Chapter 6
The lights are too bright. I can’t hear anything except the sound of my own blood pumping. Is this what stage fright is? It’s as if I’m standing still while the world carries on around me. Laugh it off, Tom. Smile and get off the stage without embarrassing yourself any further. I cross my fingers, hoping the ground will swallow me up on my way over to Jack and his colleagues. Play it cool. It’s no big deal. It was just a game show.Light entertainment for the evening, nothing serious.
I went up for content, for a joke. Yep, I’m just one big joke. The idea I might want to find love is so inconceivable it’s hilarious.
I can’t run away. I can’t let it show that I’m falling apart.
I find Jack, pretend the humiliation isn’t eating me up from the inside, and excuse myself for a bathroom break as the game continues onstage. I lock myself in the cubicle and lean against the wall.
I can’t fucking breathe. Why can’t I breathe? It’s like the more I try, the harder it gets.
I can handle rejection, I swear. I’ve been rejected a bunch of times and never cared before. But when girls turn me down, it’s the sex they’re turning down, not me. But this is me. All me. There could be a million reasons someone might turn down sex: I’m not their type or they’re in a “shipuationship” or they could plainly not want to have sex. Great. Easy. But to put myself out there and be rejected for my personality, and to come last to a guy like Matt? That hurts like hell.
I didn’t even want to do this. I was asked, and Jack thought it might be a good idea to help me get over Megan because I can’t have her.
I just had to leave my phone behind the other day. It had to still be recording. And I had to hear everything Harvey said about me. And how easily Megan agreed. I thought there was something special going on between us, but looking back, was she ever gonna let me in?
I’ve got so much love to give, and nobody ever wants it.
The door to the bathroom opens, and I still my erratic breathing so no one will hear me and mistake my shuddering breaths as furious masturbation. I’ve done so much work to be better, to be someone worth loving. I’ve gotten better at controlling my anger, but it’s turned me into a crier. I’m not ashamed of it, but I sure as fuck don’t want anyone to know about it. Harvey got one thing right: I held in too much before, and it wasn’t healthy.
“You doing okay in there?”
Jack.
I release a painful breath. “Yeah,” I call back, sounding anything other than okay.
He knocks on the door.
If it were anyone else, I’d keep them shut out, but it’s Jack. We’ve met each other’s darkness, and I have no shame when it comes to him. I unlock the stall and he slips in, locking it again behind him. He takes in the sight of me, and from the sympathy in his eyes, I know I must look like a pathetic piece of crap hiding in here.
“When’s it gonna be my turn?” I ask, seconds before I’m bundled into his chest in a tight hug.
Hearing the words out loud makes me feel like even more of a loser. It’s a question Jack has no doubt asked himself a million times before, watching all his friends find their forever homes while his stay would only ever be temporary. And here I am, throwing myself a pity party over not landing a date.
I wouldn’t even hug my own brother like this, but Jack is my person. No other way to describe it. It’s such a shame I’m not even a little bit gay, because I love this guy so much more than it’s normal to love a friend.
Jack lets go of me. “Rather it be the right one late than the wrong one early.”
How does he always know exactly what to say?
“You’ll find her one day, I promise.”
The door to the bathroom creaks, and Grace’s voice gets louder and then fades out again as the door swings shut. The two of us freeze, knowing we’re going to have to wait this guy out, but a few seconds pass and I don’t hear him shuffling around to use the urinal.
“Hey, quit sucking each other off in there! I gotta go.”
“It’s so big! I can’t get it all in!” Jack quips back.
That fire right there is exactly why we’re friends. I may have a twin, but Jack’s my platonic twin flame.
I decide to play along. “Relax your throat. That’s it. Oh shit, you’re good at that. Don’t stop.” I make all kinds of noises to piss off that guy even further.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Whoever it is huffs and leaves.
“I can’t go back out there,” I admit.
“Because you want to be fake-gay in here with me some more?” Jack eyes me with curiosity, then he shrugs it off. “Bit weird, but okay.”
With his stupid joke, he inadvertently gifts me with the choice to either smile or stay sad. And choosing to stay sad is how depression starts, so...
