My [Secret] YouTube Life

by Charlotte Seager

  It’s from a contact called Nina MacGill. But we don’t know a Nina. Well, it’s in his contacts. He must know her.

  Who is she?

  ‘OK, I’m ready.’ Bryan flops down the stairs.

  I can see why it took him so long. He’s wearing new low-fit jeans, a long T-shirt almost to his knees paired with a clutch of triangle necklaces across his skinny chest, and rings on almost every finger. He looks at me, his face strikingly pale against his dark eyes.

  ‘Hey! See, I told you I wouldn’t be long.’ He grins, his black beard obscuring his teeth.

  Then he sees my face.

  ‘What’s up? Why are you looking at me like that?’

  CHAPTER 4

  Melissa

  The photo I posted last night actually looks quite good. I’m standing against the backdrop of Brighton Pier, wearing white shorts, a pale pink T-shirt and a statement gold necklace that Lily wore in one of her vlogs. I click idly at my phone, which I’ve propped up against my history textbook.

  Mr Packham hasn’t noticed that half the class are playing on their phones. He lives in his own world, shuffling behind his desk in ill-fitting corduroys, mumbling into his tie about the past. If you sit right at the back, you can’t even hear him – all I know is that in this lesson he’s grumbled ‘colonialism’ a lot. His jowls wobble as he clatters his fingers at the whiteboard. Ugh, I’ll ask Suze to shoot me if I ever become that boring.

  Suze, who is beside me chewing on a strand of hair, peers over my shoulder. The post is titled ‘A Little Brighton Trip’.

  ‘When have you ever been to Brighton?’ she says, wrinkling her nose.

  A flush runs through me.

  ‘I went last weekend.’

  ‘But how?’ she insists. ‘You had that christening last weekend. Your mum was chatting to mine about how Aidy . . .’

  ‘Y’know what, I think it was a few weeks ago.’

  Suze opens her mouth like she wants to say something else, but then goes back to chewing her hair.

  I close my blog page and slide my phone on to my lap. That’s the problem with having a friend who’s known you since you were four – it’s almost like they can see straight into your mind and read your thoughts.

  We met on our first day at school. I was animal obsessed and roared ‘Lion!’ at her because she had this huge mane of fuzzy blonde hair. And instead of running away like the other kids, she pawed back at me and squeaked ‘Mole’ – because I used to wear these big glasses.

  Of course I wear contacts now, but Suze still has this wild, frizzy blonde hair that she doesn’t do anything with.

  The boys behind us are filming each other throwing spitballs at Mr Packham’s jacket. One of the balls sails past us and lands on the desk by Suze. She freezes.

  A lump of paper sticks in my hair. I turn round and give them all a withering look. Ben, who’s sitting behind me with a roll of paper in his hand, smiles sheepishly.

  I sweep my hair off my shoulder with the spitball. God, they’re such little kids.

  On my phone I tap open a Snapchat story from LilyLoves. It’s an animation of her at her dressing-room table, holding up a gorgeous nude lipstick from her new range.

  Obsessed! is printed across the moving image, with the hashtag #makeupinspiration.

  Just looking at Lily’s new make-up range makes me smile. I bought tickets to her lipstick launch party in London at the end of the month, and I’m going to drag Suze along with me. For the first time, I’m actually going to meet Lily in real life. I can’t wait.

  Another spitball sails past my desk and lands on the desk in front. The next one pings straight into Chloe MacNeil’s glossy hair. She turns round, frowning, and her eyes land on me.

  The boys snigger.

  Chloe glances at them, and everyone falls silent. Her eyes flick to my phone, and she arches her perfectly groomed eyebrows.

  ‘Was that LilyLoves?’ she says.

  I nod. Suze glances at me.

  ‘Aw, do you watch her? That’s so cute!’

  A blush creeps up my neck.

  ‘Yeah, it’s her new Snapchat story.’

  I click replay and spin my phone to Chloe. As she taps at the screen, the swell of her boobs presses against the back of our desk. Chloe really is stunning. She’s one of those girls who looks great in everything – even our saggy black trousers and billowing school jumpers look shapely on her.

  The low classroom light catches the highlighter on her cheek as she smiles at the screen. Her eyelashes flutter. All the makeup in the world couldn’t make me that pretty.

