Holiday Lanes

Thirteen

"Well baby, I've been here before. I've seen this room, I've walked this floor. I used to live alone before I knew ya. And I've seen your flag on the marble arch. And love is not a victory march. It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah," I sang even though you couldn't really hear the music anymore, you could only hear me.

Elton had lifted the camera so you could see me singing as I cleaned the mirrors.

I could see myself singing and I could hear Elton mumble something under his breath in the video. I was mad, and upset, but I also just couldn't believe he had put that in the video. The video continued playing, but I wasn't paying attention, I was too upset about the singing. I looked at the video and it has over 300,000 views already. I scrolled down and started reading some comments. I read a whole bunch of comments all mentioning me singing in the beginning of the video. The comments all wanted to know who I was. I can't believe this is happening. This video has only been up for a few hours, and it already has so many views.

I started to panic. I stood up and began pacing across the room. I was twisting my ring around my finger and felt like I was falling apart. No one would understand why this is a problem, because I choose not to talk about it, but now I'm going to have to. I continued pacing and felt a few tears fall down my face. I walked over to the bathroom and turned on some cold water. I put my finger tips under the cold water, it's a trick I used to use for anxiety attacks to help me calm down, and just tried to breathe. Do I tell Elton why I wish he wouldn't have put that in the video? I mean, you can't erase it from the internet, and I'm not going to ask him to take it down. Maybe I'm just overreacting, maybe not many people in the video really even listen to me singing.

I turned off the water and sat down on the bathroom floor. I pulled my knees close to my chest and put my head down. 'Breathe Venus, just breathe' I heard the little voice in my head say to me as I took a few deep breaths.

I sat in that position for a few minutes, just regaining my grip on reality. I stood up and walked back into the bedroom. I looked at my laptop and the video had ended. I left the video up and just laid back on the bed. What am I going to do?

A few moments later, I heard footsteps coming down the hall. 'Maybe if I fake my own death no one will question it and I can just deny that it's me in the video,' I thought to myself.

"Hey, are you okay?" I heard from outside of the room.

I looked up and saw Aaron and Corey standing there. I gave them a thumbs up but continued laying there.

"What's going on Vee?" Aaron asked as he and Corey walked into the room.

"Nothing, just contemplating the many different ways I can murder Elton and make it look like an accident," I joked.

They both sat on the bed next to me and Corey touched the trackpad on my laptop so the screen would wake up again. He minimized the tab to look at my background before bringing the tab back up again.

"What did Elton do?" Corey asked with a laugh.

"Did you watch his new video yet?"

"Not yet, but I was with him when he edited it. What's wrong with the video?" Corey asked.

"Nothing, nothing at all," I said sarcastically as I finally sat up.

I grabbed my laptop and closed out of YouTube before I shut it and just sighed slightly.

"Come on Vee, whatever is bothering you probably isn't a big deal. Grab your camera and come downstairs with us," Aaron said as he pushed me a little playfully.