“If anyone can handle this, it’s you. We’re going back out there, and we’re gonna do it looking like the happiest guys on earth. Don’t show those fuckers they won.”
I take a deep breath, and we exit the bathroom stall.
“I won’t leave your side,” he assures me.
Every person in the bar might as well be watching me right now, because that’s what it feels like. It doesn’t matter that it’s not true. In the time I’ve been gone, Carmen has made her choice – Gus – and they’re now doing some kind of game to decide their date location. There’s a shout for my name, but I ignore it, hoping the fact it’s so loud and crowded in here will pass as an excuse for my rudeness.
The person calls out again, and I realise it’s Megan. Of course she’s here. Of course she had to witness the most humbling moment of my life. You know what? I don’t care. She’s here. And I need her.
I turn around, and my stress vanishes upon seeing her.
“Hey, do you have your phone on you?” She gets straight to the point, and it puts me back on edge.
I fumble around in my pocket to get it out. “Uh, yeah. Why?”
“Can you turn your AirDrop on? I’ve got stuff for you to put into this week’s videos.”
The last thing I want is evidence of what happened tonight, but I comply because I know she’s only trying to be helpful. She AirDrops over a whole bunch of clips, checks I got them okay, and then immediately deletes them from her phone. Weird. I’ve not seen her do that before.
“Are you running low on storage space?”
“No,” she answers, a little confused.
Great, so she’s deleting everything featuring me from her phone. That’s a sucker punch I could do without tonight.
No – she’s cutting me out because I cut her out. Which I guess is fair, but it sucks all the same.
She says her goodbyes and walks away, leaving me with Jack and my worsening mood. I look down at what she sent me. Whoa. She’s been a fly on the wall in so many places this week. I spotted her once or twice, but only now do I realise the effort she went to even though I’ve been avoiding her for days. I’m grateful to discover that she didn’t film any of this evening. The idea of watching it back, let alone posting it for the world to see, is my worst nightmare.
Jack bumps my shoulder with his and escorts me out of the bar once again. Outside, I spot Megan right down the end of the hall.
“Gem!” I call out, unable to stop myself.
She halts and turns towards us. “Yeah?”
“I’m gonna need help uploading this again. Think you can slot me in sometime?”
It’s hard to see the little changes in her expression from this far away, but after a moment, she says, “Okay.”
“When?” I press, because if she’s cut me out of her photo album, then she’s cut me out of her diary, and I hate that thought.
She unlocks her phone, and I root around in my pocket for my schedule. “Tuesday morning?” she shouts.
“Works for me.” I wait for her to finish programming it in. “Good night.” I turn and walk in the direction of mine and Jack’s room.
“Why did you take part in that?” Her voice sounds small, and it’s not necessarily because of the distance between us.
I take a second to pull my thoughts together, not sure how to tell her about the recording, but I know I’m gonna have to.
“I signed him up.” Jack steps forward. “I thought—” He checks we’re still alone. “I thought it might help with…optics.”
It’s the truth. Maybe not all of it, but that’s one of the reasons I agreed to it in the end.
She nods thoughtfully. “Good night.”
We head our separate ways, but I can’t resist turning back once more.
“What colour have you made my appointment?” I shout.
“Blue,” she confesses, and suddenly my whole world feels brighter.
The second we arrive at the juice bar Megan gets down to business. I hand over my phone so she can watch the videos I made this week and see what she’s working with, then I head to get us smoothies.
I slow my steps on the way back when I spot her giggling to herself. She must be watching the surfing incident. Oh yeah, the bruises I got are totally worth it to see that smile.
Accepting her devil drink, which I’ve kept at arm’s length, she notices the disgust on my face and rushes to defend it. “It’s not that bad!”
“So it’s a little bad?”
She looks down at it and tips her head to the side. “It’s fine.”
“How can you be happy with ‘fine’?”
“Because that’s my life now.” Her regret is instantly clear.
I tread carefully because I never want to make her cry again. “Can I ask you more about that?”
“I’d rather you didn’t,” she says quickly, with a straight face.