  I heard a rumour that she’s going out with Tom Taylor in lower sixth. Of course I know who he is. He hangs outside the sixth-form block every lunch with his group. He’s tall and broad-shouldered with sandy hair that falls over his eyes. I would love a boyfriend like that. He’s even better than Bryan.

  I start imagining a blogpost of me and Tom wandering along the seaside, grinning at the camera – him looking down at me in an adorable snap. That would definitely up my followers.

  ‘I so need to get her nude lippy,’ says Chloe, handing back the phone.

  ‘Oh, um, I have that lipstick,’ I say.

  Chloe tilts her head to one side. ‘Really?’

  Chloe’s friend Louise has turned round too and is looking at me with a pinched expression. Louise is intimidatingly modelesque. She has long, lithe limbs and pin-straight blonde hair. Her eyes are so narrow that it looks like she’s permanently sneering.

  I pull out my make-up bag, and Chloe’s fingers snatch at the zip.

  ‘OH MY GOD, you have her limited-edition Fire Red! How did you get that?’

  I smile shyly and pick up another lip gloss. ‘It’s good, but a little drying – have you tried this? It’s from her Lip Luxe range. I could not live without it.’

  Chloe pushes the piles of make-up we’ve created towards me.

  ‘I need to use your make-up.’

  ‘You can borrow it if you like,’ I say.

  Chloe turns to Louise. ‘Aw, she’s so cute, isn’t she? Why don’t we bring her along tonight?’

  A warm glow rises inside me. But then I see Louise’s face.

  ‘Sorry, Issa, we can’t!’ says Louise with a simpering smile. ‘We’re going out with Tom and the guys to Playshack tonight; we’re heading to Chloe’s after school to get ready . . .’

  My chest deflates.

  Chloe butts in. ‘No, we can make room. She’s so sweet – let’s bring her. We can all get ready together. What do you think, Issa – you free?’

  I’m always free, is not what I say.

  ‘I could do your hair if you like,’ she adds, her eyes lingering on my skew-whiff bun, which I did in exactly five seconds this morning, and to be honest is a bit of a disaster.

  I look at Chloe’s cascading curls and feel a flicker of excitement. I’ve always been jealous of her hair.

  ‘Sure, I can make it.’ I shrug.

  Chloe taps her number into my phone.

  ‘Cool, meet you by the lockers after class – do you mind if I borrow this?’ She’s fingering the Lip Luxe gloss.

  I can’t really say no.

  ***

  After we’ve settled back to not-listening to Mr Packham, my mind wanders to tonight.

  I can’t believe I’m actually going to hang out with Tom and his friends. What if I meet someone? And not some spitball-throwing kid from our class. An actual man who’s tall and broad-shouldered, with a deep, sexy voice.

  My mind flicks back to a video I watched of Lily and Bryan running through Greenwich Park together – him tickling her sides, and her shrieking cutely, before they fell to the ground laughing. This could be my chance to find someone as perfect as that.

  The bell interrupts my daydream, and Mr Packham splutters, ‘S-sit d-down. The bell is for me, not for you.’

  I stand up and catch sight of Suze biting her lip.

  ‘Are you really going to hang out with Chloe tonight?’ she says.
<
br />   I shrug, throwing my bag over one shoulder. ‘Yeah, I think so. Why don’t you come along?’

  She shakes her head. ‘No, don’t you remember – you were going to come watch me play swing band tonight?’

  Oh God. I’d completely forgotten. Suze takes part in this after-school swing-band club every Friday, and I promised I’d go along to watch. I don’t care about music, but she’s been getting really into it recently. And she said there was something she wanted to talk to me about after the show.

  I nibble the corner of my lip.

  But when am I ever going to have the chance to go out with Chloe, Louise and Tom’s friends again?

  This could be my chance to meet someone. I think of Lily’s life with Bryan in their London flat. If I go tonight, my life could seriously be like that. I could post photos of us snuggled up together, videos of us rustling up food together, and Instagrams of delicious meals out. My follower count would go crazy.

  Suze is watching my face.

  ‘It’s fine.’ She sighs. ‘You can just come next week.’

