My [Secret] YouTube Life

by Charlotte Seager

  Thank God he’s forgotten.

  As we kiss, I tap my phone a few more times. I don’t know if we’re even in shot, but if I get lots of us kissing I can just pick the best one.

  Andy starts doing the weird tongue-sucking thing again, so I break away from him.

  ‘This has been fun.’ I smile.

  We’re at my house now, so I sway away from him and trip up the drive. I’m not quite coordinated enough to make it to the door without falling over. I stumble on the front step and clutch my knees, giggling.

  Andy grins at me. I wave, and he holds up his hand as he lopes off.

  I genuinely can’t explain how happy I feel. My blog is going to look so, so good. I took loads of photos. Yeah, it’s dark, but some of them will be useable. Plus I can lighten them up in Photoshop. Aaaaah! It’s like I’ve won the best present in the world – my blog is going to look just like Lily’s!

  As I face the door, I’m thinking so much about my photos that I don’t even notice the hall light is already on – or that the door is being whipped open before I’ve got my key out.

  I blink blearily into the hallway. It’s so bright. Why’s it so bright? My brain is slow. Not working properly.

  What’s going on?

  Mum is standing in the doorway in slippers and a dressing gown, her eyes wide and startlingly bare. She grips my shoulder and yanks me into the light. Dad is standing by the staircase in boxers and a T-shirt, his arms folded across his chest. They both look like somebody’s died.

  As I step forward, I see someone else behind Dad. My stomach twists as Suze’s mum comes into focus, her eyes wide and white.

  Everything starts happening in slow motion. Mum takes a step towards me, grabbing my arm, and I shrink back into the door frame.

  She bellows in my face.

  ‘Where the bloody hell have you been?’

  CHAPTER 21

  Lily

  The narrow footpath that winds down to the river runs all the way through our village – up to the football pitch and back down towards the post office owned by Mr Bennett. At the top of the hill there’s a crumbling stone water tower that we used to sit on as kids, and the hairs on the back of my arms prickle when I see it again.

  We’re talking about everything. It turns out Chris did go to university – but dropped out to help take over his Dad’s farm when he fell ill with multiple sclerosis. His older brothers both work in the City. Now at home, Chris does the bulk of the farmwork – he lives in the main house, and his parents have moved into a smaller cottage they own down the lane. As he talks, I trace my feet along the edge of the beaten dirt path.

  The night is light and the air smells warm. I’m watching my steps – I didn’t bring any trainers, so I’m having to pick up my sandals among the branches, which keep scraping my shins. The leaves gently tickle my ankles, and I push back against the foliage with my toes.

  As I hold up my hand to move one of the twigs out of the way, it snaps clean off in my hand.

  Chris stops mid-sentence.

  ‘What’s that – a wand?’ He raises an eyebrow.

  I look down at the stick and remember when we used to play witches and wizards at school. We both got red marks down each arm from whacking each other so hard with sticks.

  I poke Chris with the twig, and it splinters against his chest.

  ‘Here, let me get you a better one.’

  He reaches up above my head and plucks a bigger branch from a tree overhanging the path. Then he leans down and flicks me on the nose with it.

  ‘Hey!’ I say, swatting it away.

  He makes a dive to poke me in the stomach, but I duck under his arm.

  As I veer to the left, Chris steps on the trailing strap of my sandal and I go flying into the bushes.

  ‘Aaaaaaah!’ I scream, flailing my arms out wildly.

  Just before I crash head first into the brambles, Chris catches me, and I fall heavily into his chest.

  His strong arms hold me steady. I can feel his stomach vibrating with laughter beneath my fingertips.

  ‘You tripped me!’

  I try to bat him away with my fists, but he holds me tighter, laughing. I can feel the rippling of his muscles beneath my skin. A warm feeling sweeps across my neck.

  Chris is grinning – his face frighteningly close to mine.

  This isn’t right. This definitely isn’t right.

  I roughly push myself away from him.

  ‘I have to get back. I really need to call Bryan . . .’ I say.

  ‘Bryan? Is that someone to do with your YouTube?’

  ‘No, he’s my . . .’ I pause. I almost don’t want to finish the sentence. ‘Boyfriend.’