“Okay then.” I change the subject even though my head is full of burning questions. “I’m pretty sure one sip of that would kill me.”
“Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.”
My nose wrinkles at the thought.
“Yeah, you probably couldn’t handle it.”
I waggle my finger at her. “Don’t you reverse-psychology me, young lady!”
She pushes the glass across the table towards me. “But you couldn’t, could you?”
This shouldn’t be working. “I could. But I’m not going to.”
“Because you couldn’t handle it.”
Oh, she’s a youngest sibling all right.
She leaves the drink where it is and gets back to watching my videos. The froth floating on the top of it taunts me. I can’t let her think I’m weak. Ah, screw it. In a swift movement I grab the drink and suck on the straw before I can back out. I swallow, but it takes an effort to keep from gagging, bits of green assaulting my throat on the way down.
Gross.“Call a doctor.” I clutch my chest as I struggle.
She snickers. “So you can’t handle it?”
I bolt upright, snapping out of my little charade. “No! That was the opposite of the point I was— I did it! I handled it!”
She cocks an eyebrow with all the words she isn’t saying and then looks back down at my phone, tutting. “If you say so.”
Dammit. I take a few long sips of my tropical smoothie to regulate my system while she watches the last video.
When I get my phone back, I catch up with the family group chat. With me living on a ship, Bobby reinventing himself, and Mom keeping busy, it’s less of a “Hey, how are you?” thing and more of a group journal. We each share what we got up to that day – or in my case, that week – and reply when we can. In grief counselling, we learnt about continuing bonds and allowing yourself to hold space for the person you lost, and we’ve all found it immensely helpful in finding peace again. So Dad’s still in the chat, quite literally ghosting us, but we’re okay with that. All the photos we’ve ever shared and his messages are all still here if we ever want to look back at them, and I often do.
Mom, Tom’s stripping on the internet.
I can hear the playful whine in Bobby’s voice as I read one of his messages. So he’s seen the short clip of me playing volleyball where I took my top off. Sure, that wasn’t the only clip from volleyball Jack captured, but I don’t work hard on my body to hide it away.
I read through the rest of their messages and then share some highlights from my week, interrupting myself to ask Megan a question. “What’s this thing you’re doing right now called again—? Wait, no, I got it. Search…Thomas the Tank Engine…optimisation,” I mumble as I type it out, keeping one eye on Megan.
She shakes her head, a smile on her perfect lips.
After I hit send, I head over to TikTok. Notifications haven’t been popping up, and there’s no red-numbered dot on the corner of the app icon either. That briefly concerns me. Maybe the scheduling app didn’t work this week. But when everything loads up, I know that isn’t the case at all. It’s the exact opposite.
“Holy shit.”I feel as if hot coffee has been injected into my veins. “This can’t be… Did we…? Gem, we did it!”
Megan looks over my shoulder, but I can’t think straight enough to linger on how good it feels to have her so close to me again, because staring back at me are thousands of comments, likes, follows, and DMs. I can’t bring myself to click on any of them, because I’m scared the second I touch them they’ll disappear and I’ll realise this is actually a demon juice-induced hallucination.
“Help,” I whimper.
Megan shakes my shoulders with excited hands. “Oh my God, congratulations!”
Reality finally catches up to me and I let go of all my tension with a wave of laughter. I drop my phone on the table and wrap my arms around her tightly in celebration.
“Thank you so much, Gem.” I pull away and do everything in my power not to kiss her face with appreciation.
“I’m so happy for you.” She smiles softly.
Now would be a great time to kiss…but I restrain myself, breaking eye contact and getting to work on breathing normally again. It happened. We got my name out there. I can make so many people happ?—
Oh no.
What if I went viral for something bad? What if there’s a word that’s become problematic this week, and I didn’t know because I live in the middle of the ocean with rare access to the internet, and I’ve used it and offended an entire minority group?
“What are you waiting for?” Megan asks while I stare into space.
“I’m too scared to look.”
“Want me to do it?”
I nod enthusiastically. “Yes, please.” I give her back my phone, and she begins analysing everything. “Have I been cancelled?”
