Becoming a YouTuber?!

Chapter 2: Just one week

It's Sunday evening and for what feels like the first time in ages, I lied down. I curled up into a ball and snuggled under the blanket on the sofa. I put out my hand to see if it would be steady but as with the previous seven days it was still shaking. I had been so hopped up on adrenalin for too long.

I sighed, closing my eyes and thinking back on the week that had passed. It had been the most surreal experience of my life.

When I woke up Tuesday morning my first video had over 500,000 views and I had gained 77,000 subscribers. I had great numbers on my blog but I had to admit YouTube was a different scale. I had gotten tweets throughout today informing me that I already had over 200,000 subscribers. It didn't seem real that five videos and one active week qualified me for the famous silver play button.

Niomi had been a real support through this as she had started her channel about two years ago after being afflicted with some big name YouTubers. She was there for me through this crazy experience and as she had been through the exact same thing, I felt she could relate more than anyone else. And I tried to be there for her about her and Marcus' break-up. I didn't have any personal experience about break-ups, and especially not so public ones. Next week, she would move out of their old flat and I had offered to help.

I drifted off to sleep and had the most disturbing dreams. I had mainly slept in two or three hour naps during the day, as I couldn't find proper rest during the night. I knew it was worrying Nate. I got into the weird dream state where you're aware you're dreaming but it feels real regardless. My head was filled with thoughts of public break-ups, using personal relationships to jumpstart on a platform and obsessing over numbers. It was very unsettling and I wanted to wake up but I just couldn't shake myself awake.

"Abbs..."

I heard a faint voice in the distance calling my name. Yes, that was my way out. I bolted upwards and instinctively reached out for the voice, which pulled me into a hug.

"Hey... It's okay," he shushed in my ear. "It was just a nightmare."

My whole body was shaking now, almost as if I was cold. In reality, I wasn't because I still felt the heavy woollen blanket around me.

Nate pulled back to look at me and put a stray strand of hair behind my ear while caressing my cheek. He had been very distracted this week and I knew he had tried to hide it. He'd been on my case constantly, texting me hourly asking how I was doing or about specific things he heard online. I'm sure all his business partners were getting tired of him constantly having to check up on me.

Of course, I had told him countless of times that he needed to focus on his projects and not worry about me but he wouldn't even hear of that.

"I think I've gotten so insomniac that I can't even properly sleep when I'm sleeping," I sighed.

"Do you want to go to the doctor about it?" Nate asked in all seriousness. He had a legit phobia of hospitals and could literally have a broken arm and refuse to get it checked out. So the fact that he was even asking was probably a testament to how serious he was about it.

"Nah," I said. I didn't care much for hospitals either and didn't want to explain my situation to a doctor. I doubt they would understand anyway.

"Did you film with Marcus?" I asked, rubbing my eyes. He had arranged to film with Marcus but mostly I think Nate just wanted to talk to him and hang out. They were friends from way back around the time he started YouTube. However, he was also friends with Niomi and I really disliked this tear in our YouTube family, though I knew there was nothing to done about it.