  CHAPTER 5

  Lily

  Today hasn’t got off to a great start. I’m sitting cross-legged on the floor, nibbling a double-decker chocolate bar as I didn’t have time for breakfast, while signing a pile of photos of my own beaming face holding a lipstick case. All of yesterday was taken up with calls and meetings to organize my lipstick-line launch party at the end of the month.

  It’s just exhausting. I mean, I am excited to be bringing out my own lipsticks. When BeautyCult approached me to design the range about eighteen months ago, it seemed like a dream come true . . . but now as the launch date draws closer my head is throbbing, and every muscle in my body is aching. I worked until midnight last night emailing suppliers, and then got up at 4 a.m. to approve my creative director Siobhan’s edits on next week’s sponsored videos. There’s this tense feeling I’ve got in my chest, which tightens every time I scribble my initials.

  My brain feels like a muddled fog. I’m playing some vlogs from my favourite YouTubers on the main TV, but their loud voices are mingling into one, and I can’t quite pick out what they’re saying.

  I take a bite of my second chocolate bar and will myself to concentrate on signing the photos – this is easy, this is my break – but instead my eyes keep flicking to the Facebook app on my phone.

  I know it’s stupid, but I can’t stop thinking about the girl who sent that Snapchat to Bryan. Nina MacGill. I don’t understand why I’ve never heard of her before. We live together, so I know everyone he hangs out with. Why hasn’t he mentioned her? She’s not one of his university friends; she doesn’t follow his band.

  Who is she?

  I will my fingers not to click on the app. Don’t do it. It’s stupid. Why do you need to find out? I stab my initials on to another photo. As I press down the nib, the paper rips in half.

  Screw it.

  Like a reflex, I pick up my phone and search for Nina MacGill. Her Facebook page appears instantly: 1 mutual friend Bryan Merton.

  She only has a few public photos. There’s one of her clutching a coffee and looking down in a blue-and-white-striped top, framed by a background of hanging cacti and graffiti. The next photo is of her in an exotic-looking cafe, leaning over a table, smoking a shisha pipe. The last one is the worst: her bikinied back against a beautiful Thai beach, arms outstretched as if embracing the sunset, hair shimmering in the moonlight. She’s so thin she even has back dimples.

  My stomach sinks.

  What am I doing?

  I’m just torturing myself. So she knows my boyfriend. So what, exactly? She probably sent that selfie to everyone.

  I’m just tired. That’s all it is.

  The pile of to-be-signed photos forgotten, I click on Bryan’s Instagram and idly scroll through his photo comments. There’s hundreds of girls commenting on his selfies:

  Yum, looking good

  Dope

  I shew you to my grandma and said you were my dream guy. She goes ‘nice choice, he is a really cute one.’

  I sigh and click back to my own IG page. It’s not like Bryan hasn’t had to put up with the same thing. He’s dealt with love-struck teen boys, death threats and even real-life stalkers. How can I care about one stupid selfie?

  Almost every day, some person turns up outside our house and peers into our driveway, or lurks on the kerb at the end of the street. Bryan is so chilled about people following us – even when a crowd of fans corner us in the street, he barely raises an eyebrow.

  I chew my lip and absent-mindedly tug a lump of dry skin off with my teeth. Ouch. The metallic taste of blood touches the tip of my tongue.

  But, then again, Bryan has never been the one being stalked. Maybe that’s the difference. He’s never had someone follow him home and lean over our garden fence, howling his name for three hours straight. He’s never had someone he’s never met accuse him of stealing their identity. He doesn’t know how it feels to go to bed, staring at the walls, listening to every scrape on the stairs, every knock next door – wondering if there’s anyone downstairs, your whole body rigid.

  About a year ago, this woman started saying online that I wasn’t the real Lily Henshaw. She contacted the police to try and report me for stealing her identity. She said the real Lily was her: a dentist from Colorado who made videos in her spare time.

  HIE VERYONE YOUA RE NOT THE REAL LILYLOVES, LILY IZ A DENTIST IN HER SPARE TIME

  At first I didn’t even notice her comments. Quite a few people comment on every post I do, so I can’t read them all. But then she somehow hacked my private email address and started doctoring my personal photos.