She looks up at me, confused. “What? No. Why would you get cancelled?”
“Just a new fear I’ve unlocked in the past thirty seconds.”
After another minute or two spent scrolling, she looks up and gives me a reassuring smile. “No, you haven’t been cancelled. Everybody loves you.”
I let out a huge sigh of relief.
“Some people really love you.” Her eyes bulge suggestively.
“What do you mean?”
“You have at least a hundred proposals.” She scrolls some more. “Fifty percent of which I’d say aren’t exactly for your hand in marriage…”
“What?”
She passes back my phone so I can read the comments:
Stand up? More like sit down. On my face.
I choke on my smoothie.
“You okay?” Megan pats me on the back.
“Yeah, fine. I mean, I wasn’t expecting…that.” I flash her the screen. “How…? Why would…? Is that even a thing?”
“In the words of Bo Burnham, ‘welcome to the internet’,” she says with a sarcastic smile.
I brace myself and continue reading.
Do you have a girlfriend?
I’ve got something else he can smack and it isn’t a volleyball…
Marry me! I’ll organise everything, you only have to turn up!
SO HOT!
Pleeaaassseee tell me he’s single. Actually, I don’t even care if he is, I’m willing to share.
Hands up if you’re looking up cruise jobs right now to be his ship-wife!
He’s a seaman, and what do you know I like?—
“Jeeeesus Christ. Why is everybody so horny?”
“It could be worse. You could be a woman on the internet,” she remarks light-heartedly, but all at once, things start to slot into place.
1.5 million followers.
Everybody hates her.
She came here to start over.
This is her life now.
She wasn’t running an account for someone else, was she? I mean, look at her – it would make complete sense if she was some kind of model or influencer. Was she cancelled? And if she was, will I ever find out what for?
Megan goes back to finishing off her very important work while I revel in all the attention. Even though the number of likes on that ship-wife comment raises a few concerns for my privacy – my safety too – I can’t lie: it feels really good to be wanted for a change.
I click on a notification that says I’ve been tagged in a video and my jaw hits the floor. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”Someone’s actually made a thirst trap using a slowed-down clip of me taking off my shirt. The video flashes in black-and-white while music plays that makes you think about staying up all night fucking.
I shoot Megan a look of absolute shock, and she looks up from the video with a smirk.
“That’s what happens when you show a bit of skin online, Tom. Get used to it.”
“Are you trying to say I was asking for it?” I pretend to be offended.
She narrows her eyes and leans in with the cutest, most playful smile on her lips. “How does it feel?”
“Fucking awesome! Why do women complain about being sexualised all the time? This is great!” I purposely wind her up.
We burst out laughing, and I swipe off the video before it gets to my head. There’s no way this is happening. I go back to my own content and start scrolling through comments, deciding which ones I can reply to without encouraging a potential stalker.
“Okay, ready to upload? What are you doing?” There’s an edge of panic to her voice.
“Replying to comments to get my engagement up. I’m telling these ladies to first of all buy me dinner, and I’m confirming that I am in fact single.” It’s so lame that I’m trying to bait her like this, but all I want is for her to stop me and tell me I’m not single. That she wants me. She was clearly upset I took part in Blind Date – as was I – but in the few days since then, even though I’ve stopped avoiding her, nothing’s changed.
Get jealous over me again, Princess. Please.
She puts her hand on my arm, looking serious.
Yes – it’s happening!
“Don’t say a word.”
A grin tugs at the corner of my lips. “Why not?”
Come on, tell me I’m taken. Tell me I’m yours.
“This is a perfect opportunity.” To declare your love for me. “You need engagement, absolutely, but nothing brings engagement more than people wanting to be right about something or to point out that someone else is wrong. You tell them upfront and it’s over.”
Oh…
It takes a genuine effort to hide my disappointment. “So I just ignore it?”
“Could do. Or…you could really lean into it.”
“And how do I do that?”
She checks her watch. “Let me think about it. I need to get these uploaded for you first.”
