Downside Up

Chapter Twenty-Two (We Won't - Jaymes Young, Phoebe Ryan)

Though the rumours about Tyde and me had their bad side because I had lost my friends and was now probably a victim of the "cool kids", they also had their good side.

After we decided that it would be best to film a video, to prove the point that we are not dating, Tyde and Sage had suggested that I should start my own YouTube channel as well.

I loved the idea. I had always enjoyed to express myself and though videos were a new version of "art" that I wasn't used to, I wanted to try making them. Troye lent me one of his old cameras and after I got used to its settings I went around the garden and the district of Perth the Mellets lived in to film some clips.

Connor, who became a close friend of mine in the past week, helped me with the editing and all of the sudden my first video was ready to upload. It had become a short portrait of the neighbourhood I now lived in, starting with my waggling feed and some soft music.

"Hello. That's me. And this is where I live. - Where I live there is a long road that goes straight into the sky. There are also some flowers. Some bees. Some butterflies. Where I live you can always see the ocean. In the morning. In the middle of the day. In the evening. We've got pretty awesome sunsets as well. I like living here. But I not only like this area. I also like the people who live here with me. They are funny and kind. They care a lot - in a good way. And they know how to celebrate. I wish I could stay here forever. Home is where the heart is."

At the end, the screen was black with just that quote written on it, before the video ended. I was actually proud of myself because I loved the small story my video would tell my viewers as well as it's style. It was a video I would enjoy to watch and with that, I had fulfilled my main goal.

Filming videos was even more fun than editing them tho I was looking forward to the collabs with Tyde. His video worked out exactly the way he had planned it and after we had bought the guitar at the flea market my video turned out good as well. With words, I wouldn't have been able to describe how grateful I was for the opportunity to play my favourite instrument again. I knew that the Mellets had a soft spot for music, but their main instrument was the piano. Though I could play I didn't enjoy it as much as playing the guitar.

We covered "Smile" by Mikky Ekko, which is one of my favourite songs and when Connor, Troye, and Sage, who helped us with the lights and the filming, sang along in the last chorus, I almost started crying.

I have had a lot of luck with my host family and through them, I got to know even more great people. Everyone seemed to be nice meanwhile it was the opposite in school. The other students officially seemed to hate me and they couldn't shut up about it, thought I could hear them well every time they started gossiping about me. But maybe that was the point of the whole act of gossiping. Maybe they wanted to hurt me.

Somehow I had known that queen bee was all fake when she sat down next to me for lunch and talked to me during breaks. She wasn't interested in me, in being my friend. She was only interested in the fame, that I would give her - if I was Tyde's girlfriend. When he posted our collab and there was absolutely no romance in between us, she knew that this fame would never come. But she choose me as her victim because I hadn't told her straight from the start.

Technically she never asked me about it, but you know what they say: Please, do not confuse me through facts.

They left rude notes on my desk. They stuck chewed chewing gum onto my locker and acted as rude as possible.

"Look at that fatty - whale-ing down the hallway."

"I hope that she doesn't get a sunburn with her white skin - because that would mean that she would go outside and no one wants her around."