Crying in the Food Court

My dad and his 25-year-old girlfriend’s baby woke me up at four in the morning throwing a tantrum, a generous term for those horrifying screeches. As one does, the first thing I did after sighing as dramatically as I could was check my phone for the time, and to my surprise, I had a notification from YouTube. I was so excited I opened it right away: two new comments!

When my dad told me he was having another kid, I was able to use it to my advantage and convince him to buy me a real camera to finally start my own YouTube channel. The rule with my divorced parents is that big requests must go through both of them with a thumbs up. My mom gave me the green light when I originally asked them six months ago, but my dad was so against it. That is, until he got his half-his-age girlfriend became his baby momma and he felt bad for me. 

It took me three hours to set up my channel because my cover art and profile picture had to be perfect, no exceptions. Because I have been dreaming of this opportunity for years now, I already had about a million video ideas stored in my notes app. When the camera showed up on our stoop, I filmed, edited, and posted my first video, a simple get-to-know-me, that very same day. 

It has been probably a year since I posted my first video, and my growth—if you can even call it that—is as impressive as a first-grade talent show. No one at school knows about my channel yet, except for my three closest friends who swore to secrecy. And for that, I am so grateful. That’s how I have been justifying still having under a thousand subscribers. I tell myself daily, “If my videos had gotten popular already, everyone at school would know, and I don’t want that.” It helps with the disappointment believe it or not. I think I‘ve convinced myself that if I keep posting and flying under the radar, that my channel will take off when I graduate in a few months. Is there some logic missing here? Absolutely. Is it keeping my spirits and motivation up? Also yes.

I currently get an average of 600 views per video. My least popular video only has 56, but my “Drive with Me” has 5,000. I barely ever get comments, which explains the baby howls immediate shift to the backseat of my brain.

I can’t open the app quick enough; everything is happening in slow motion. I imagine this is the same anticipation experienced by sports fan who are passionate enough to punch holes in the wall over bad plays. 

The app finally opens.

LoveLindsay: “This is hilarious”

LoveLindsay: “Hope you don’t mind me sharing your channel with some friends”

Oh my god. These comments may sound harmless, nice even… if the video was supposed to be funny! It’s a completely serious video. My heartbeat quadruples in speed as I am imagining all the people she has sent my video to since she commented at 12:30 a.m. This has to be Lindsay Mahoney. We were inseparable until freshmen year when she accused me of taking her spot on the cheer team. I only tried out because she begged me to do it with her. I swear she has been out to get me ever since. 

I’m in red panic. Never have I ever thrown my phone before, but before I know it, it crashes into the side of my desk and smacks the hard wood floor, hitting my little trashcan on the way down. I jump out of bed, flip on my light, and grab my phone. Casetify’s 60 foot drop promise did not hold up. My phone is absolutely shattered. Chunks of the screen are missing. I must’ve thrown it harder than I thought. The softball team is going to recruit me when they see this. 

I am desperately trying to make this thing usable, but I know it’s done for. I set my phone down and realize there are tears running down my face. What am I supposed to do now? I want to burst into my dad’s room and have him come up with a magical solution, like he would when I would be scared of the “monsters” in my closet ten years ago. But now there is a woman closer to my age than his laying in the bed next to him. I can’t help but think that should be my mom instead, and now I am crying consciously and uncontrollably. 

I manage to calm myself down by drinking some water and focusing on the more timely issue at hand: I need to attempt to delete those videos. I tiptoe out of my bedroom and into the office where the family computer is. This is where I have been editing and uploading my videos.

I log into the computer and type in “YouTube.com” at lightning speed. I hit the tab for my videos, and there is nothing there. I click on the profile; someone logged me out.

Not just someone, but Nicole, my dad’s girlfriend. No wonder the home screen was suggesting pilates videos. I slam my palm to my forehead and try to switch the account back to mine. I type in my log in information only to be welcomed by the undesired red triangle.

YOUR PASSWORD OR EMAIL IS NOT ASSOCIATED WITH AN ACCOUNT.

This cannot be happening right now. I need to take those videos down before everyone wakes up and sees Lindsay’s post or message, or whatever method she took for ruining my social life. When I wanted to start a popular YouTube channel, my dream did not include being bullied for it at school. Three months left of high school, and it’s about to ruined in its entirety. What was I thinking? Why couldn’t I have waited until graduation to start my channel? 

