Page 57 of Reel Love
“Absolutely not.” I shook my head. If I was going to tell BamBam, it couldn’t be like this. She was my only cheerleader. I wasn’t willing to lose her and then go home to face whatever disappointment my parents felt without her support. If I ever told BamBam about this, it wouldn’t be because the internet was about to tell her first.
“Jamie, maybe we should talk about—” Nittha started.
“You two should go.” I cut her off. “I’m not mad, but I have a lot to do.”
Facing the screen again, I could feel their eyes on me; probably debating whether they should really go. I didn’t have time to worry about that now. I forced myself to sound light as I said, “Really. I promise I’m not mad. I’ll check in with you later.”
“Are you sure?” Gabby asked, her voice uncharacteristically soft, as if she thought I might break if she pushed too hard.
“One hundred percent.” I started clicking through BamBam’s YouTube notifications.
“Okay, well,” Gabby said slowly over the sound of the bed sighing as she stood up. “We’re here if you need us.”
“And you’re still coming to the pool later?” Nittha asked, Cricket’s collar jangling as she got up from the bed.
“Maybe. I’m supposed to meet Ethan, too.” My hands froze on the keyboard at the thought of him. In my panic, I’d forgotten that he was likely going through some version of this downstairs. My heart squeezed just thinking about him being alone. Exiled from Emmie’s friend group and unable to hang out with me and my friends because I wanted to avoid bringing more attention to us. Hopefully, his car friends were at the breakfast, and he couldhide with them. Sure, they were mostly middle-aged-parent types or rich exotic-car drivers, but at least he’d have people. I shrugged, pushing him out of my mind. I couldn’t worry about Ethan right now either. I didn’t have much time to fix this.
I glanced over my shoulder to find Nittha and Gabby still hovering in the doorway. “I’ll text you.”
“Okay,” Nittha said, her voice flooded with apprehension.
“Call if you need us before then?” Gabby asked, sounding less like the brash Florida girl that she typically was.
“Promise.” I nodded, then turned back toward the screen, waiting until I heard the door close behind them before I started reading the comments.
Gabby wasn’t wrong. There were a lot of comments, and the problem was, they were all mixed in with BamBam’s most recent GRWM videos, so I had to go through each one individually unless I wanted to risk deleting actual thoughts from Ms. Mini followers. Taking a deep breath, I started scanning for anything that seemed to stick out.
Your granddaughter is ruining people’s relationships.
I deleted the comment and tried to ignore the fact that this person was clearly living in some strange dream world where Emmie and Ethan were on a break and not in the very real world where they’d broken up.
Your granddaughter could use some makeup tips. Woof.
Ouch. I wrinkled my nose as I hit Delete. Not everyone was going to like my face, and that was fine.
Like grandmother like granddaughter. This whole family can’t dress for shit. I’d be embarrassed to leave the house like y’all.
If I didn’t know better, I would have sworn my mom wrote that one. But she would never say the wordshiton the internet. I deleted the comment and tried not to think about how much it stung to have something my parents thought about me repeated by people who didn’t know me.
After a while, I got pretty fast at spotting the problematic comments. As Nittha had promised, not all the comments were mean. Some people were there to be nice to BamBam and me.
Y’all need to grow up. This is Ms. Mini’s video. Her granddaughter aint even online
You have too much time if you are really out here commenting to someone’s grandma about their relationship
Get a life and your own boyfriend, trolls!
I appreciated these people, even if I had to hide their comments, too.
I was nearing the end of the comment section on her longer videos when one caught my eye.
She can’t even make a decent video for her own grandma.
My breath got stuck in my throat. The comment was posted under the video with the colorized old photos. This was a video I was proud of. I’d even uploaded it with my name in the credits.And someone thought it was garbage. Worse, hundreds of people had liked the comment.
My finger hovered over the touchpad as a little voice said that maybe this person had a point. My heart sank as my parents’ words came back to me. Just because I liked doing something didn’t mean I was good at it. Maybe I did need a backup plan?
That couldn’t be true if Ethan had liked it, right? But what did him liking the video actually mean? He’d already admitted he didn’t mind my experiments, since they were mine. He could have been lying. My parents could be keeping me honest. Maybe people liked BamBam enough to ignore my attempts at creativity? Was I embarrassing myself with this? Maybe it’d be better for her to hire a professional team now, since I was leaving for college soon. She made enough money to.