  ‘Ah.’ Chris nods.

  I search his face for some kind of reaction, but there isn’t one.

  ‘We’re having a bit of a hard time, actually,’ I say, before I can stop myself. ‘I don’t know what’s going on with us.’

  I squint off into the next field. My mind is whirling with thoughts of me and Bryan. Thoughts of him caring for me, him shouting at me, him and Nina.

  Chris takes a step back. He splays his hands out wide in front of him.

  ‘Y’know, you and Bryan – you guys will sort it out. You have to work at these things. Nothing is easy.’

  I look up at his smiling face. All of a sudden I feel a rush of brotherly love towards him.

  ‘Me and Jasmine, we have the same thing,’ he continues. ‘She lives in London, so it’s a bit of a trek to see each other. It’s just one of those things. Real relationships aren’t easy.’

  I frown. ‘Jasmine?’

  ‘Oh yeah, I must have mentioned Jasmine, my girlfriend? She lives in London. When I bumped into you the other week, I was out there visiting her.’

  ‘Oh yeah, you must have. I . . . didn’t realize,’ I say, kicking the dry ground by my feet.

  CHAPTER 22

  Melissa

  The next morning, I wake up with a dull thumping sensation in my head and a dry mouth. It feels like my insides have been scooped out, jumbled up and put back inside. I groggily put a hand to my stomach. It’s churning like crazy.

  Oh God. I’m going to be sick.

  I try to lift myself up off the bed, but it’s too much effort. As long as I stay very, very still – I’m not going to be sick. I grit my teeth and roll on to my side. Ugh.

  When my face hits the pillow, I feel the crumbling of mascara and a thick paste of make-up settled on my cheek. I need to take it off, but I can’t quite move right now. I squint up at my window. It’s bright, too bright.

  A leaden feeling fills my stomach as the memories from last night come back.

  Mum screaming at me; Dad panicking.

  I remember crying – which makes sense, as I can feel lumps of mascara glued to my cheeks.

  But how did they know? Why were they waiting up? I said I was at Suze’s. Oh yes, shit. Suze’s mum was there too! I vaguely remember Mum saying something about her coming over to borrow the lawnmower.

  Plus my phone had zero signal all night, and Mum doesn’t know how to use WhatsApp. Oh God.

  I pull my phone towards me: 65 missed calls; 26 text messages.

  What have I done?

  I groan into my pillow and lie there, feeling like death. I bet LilyLoves has never done something this stupid. I bet her mum wouldn’t react like this.

  As the tiredness and the aches rake through my body, my dry eyes fill with tears. Now I’m really in trouble, aren’t I?

  CHAPTER 23

  Lily

  When I get back to the cottage, Mum is upstairs chatting to her friend on the landline, and my mobile is vibrating angrily on the kitchen table.

  I don’t even have to look at the name on the screen to know it’s Bryan. I swipe across the unlock screen: twenty missed calls. My heart tightens.

  A new message pops up.

  B: Why are you being so mental? Are you seriously ignoring me?

  There are seven other similar texts. I st
are at the screen, a sour taste appearing in the back of my mouth. Should I call him back?

  I know what Mum would say: ‘He’s only upset because he cares.’ But something doesn’t feel quite right. If he’s spent all evening calling me, does that mean nothing’s going on between him and Nina?

  As soon as I think of her name, I wince. Her pretty cleavage selfie flashes in my mind. If they’re such good friends, why hasn’t he mentioned her? Is he hiding her from me?

  I crush my knuckles into my eyes until I see stars. As my vision starts to throb, I unhook my fingers and press my curled hands into my cheekbones.

  B: OK – I get you’re annoyed. Just please reply.

  Screw it. Before I have a chance to change my mind, I click Bryan’s number. He answers on the first ring.

  ‘Lily? Is that you? Finally!’

  ‘Yes.’

  He heaves a huge sigh down the end of the line.

  ‘This is stupid. You way overreacted; me and Jerry were just chilling. What’s your problem?’

  I close my eyes.

  ‘Lil – are you there? You’re ignoring me again!’

