recorded three years ago with a local band called Mirror Script for a collaboration video that went viral. The song that accidentally defined us, gave us a name and an anthem and turned us into a movement without anyone quite planning it that way.

The floor becomes a single organism. Bodies pressed together, arms raised, heads tipped back. They're singing along, every word, and their voices are off-key and beautiful and so sincere it physically hurts to witness.

They are so beautiful it makes my heart ache. I feel a profound connection to every single one of them. To their hope, their defiance, their desperate need to matter. And at the same time, I have never felt more alone. I am their reflection, their curated aspiration, their proof that it's possible to make it. And I am standing on the outside looking in like a ghost looking at my own haunting.

I lift my phone. My thumb hovers over the camera button.

But I don't film.

I just stare at my own face reflected in the dark screen, pale, tired, real. Behind my reflection, the party is a blur of color and motion and light. A perfect, beautiful illusion that will be over in three hours, leaving nothing but Instagram stories and hangovers and the vague sense that something important almost happened.

My reflection stares back at me. The girl in the glass has my face but not my expression. She looks hungry. Restless. Like she's waiting for something that isn't here, won't arrive, might not even exist.

The song builds to its climax. The crowd is jumping now, the whole warehouse shaking with the force of several hundred people landing in unison. The fairy lights sway. Someone's drink goes flying in a perfect arc, catching the light.

But I'm not watching them anymore. I'm watching my ghost in the screen, and she's watching me back, and hanging between us is the question neither of us can answer:

Room for what?