  NICE HOUSE BUT WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO TELL PEOPLE YU’R REALI A DENTIST? U LIE TO ALL OF US. YOUR RUINING MY LYFE. STOP OR I WILL RUIN YOURS. RIGHT BACK X X

  She started reposting all my selfies, Instagrams and screenshots of me in my videos back to me – but this time with a bloodied neck, eyes blackened and gouges in my arms.

  I KNOW WERE U LIVE. STOP PRENTDKNG TO B ME OR IL COME ROUND AND MAKE U STOP. YOURE DESTROYING MY LYFE X X RIGHT BACK

  By this time, I had hired one of Bryan’s friends who works as a developer to block her from my email, but then she disguised her IP address and messaged me under different aliases.

  IV HAD ENUFF OF U PRENTDING TO B ME. THE REAL LILYLOVES IS ME A DENTIST AT NIGHT. WHY U LIEING? STOP IT X X

  AS YOU CAN SEE THIS IS YOUR LAST CHNCE, IF YOU DO’NT STOP I WILL FIND YOULILY AND I WILL MAKE YOU STOPP BY TIEING YOU AD CUTTING YOR UP X X RIGHT BACK

  A shiver goes through my spine. She wasn’t even the worst one.

  A couple of months later, there was a man who actually turned up outside our flat. I have no idea how he found our address. He must have been stalking our vlogs, working out which direction we walked in or perhaps piecing together the locations of my Instagrams – which I now keep hidden. Maybe he asked our neighbours?

  Anyway, somehow he found us. One afternoon I was at my laptop editing, and he started knocking loudly on the door. At first I didn’t hear it because I had my headphones on – and Bryan was upstairs recording a guitar riff.

  So I leaped out of my skin when I saw his pale, strained face pressed against our living-room window. By the look in his eyes, I knew something was wrong. As soon as he saw me, he started battering the door with his fist. I went to get Bryan. The banging got louder, until his blows were shaking the door frame.

  Eventually Bryan went outside and told him to leave, but he wouldn’t stop. He pushed into the hallway and started throwing crumpled balls of paper at me.

  ‘Leave him, Lily!’ he screamed as Bryan tried to hold him back. ‘We belong together! You’ll know it too once you see me . . . It’s destiny!’

  I still remember seeing his wild blue eyes – sweat running down his forehead, dirty fingernails clutching at the walls.

  His last shout was strangled as Bryan shoved him back outside. We double-locked the doors, but the hammering started ag
ain immediately. We had to call the police.

  Weeks afterwards I found a tiny ball of paper stuffed in the bottom of my coat pocket, which had been hanging in the hallway. I smoothed it open and saw swirling red writing running along the creases. It said: ‘Our love will always mean everything to me . . .’

  I tore it up without reading any more.

  Even thinking about LilyDentist and that man makes me feel sick. I don’t use the Gmail associated with my YouTube account any more – it’s managed by my agency – and I use a private email address, which only businesses know, so I don’t have any contact with him or the ‘real’ Lily.

  Sometimes, though, I still think of them. LilyDentist, the distressed man – and all those thousands of others. They’re gone from my life, but they’re not gone. Not really. They still exist. Out in the world somewhere, they’re sitting behind a screen, writing to me, watching me.

  I rake a hand through my hair and rub my tired eyes. The funny thing is these cyber-stalkers scare me, yet I’m sitting here Facebook-stalking Nina.

  What does that make me?

  What would she think if she knew Bryan’s girlfriend was looking at her photos? If she knew I could name her last two summer holidays and the colour of her bikini she’d probably be pretty freaked out too.

  I close Nina’s Facebook page and drag my eyes back to the pile of photos I’m meant to be signing.

  Do people really want these? They’re a gift for the first 1,000 people to pre-order my entire lipstick range. That’s £145.99 each for the chance of a signed photo. I really don’t think it’s worth it.

  My whitened, lipsticked smile is so bright it’s almost comical. As I squint, my dazzling face blurs with the gold lipstick case until it becomes one shiny smudge on the page.

  I need to get outside. This is the problem with working from home: after a couple of days you start to go stir crazy.

  Instinctively, I reach for my vlog camera. I haven’t filmed anything for LilyLives since I hit three million. Finding time to edit isn’t the problem; it’s having time to make your life look interesting. No one wants to watch you sitting at a computer, zombie-like, replying to emails.