We Really Need To Stop // ImAllexx

All I Really Wanted

​"Shots, shots, shots!"

So here we were, in the early hours of November 22nd, sitting around a heavy wooden table, frosted shot glasses in our hands. The sounds all a blur around me, we raised cold drinks to the center and smiled at our friends - old and new.

Do you know what was crazy though? Crazier than me having drinks with my favourite YouTubers who I'd only met that night?

If this party had been held even just some months before, I would never have been invited. At least not legally anyway. Ain't it funny how life works... Lil Peep started playing through the hopelessly-romantic radio in my head.

Facing my lap, I smiled a little to myself. My 18th birthday lay pretty deeply buried amongst my pile-of-dirty-laundry-memories from this awful, washed up summer: 2nd of June 2020.

We didn't do much: Just Nadia and me sat on her bed, making cocktails of tropical juice and Malibu whilst watching YouTube and dancing on her creaky varnished-wooden floorboards in our PJs until 3am.

Looking at her face now, her tired cherry-red smudged lipstick, her somewhat forced conversation with the eboys (who she only met less than an hour ago)... part of me wished I could take us both back. Under the table, I reached for her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.

Even 4 months ago, I would've been curled up under my fluffy paw-print blanket, sat against my sorbet-pink bedroom wall in the dark, watching ImAllexx YouTube videos on my phone until the sun came up.

From staring at the screen all night, my eyes would be red and burning and I'd throw my iPhone to the side (I didn't care where it landed) on low battery. Aching and numb, I'd shut down my lenses to reality that were practically gluing themselves together already.

A steady voice would wake me up a few hours later and my shelter would be rudely dismantled.

Sighing groggily, I'd squint against the harsh sunlight and Nadia would appear, disapproving and definitely pressed for time. Yet, she would pick up my phone, get it charged and call in to my work and tell them I was horribly "sick" again (likely whilst chucking me a pack of prawn cocktail crisps or an Innocent Smoothie).

Somehow whenever it was time to sleep, the last thing I wanted was to shut off to the world. And yet when it was time to get up and go to work – I wanted it more than anything. I just didn't want to go outside. I didn't want to deal with people: people with happy families, clear skin, shiny careers and good self-esteem. Or just people.

Since finishing my A-levels, I was meant to be working part-time at a sandwich café called Bluebell's– just a 15-minute bus ride away from our London apartment. But if you asked me the actual number of times I did a shift there? I could count them on one hand... It was nice, when I did go. Especially the signature blueberry and white chocolate chip muffins, they were really nice. But not nice enough.

Nothing was nice enough, nothing could take away the fear of not being good enough, the way I wanted to cry just - at nothing, anything, I didn't know why. No one knew why. But Alex was nice enough. He could make me laugh and smile, sometimes even through my tears.

I knew it was wrong - I shouldn't form emotional attachments to musicians, or YouTubers - or anyone I didn't know for that matter. It was stupid. I knew that. But I couldn't help how I felt and for some reason, watching Alex's videos was one of the only things that made me feel okay. And that was all I really wanted.

But we couldn't go back, really. And I wouldn't want to.

A girl could dream – and I did dream. But now it was somewhat coming true and there was no way I wanted to be that sad, lonely girl anymore.

I'd made it. I was here, in a pub – in a room filled with people I'd dreamed about meeting for so long. In a room filled with people – people I'd been avoiding. Until now it had never crossed my mind that they could be the same thing.