ethan & emma: talking with you.

When the Masks Come Off

November 2018.

It wasn't as if the cruel comments stopped flooding in on Halloween, after Emma began putting in a concerted effort to ignore them. No, in fact, they only seemed to get worse.

It wasn't only random strangers putting in their two cents on her personality, appearance, outfit, and relationships anymore, but people she knew.

Emma was lounging on her bed and editing a video the Friday before Thanksgiving when her phone vibrated on her nightstand. She chopped another two seconds out of her video - one in which she was attempting to explain why she didn't upload that much and, ironically, wanting to delete the goddamn video itself - before tugging out her headphones. Ethan was messing around in her kitchen downstairs, and she could hear the clink of glass as she picked up her phone.

She frowned. It was the 💛GiRdIeS 🖤groupchat. The groupchat that had been dead for more than a month now.

[3:07 p.m.] Hannah: hi guys

[3:07 p.m.] Hannah: guess what?

Emma shifted in her covers, a little uncomfortably. She hadn't talked directly to Hannah since... well, since Fiji. They had never been super close, but the problem was they didn't have much to talk about now that Emma's life was so different from hers. YouTube was the only thing they had in common.

Emma debated being the first one to respond and then decided that would probably be awkward. Setting her phone down, she returned to editing, only to have her concentration broken another minute later.

[3:08 p.m.] Ellie: What's up?

[3:08 p.m.] Hannah: i'm coming to LA tomorrow for a meeting!

[3:08 p.m.] Hannah: you're both in LA this weekend right?

[3:09 p.m.] Hannah: we could have a girdies reunion & film! miss you both 🥺

Emma stared at the messages in surprise. Ellie hadn't even told her she was going to be in LA. She wasn't obligated to, of course, but Emma felt a little left out nonetheless. She was also wondering why Hannah wanted to film.

It was stupid. Emma knew it was stupid. But she couldn't help but be kind of hurt that Hannah would rather film than just hang out.

After spending so much time with Ethan, Emma had started to absorb his mindset. YouTube was a job, and personal relationships existed outside of it. There was a reason Ethan never featured Ryan - his best friend from back home - or Bryant or Kyle on his channel. There was a reason he and Grayson didn't daily vlog. There was a reason he kept his romantic relationships private.

Subjecting not only the other person but the relationship between you to public scrutiny and analysis was terrifying. It could ruin relationships. If her and Ethan weren't actually together, she couldn't imagine how awkward they'd be around each other knowing that millions of people wanted them to date.

As well as putting pressure on your relationship to appear perfect on camera, there was also the fact that Emma's channel was growing at five times the rate that Hannah's was.

Not that she thought Hannah cared about numbers.

But she couldn't help but wonder...

If Emma didn't have any subscribers, if she wasn't on YouTube at all, would Hannah still want to film together? Given that they hadn't talked in weeks...

Emma sighed. She was probably overthinking things. When people were constantly attacking her for everything she did, it was hard not to become extremely paranoid.