  ‘I’m not – I’m not. I don’t care about the drinking. Bryan . . . you left your laptop signed in. You had Nina over.’

  Now it’s Bryan’s turn to be silent.

  He sucks in his breath. ‘You read my messages? You’re telling me you logged in as me? That is a huge invasion of privacy!’

  ‘You left your Facebook open!’

  ‘You seriously are mental—’

  ‘No, look, I-I can’t do this. I don’t want to any more. I don’t—’

  ‘That’s your problem, not mine. What is going on with you – do you want to end it? Is that what you want?’

  ‘I don’t know. I . . .’

  Even I can hear my voice is pathetic. My hands won’t stop shaking. I bite down on my lip, but my breath is still strangled. I bite harder and a metallic taste pricks my tongue.

  Bryan laughs at my silence. I can hear him smiling when he speaks.

  ‘Do you really think you can end it with me? How do you think your three million followers will take the news? They’ll probably all cut themselves like they did when One Direction split.’

  I stop breathing.

  Is Bryan threatening me?

  ‘My job has nothing to do with you.’ I’m trying to stay calm, but a mix of anger and fear is shaking my voice.

  Bryan snorts. ‘It has everything to do with me. We’re a YouTube couple. Do you have any idea what that means? It means—’

  Before he has a chance to finish his sentence, I hang up. My phone immediately starts vibrating again.

  My hands are trembling in my lap.

  ‘Calm, Lily.’ I hear my mum’s voice in my head. ‘It’s OK. It’s OK. He’s wrong – you can split up with him. You can do this. Even role models have break-ups. Fans get over it.’

  But I can feel the weight of three million eyes on me, three million broken hearts, three million cuts.

  The world begins to fill up with a wild, rising panic. It feels like I’m suffocating. My vision swims, the outer edges blackening, and the cottage walls start closing in on me.

  I need to get out. I need space. Mum thuds down the stairs, but before she reaches the living room, I grab my hoody and run outside, my heart hammering.

  I need to get away from him.

  CHAPTER 24

  Melissa

  My thoughts are foggy as my mind stirs awake. Something really, really good has happened. Something that’s going to change my life.

  What happened last night? Did I . . . Wait – did I take photos of me and Andy?

  My eyes flutter open.

  Oh my God! I really got with Andy Butcher – and I took photos of us. I remember.

  Sitting bolt upright in bed, I reach for my phone.

  On my camera, there’s about four hundred photos from Rish’s party. I click through them hungrily: there’s ones of me and Louise pouting; pictures of me, Andy and Rish; group shots of people in vintage dresses I don’t even know.

  I open the photos of me and Andy. These are the ones that matter.

  Huh.

  Most of the photos are just black – and several are just blurred lips or close-ups of my fingers. You can’t even see our faces properly in most of them. There’s one where I can just about make us both out. Andy looks nice, but his eyes are squinting – I look terrible. My hair is all stringy across my forehead, and my face is shiny and bright red. Is there any way I can salvage this?

  At that moment, my phone links up to the internet, and a flurry of WhatsApp messages vibrate in my palm.

  Chloe has sent a wink emoji, and Louise has sent one word: Spill.

  My chest tightens. Oh God, me and Andy kissed in front of everyone. What are they all going to think? Is everyone at school going to call me a slut?

  It wasn’t him; it was me. I remember taking his hand – and everyone wolf-whistling. My whole body cringes. Oh God, what is wrong with me?

  I just really, really needed those photos.

  A lump sticks in my throat. I’m a complete mess. My parents hate me, I threw myself at Andy last night in front of everyone, and Chloe and Louise are probably having a great big laugh at me.

  It takes about ten minutes of staring at my bed feeling like death for me to realize I need to call Suze.

  She starts yelling at me almost the second I hear her voice. ‘What happened? Your mum came round this morning – she was livid. She cornered me and quizzed me about whether I knew where you were last night.’

  ‘Oh God, I’m so, so sorry.’ I hold my head in my hands.

  Suze, who knows exactly what my mum is like, says nothing.

  ‘There was another reason I didn’t go back earlier,’ I mumble.

  ‘Andy?’ she whispers.