I typed in my password three more times. Red triangle. I can’t even checked the saved passwords on my phone because it is entirely useless. A consequence of my own actions, which is the most unfortunate part. I tried different combinations of capitalizations two or three times each before I deemed it hopeless to go on. I don’t know if YouTube has a limit, and the last thing I want is to be permanently locked out of my account and have those videos permanently on the internet with no possibility of being deleted.

Utterly defeated, I close the window and turn off the computer. I lay my head on the desk and breathe all the stale air out of lungs. After a minute or two of sitting in silence and complete darkness, I pick my head up and turn the computer back on to Google what time the Apple Store opens.

8:00 a.m. Tomorrow is Friday, but there is no way I am going to school tomorrow. I think this overqualifies as a mental health day. 

I shut down the computer and drag my feet back to my bedroom. I faceplant into bed and let out a few necessary sobs into my pillow. I try to sleep, but of course it is an impossible feat. My body is in flight or fight mode for the next two hours. When my alarm clock reads 6:30 a.m., I get out of bed and make myself as presentable as possible given my state of pure fatigue and fear. I curl my lashes but skip mascara for obvious reasons. I grab my car keys and head out the door. The sky is painted with shades of pink and orange, and I feel a twinge of hope in my gut. 

Because I know I will be there with twenty minutes to spare, I stop for a large iced coffee on my way, hoping that the 200 mg of caffeine will allow for me to speak to the Apple employee in coherent sentences. I pull into an almost empty parking lot and find myself feeling thankful that the Apple store is in the mall, a place that I most definitely don’t need directions to. 

My abomination of a phone and I are third in line outside the store. Once the doors open, I am in and out of the store within twenty minutes, thanks to the Apple Care my dad insisted I pay for. I sit at a small table in the food court and set up my phone using the iCloud backup. The process is all happening so smoothly compared to my four a.m. chronicles. 

Once my phone adjusts, my notifications start coming through one by one. First, I got individual texts from my best friends. Then, I see Lindsay tagged me in an Instagram post. I click on that one. A screenshot of my channel with the caption, “You guys have to check this out. Vote Sophie for class clown.” As I am reading the post, a spam of YouTube notifications pops up on my screen. That cannot be good. 

A million thoughts are running through my mind. I am going to have to move schools, maybe even counties. Or start homeschool. Can you even switch so late in the school year?  Will my parents let me drop out with three months left if I figure out how to get my GED?

At this point, I am shamelessly crying in the food court. Thank god they’re not open for breakfast. 

I close Instagram and open Youtube. I worked so hard on these videos just for them to ruin my life and get deleted. Why did I think I was capable of success? No wonder dad didn’t want me to do this. 

I go to my videos and see that my “Drive with Me” has jumped to 100k views. How is that even possible? Our school has like 3000 students? How many followers does Lindsay have?

I start scrolling. All my videos are gaining traction. I am skimming the comment sections of my top videos. So many positive comments. 

CatLover34: This is so cute. I love your music taste

Brit2003: I have the same coffee order!  Can’t wait for more videos

CandyRae: Your editing style is so satisfying. You’ve earned a subscriber

Subscribers… I was so concerned with deleting videos and looking for hate comments that I didn’t even think to check that. I choke on my own spit: 53,8191 subscribers. I can’t believe it. I guess Lindsay sharing the link led to the algorithm picking up my videos. Do I still delete the videos? This was not what I expected to open the app to. When I was imagining all the possible scenarios, none of them were good… and none of them were this. That’s for sure. 

I end up sitting in the food court for the next 45 minutes scrolling through comments on different videos, reading comments on the tagged posts, and responding to texts. 

When I get back to my car, I start a vlog before I even pull out of the parking spot. “You guys will not believe the night I had.” I tell the story and wrap up the video with a big thank you to my new subscribers and for the support. All these strangers leaving kind and unexpected comments all while being completely unaware of the situation and how badly I needed them. 

I get back home and hug my dad. By his facial expression and sheer silence, I can tell he is pondering why I am in the kitchen and not at school. I pop a bagel in the toaster and start telling him everything. By the end of the conversation, he is expressing how proud he is of me, not only for my problem solving skills but also for overcoming Linday’s attempt to ruin my senior year. 

I spend the afternoon editing the vlog I filmed on my way home, posting it, and responding to everyone’s nice comments. I can’t believe I almost deleted all my videos 12 hours ago.

What a day.