My PR manager has spoken. She sends her notes over to my phone and then starts copy-and-pasting all her SEO-approved jargon into my app with each of my videos. I take mental notes on what she’s doing, because I came dangerously close to needing to do this all on my own, and I realise now how badly I’d have failed without her help. But I pretend to watch the world go by as she taps away, just so she can’t decide I’m capable of going solo and that I don’t need to hang out with her like this each week.
She finishes up, checks her watch again, and sips the last of her drink.
“Somewhere to be?”
“Some of the sports staff are going out for lunch. Thought I’d join them.”
I can’t hide how happy I am for her. A few weeks ago, she’d never willingly do something like that, and yet here she is, looking actually excited to go.
“Mind if I walk you there so we can talk game plan? I have no idea where to start when it comes to chairing a debate in the comments.”
“Sure.” She smiles, and I follow her out.
“So…I shouldn’t tell people I’m single.”
“Correct.”
“But surely people will get bored of not knowing.”
“Not if we do it right. Have you heard of controlled controversy?”
I shake my head.
“See it as an umbrella term for this kind of marketing strategy. Most content like this can be split into three categories. First, you’ve got Feather Rufflers. They’re the ones who actively make polarising content trying to divide everyone. These creators don’t care if they’re hated by half the population – in fact, they thrive on it. They’ve got half their viewers supporting them because their opinions align, while the other half of their engagement comes from people spouting hate, either to them or about them. The reason these creators don’t care is because at the end of the day, they’re getting views, getting paid, and – most importantly for these types of influencers – gaining notoriety.”
“Right.”
“Then you’ve got Hansels and Gretels.”
“Are these official terms?”
She looks away, sheepish. “No, just mine.”
Damn, she’s cute when she nerds out about marketing. “Sorry, continue.”
“Hansels and Gretels leave little breadcrumbs in their videos for sharp-eyed viewers to pick up. So they might misspell a word, get a small fact wrong, or have something odd in the background that people can point out.”
“Okay, and what’s the third category?”
“Men with podcasts.”
My laugh gets caught in my throat.“Of course it is. And let me guess, they’re the ones who do all this completely by accident because they’re straight up terrible people?”
“Exactly.” She hits me with the cheekiest of smiles.
“Isn’t all this just a fancy way of saying ‘clickbait’?”
She grabs my arm and veers off-path, taking cover behind a palm tree and looking around as if I’ve revealed classified military secrets. “Shh! Keep your voice down.”
I smirk at her farce. “Is that a dirty word?” I ask quietly, too close to her now to resist breathing her in.
“It’s like saying ‘Shakespeare’s overrated’ to a drama teacher,” she says in a hushed tone, looking around. Once she deems the coast is clear, we continue walking to the restaurant.
I consider all this new information. “So I don’t want to pit people against each other – least of all me. My skin’s not thick enough to handle that. And I am not starting a podcast. You’ve already pushed my limit by getting me to vlog.”
She giggles. “Don’t worry, we’re going for the other strategy. If you want to, that is.”
“Hey, you’ve gotten me this far – I’m down for trying it. But I’ll need you to tell me what to do.”
“I’ll brainstorm some ideas later, but the main thing is, it has to be really, really small.”
“But surely if it’s too small, no one will notice?” I don’t know why I’m challenging her when she so clearly knows what she’s doing, but I don’t want to mess this up.
“You’re severely underestimating what women are capable of finding out about a guy online.”
That thought alone would be enough to scare me if I’d ever bothered with social media before this. I almost feel lucky I kept away from it while I was growing up, because now no one has anything to dig up.
“And if no one notices?”
“Then you’ve lost nothing. You’ll still be putting out your usual content.”
We arrive at the restaurant to find it heaving with people. We both scan the tables, looking for her team, but they’re nowhere to be seen. Megan connects her phone to the Wi-Fi, faffs for a second, and then sighs, looking crushed.
“What’s up?”
“They couldn’t get a table, so they’ve gone to some burger bar instead.”
“Oh, I know where that is.” I begin to head in the direction of it, but she stays where she is and takes a deep breath.
“No, it’s okay. Let’s head back.”
“Why? It’s not too far from here. Five minutes, tops.”
“Honestly, it’s fine.”
Oh, hell no.I have no idea what’s caused the sudden change of heart, but there’s no doubt it probably took her a lot to agree to attend this thing, and I’m not gonna let her give up. I catch up to her, already a few steps away from me, and grab her hand. It’s a feeling I could get lost in, if only she’d hold my hand back and wouldn’t keep walking away from me.
“The food’s really good there.” I continue my sales pitch.
“I’ll grab lunch on the ship.”
I tug her some more. “I think you’ll have a good time.”
“It’s fine. I’d really rather go back.”
I stop dead and use my new muscles to prevent her from walking any further. “Gem, you wanted to go. I really think?—”
Her hand slips from my grasp as she turns back to me abruptly. “I can’t go!” she snaps, and I can already feel the heat scalding my cheeks. “I can’t… It’s not…” Her strength weakens as helplessness takes over. “I can’t do spontaneous. There are too many unknowns. I wouldn’t know how to get back to the ship alone if I had to. I still don’t know these people very well. I don’t trust them, and I don’t know what to expect from them. That was meant to be the one uncontrollable thing I’d have to tolerate, but now…it’s everything. They’ll have already sat down, so I’ll probably have to drag a chair over and disrupt everyone, or sit on the end where I can’t hear anything and get left out, or I’ll have to sit on a table by myself, or I’ll get put next to Matt, and I honestly couldn’t tell you which of those options would be worse.”
Being next to Matt. Definitely.
“I don’t know if they’ll have something I’ll like on the menu, and if they don’t and I wing it and hate it then the food will get wasted, but if I don’t order anything at all I’ll look like some freak who went out to lunch but didn’t eat, and people will start speculating I have some kind of eating disorder – I don’t, by the way – which will only mean they’ll monitor me more closely over the next few weeks or even months when I just want to lie low. I know this all sounds stupid. Believe me, I hear it. It’s exhausting living like this, and I’d honestly rather not exist, but I do, so I have to endureall this nonsense, but I’ll pick missing out again over having to put myself through that. It’s too much stress, and I don’t want to go.”
Her neck is flushed and her chest is heaving as she catches her breath. Princess. I knew she was shy. I knew she had her secrets. But knowing she’s so tortured by anxiety crushes me. I hate that she’d prefer to miss out than ask for help and get to have a good time.
Guilt wracks me for having caused some kind of spiral, or maybe contributing to one that was already happening, and I have to find a way to fix it. I can’t let her feel like she’s alone in this. And I can’t in good conscience stand by and let her anxiety win without trying one last thing. I get my phone out and look up the burger bar’s menu before handing it to her.
“I said?—”
“I know, but you can look for next time. While I have Wi-Fi,” I bargain.
Surprising me again, she actually looks at it.
“The jerk chicken burger with pineapple salsa is awesome. Though I think you’ll wanna skip on the salsa – might be too sweet if you’re not used to having actual flavour in your food.” It’s a bold joke to make right now, but her lip quirks into a tiny smile.
“Think they’d do it without the bun?”
“I’m sure they would, but if they don’t, I’d eat it.” Because I’m absolutely going to be there with her whenever she’s feeling up to it.
When she makes no move to walk off again, I click off the menu and tap the button to get directions so she can see where it is in relation to the ship. “It’s a ten-minute walk back. Mostly along this same route we’ve already done. I’d leave with you, however suddenly, and take you back if you needed to go. I’d finish whatever you don’t like so there’s no waste. I wouldn’t ever let you eat alone or get shoved on the end or put next to Matt. If?—”
“Why would you do that? Any of it? Why do you care if I go or not?”
“Because I care about you.”
Her whole aura shifts as she processes my words.
“And you’re helping me with something I find hard that you find easy, so I want to return the favour.”
“Thank you,” she says softly, staring down at the ground.
“You wanna give it a try?”
She nods.
“Come on then.” I take her hand and lead the way.
I’m not met with the usual smug feeling I get when I win something. I just feel good, because while she might not trust anyone else, she’s beginning to trust me.