  I feel a fizzle of excitement in my chest.

  ‘Yeah—’

  ‘Aaaaaah!’ Suze screams down the phone. ‘Oh my God! Does anyone else know?’ Her voice suddenly changes. ‘You didn’t do more than kiss, did you? You really should be careful.’

  Taking a deep breath, I launch into as much detail as I can remember.

  Suze sucks in her breath. ‘Do you think he likes you?’

  ‘Erm, I don’t know. He hasn’t messaged me.’

  I scroll through my messages, nibbling on my nail. In the background, Suze’s mum calls her for lunch.

  ‘I’m sorry – I’m going to have to go. WhatsApp me,’ says Suze. ‘Message me if he texts.’

  ‘I will! I will!’

  Pulling the laptop towards me, I upload my photos and start brightening the one good image of me and Andy. I spend ages filling in my hair, de-shining my face and whitening my eyes to make me look passable. It’s still not the best photo ever of me.

  When I’m done, I upload it to a new blogpost. The kissing photos look a bit explicit, so I don’t use them. I’m so pleased I had the guts to take this last night, otherwise what would I have done: uploaded a load of weird kissing shots?

  I title the post ‘IssaAdores and Andrew’.

  Hmm.

  ‘LilyLoves and Bryan’ sounds much better, much cooler. Bryan sounds like he’s in a band. Andrew sounds like some boring school librarian.

  I experiment with typing ‘Andy’, but that doesn’t sound right either. It doesn’t suit how he looks. It sounds like he’s some cheerful, cuddly guy – when actually he’s tall and muscular with sharp cheekbones.

  I try out a few others. ‘IssaAdores and Ryan’, ‘IssaAdores and Brett’, ‘IssaAdores and Zach’.

  I like ‘Zach’, but it reminds me too much of Zach Efron. ‘Zeke’?

  Yeah, ‘Zeke’. That works: it’s different. It really suits him.

  But he does still look a bit young. Bryan always has stubble or a beard on Lily’s photos; it makes him look more rugged.

  I reopen the image and carefully dot a five o’clock shadow over Andy’s smooth cheeks.

  He looks seriously
good. I add a few group pictures from the party and type out: Friday night house party, hanging out with Zeke. Best Weekend Ever. Hope you all had an amazing night too. Love Issa xoxoxo

  Just as I’m about to publish the blog, my phone buzzes with a message.

  It’s Andy – he’s sent me a WhatsApp: How’s your head?

  I look at my photo of him on the screen, and my lips curve.

  CHAPTER 25

  Lily

  I stumble outside, past the stone steps, creaky gate, down the end of the lane, across the river. I don’t think about where my feet are going – I just blindly put one foot in front of the other. Faster, faster. My heart thuds. I have to get away.

  ‘Do you really think you can end it with me?’ He really said that, didn’t he? He meant it. He thinks I don’t have a choice. The thing he said about my followers – it felt like he was trying to blackmail me. Or am I overreacting?

  I stop by an old tree stump to catch my breath. It’s only then that I notice the darkness. The sun has set since me and Chris were out earlier, and the cornfields are deserted. The wind rattles the leaves of a nearby tree. For the first time in months, I’m completely alone.

  A low moo carries across the far fields, but I can’t step back into my relaxing rural world. Everything feels louder, brighter.

  The rustling leaves make my ears prick. The cool air makes my chest tighten. And the darkness makes my eyes dart.

  I wish I didn’t have so many people watching me. I wish I didn’t have to always make my life look perfect. I wish no one knew about me and Bryan.

  . . . I wish I had never started my YouTube channel.

  Every day is taken up with hundreds of Twitter, Instagram and Facebook mentions, thousands of emails, tens of thousands of comments. People waiting outside our flat – people flocking to us for selfies every time we leave the house. It feels like I’m always looking over my shoulder. I’m never alone.

  And I’m always so behind.

  I look out across the quiet, rolling fields.

  What if Bryan’s right about us breaking up? What if my subscribers do turn on me? All my sponsors would probably pull out. But would it really be that bad? I could move back to Suffolk. Start again. Everything would be OK. Fewer followers, less money and less work wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing.