Str3ami3s by Cam Joyce
Ben is part of a trio who have been live-streamed since childhood, with every waking moment manipulated for the sake of views.
The camera clicks on again, all of us moving through the room in a hazy bliss, pretending we do not notice as it hovers nearer to our heads. The room is done up to exemplify George, a conceptualization of his bedroom: the shag carpet, littered with toys that we 'love', chipping sailboat wallpaper, graphic T-shirts some hard-core fans might realize none of us have worn, a meticulously intimately messy bed.
"Georgie, you're such a nerd," Lily laughs, shaking her head, "isn't he such a nerd, guys?"
She'd found an old poster hanging up on the walls, which was shimmering in her hands, switching between a few different movies. Her nails, red for the time being, crinkle against the poster paper, crumpling it.
I snatch it away from her, peering down at it. "These movies are, like, two years old, Georgie! You're really still on this?"
"I like them! They're..." George hesitates, pushes his glasses up with his thumbs as he struggles for the words to describe it.
Of-fucking-course.
The cameras click off. I bite back a sigh.
"Damn it, George! We get enough 'staged' allegations as it is without you not knowing the fucking posters hanging in your room." Lily slams her hand down on the desk, shaking her head.
"I did! There are a million things in this room, Lils, I'm not perfect."
"We can't convince anyone of shit if you can't even pretend to know what you're saying and mean it." Lily rips the paper from my hands, shoving it at George.
George throws it right back. "Who cares if we make people want to watch some movie! We have actual Targets, Lily, actual things to promote."
"You -"
"Enough," I cut them off, rubbing at my forehead. God. "We need to get the cameras back on. People will get bored." Str3ami3s is a constant-stream site; we'll lose our place on For-You soon.
The camera clicks just as I say it, and Lily beams. "What was that about the movies, Georgie?"
Georgie begins a long spiel about the movies, which I guess the Managers put into his head while we were talking. He's looking at the viewers now, clip-farming. There's a trend now for fans to edit the 'nerds', and the Managers really want him playing into it. George runs a hand through his unbrushed-mop hair, messes with his wired-frame glasses again.
I tune him out almost subconsciously, shifting my attention to other things in the room. The viewers already see me as sort of spacey, so I do need to work on it, but right now I think it fits fine. Of course I'm bored by George.
He is supposed to be the butt of our joke. The fans who like Lily and I best find it funny, and George's fans are only George's for the angst of him being our least-favorite friend.
There's a comment in my head laughing at my posture, from the viewers judging by the tone (lighthearted, unserious. Definitely not Managers). It must have gotten seriously upvoted for me to be hearing it, usually the Managers wait until my 'break' to give me the viewers feedback.
Though I guess that was the point of giving us the Chip when the Managers took us as clients; I remember Mama telling me how much easier things were going to be, when I got the Chip.
"It'll keep you safe," she whispered, kissing my forehead, "you don't want more hate comments, right? The Managers will make sure no one hates you again. Be a big boy, okay?"
God. Mama.
The Chip does make it easier, I guess. The Chip supplies the more exciting, most profitable move and I don't even have to think.
It buzzes. I am supposed to be paying attention.
I straighten up just as Lily says my name.
"Ben," she begins, leaning in close, "what cologne is that? You smell so good."
This would be weird if we were off camera, certainly, but right now it's just worrying. Lily is supposed to be enthralled with George right now, part of a years-long Arc.
The viewers will not like this. She is, essentially, cheating. With her boyfriend's best friend. Yikes.
The Chip alerts me of rising viewership. In my head, I see more sad edits of George and sexy-evil-bad-boy edits of myself. My likeability will fall, but we can't have two sweetheart good guys. George and I take turns being smoking-cheating-sexy-asshole.
Flirt back, the Chip alerts me, now.
"Thanks, Lils," I smirk, winking at George. I think of Mama, kissing my forehead when the Managers told her they wanted to Chip me. Hire me, they said. They wanted to hire me. To forge my image. Make me famous.
I wonder if Mama knew they were making me this brand of famous. I wonder if she's watching.
"The cologne name?" Lily purrs, blinking at me. God, poor George. Or, poor pretend-George. I am not sure how real George will feel about this. But this is one of our Targets. We have to hit it.
Probably doesn't matter. Probably, we will have new issues to discuss the next time my 'break' is at the same time as him.
"Sultry Pines. The most sensual tree, pines," I tell her. The Chip produces the joke in my head just in time, but I'm not confident in the tone of it. Lily plays it off well, echoing the words back to me. She does much better, I am sure that clip will become a soundbite. It will boost her ratings. She wraps her hand around my bicep, and I glance down at the chipped red nail polish. The Managers really need to give her a Glow Up Arc.
I don't know how I didn't realize it, but, clearly, I have underperformed, because I recognize the static electric feeling the Chip supplies in my mind. George clocks it the second I do, his gaze shifting to mine. I think I see a hint of apology in his eyes, a prerequisite, but I'm probably making it up. Pretend-George would never apologize to me right now, and real-George would never make the mistake of showing the viewers.
I tell myself George is sorry, for this. He is only following the Chip's orders.
George pushes up his glasses with his thumb and socks me right in the face. I slam to the ground, straight into the shaggy blue carpet. Fucking George. Even as the weak one, he can still clear me, because the Managers gave him a Winter Glow Up Arc last year, partially to help him finally bag Lily and partially to have him advertise ChuBeGone, the hot new thing in protein powder.
The Arc got cancelled because ChuBeGone was proven to cause scurvy, but he hasn't managed to shave off the gains yet.
In any case, George is strong: when he punches, it fucking hurts. He doesn't stop at one, either, because the electric feeling hasn't faded, meaning this is going to be a long break.
Maybe it's not my fault. I can almost convince myself of that. Maybe there is some new medicine they need to promote, maybe some new operation they want me to get. Maybe this is their way of explaining away the nose job they've wanted me to get for the last eight years.
This would be a good way of excusing a nose job.
The camera stays on as red and blue lights flash, and I am eased away by paramedics. As I lay on a stretcher, the paramedics tell me that it is not just my nose, but my skull, which cracked open when I slipped on SugaBall, a rival brand to one of our Targets. Str3ami3s is replaying the clip now on the Clips-feed, with a special focus on the bouncy ball that took me out.
The Managers have sent me a new chart: purchases for Sultry Pines are up, and SugaSuga is down.
People have been influenced today.
The hospital is public: I am followed by one of the cameras, making this incident look unscripted, and there is a conglomerate of fans who are not being restrained by the paramedics.
I let the fans lean in for selfies, kiss my cheek, or slap me for being an ass. My head stings, flashing lights going off and all my synapses firing to try and keep me cool. The chip keeps buzzing: touch that girl's hair (soft), groan (ouch), kiss her cheek (sweaty).
I try to grin. The Managers tell me it's good, because you can see the blood on my teeth. Good clip.
"I think you're, like, so beautiful," one girl coos at me. "I, like, literally don't even remember a year of my life that I didn't have a crush on you."
"Oh my God, you were a baby when the trinity blew up?" an older woman says, tightening her grip on my arm. Ow.
"Um, yeah?"
"That's so crazy. I remember watching their first stream in my first fucking apartment. You three have grown up so much since then, you're sure not kids anymore!" She laughs, pressing her hands into my cheek.
We just celebrated Lily's 17th a few days ago, and she's the oldest of us.
The paramedics, finally deciding that my concussion is serious enough to deserve to be treated, push me past the fans.
I don't even get a private room, which seems a little bit twisted to me. All my work and the Managers can't even get me a private room? Not even private doctors? Nothing?
A few moments later, the Managers buzz in my ear informing me of the reason why I'm not getting the star treatment I've become so accustomed to.
The viewers didn't like the scene of George punching me. We're coming under fire for being scripted, which is ridiculous, because we wouldn't be on Str3ami3s if we were scripted. We'd just be on the regular feed.
The Managers don't care about that, though, because of course they don't. They care about keeping our ratings high. All of us do, so I'll cope with the public hospital. It won't be so long.
The girl in the cot next to me shifts over to look at me, blinking. Her leg is lifted into the air, like the cartoons Lily and I used to watch sometimes.
"What happened to your leg?" I ask.
She blinks again. "Usually people ask for names first."
"Oh."
"My name is Amelie."
"Okay."
"I broke my leg snowboarding. It fractured. Like, split in half. Bad shit."
I'm not confident legs can be split in half. "Cool. Snowboarding's cool."
"Mhm."
I sort of think we're done talking, but right as I turn over on my bed, she coughs, calling back my attention. I wipe some sweat from my forehead, pull some of my hair out from under the bandages.
"I like your content a lot."
"Thanks."
"I don't think you're, like, a bad guy. I was watching the stream when George punched you."
"Oh."
"I don't think it was your fault. Lily's a total bitch, though." She pauses, looking up at the camera. "Am I on the stream right now?"
"Yeah."
"Weird."
There's a quiet knock at the door, and then Lily bursts in. She shuffles awkwardly at the entryway for a few seconds, fiddling with one of her necklaces.
"Hey," I say.
"Hi," Lily takes my speaking as her cue, rushing over to my bedside. "I was really worried about you. George was too."
"No he wasn't," I scoff. There's some general sadness from the viewers coming through the Chip now, which I guess is the Managers way of tellingme to keep hamming it up.
"He was. He just... I mean, you know. He was amped up."
"What's been going on with him lately?" I don't even register the words until they're already out of my mouth. I guess the Managers really wanted that line.
"I don't know. I'm getting really worried about him, Ben. I think he's doing drugs."
The cameras click off, presumably following George. Lily sits down in the visitor's chair, slumping over.
I lay my head down, listening to the droll buzzing of the hospital room, the faint sounds of patients' conversations from down the hall, Amelie's heavy breathing.
"Is he really?" I ask. George and I were recruited at the same time. He was crying when I met him; I think I held his hand (or he held mine) for the first week straight at the filming house.
"Really what?" Lily asks, picking at her nails.
"Doing drugs."
Lily looks up at me. "Not sure. I think so, but I also think it might be because... you know." She glances over her shoulder, glaring at Amelie, who isn't even pretending not to be eavesdropping. "I guess it doesn't matter anyways," she finally says.
"Of course it matters. He could be having a serious mental health crisis, or -"
"Or nothing, Ben," she interrupts softly, "that's all there is to it."
I open my mouth to argue, but there's nothing more to say. If the fans are seeing George go through addiction, then for all intents and purposes, he is.
And we're not scripted anymore, so my bet is the Managers really do have him doing them for real. No pretending, that'd be too easy to detect.
Lily suddenly stands, dropping something on my bedside table. "From your mom. Managers cleared me to leave." She hesitates, glances back at me one more time before she goes. "You are okay, though, yeah?"
"Yeah," I pause. "Lily?"
"What?"
"Are you here because of the Managers, or..."
Lily purses her lip, cocking her head. "What's the difference?"
I think, for a moment, that it does make a difference. I've always thought the three of us were close, really close, underneath all of the pretend.
Lily looks at me for a long moment, waiting for me to reply. I think of meeting her for the first time, Mama holding my hand and telling me I was gonna collab with a creator my age. A friend, Mama called it, you're going to meet a friend who really understands you.
"Thanks for coming to see me, Lils," I mutter.
"Of course." Lily leaves the door open when she goes, and I watch the fans swarm her as she sashays away, flipping her hair over her shoulder. It hits a guy in the head, but he doesn't seem too bothered.
"That was so fucking weird," Amelie says. I'm not listening to her, picking up Mom's card. There's a little lamp printed on the front, and words that read: If I had one wish...
The lamp is replaced by a genie, who tells me: I would wish all of this away! - Mom
Her signature, at least, is exactly how I remember it from permission slips and reading logs when I was younger, when the Managers made us do school for a few hours a day.
The Chip buzzes me. Stop being distracted, that's what it's trying to tell me, you have work to do. I pull out my phone, logging onto a private Str3am. I read some comments, engaging with the fans. It's the only way to keep them interested when in recovery, that's what the Managers have always said. Remind them that you're their 'friend'. The fans seem generally empathetic today, asking if my nose feels better yet. Some of them tell me I suck for betraying George like that. One guy leaks my address, my room number.
I roll over in bed and tell the friends it's my naptime.
I'm not cleared to leave the hospital for nearly a month, mostly for production reasons (the Managers explain that Lily and George need a BreakUp Arc). Amelie will leave before I do; in two more weeks. The days pass, mostly, uneventfully. The nurses stop coming in for treatment pretty soon, but they fake check-ups every once and a while. For appearances. Amelie and I get food, talk to each other, and sleep. I try to watch our stream whenever I can. One night, we go up to the roof. I take her on a wheelchair; she knows all the tricks to get up there. Amelie, she reminds me, broke her leg snowboarding because she was trying to impress her friends.
"I don't think they cared, though," she told me. "I don't think my friends like me very much."
I can't see her face in the dark, but I know that she's looking at me. I'm not totally sure how to reply, and the Managers have cut back the amount of assistance they give me lately. Trying not to be scripted.
"That one's Virgo," I say, pointing to the constellations, "and that's the Dipper."
Amelie hesitates, like she's waiting for me to continue. "Big one or little one?"
"Dunno."
"Are you guys really as close as they make you seem?" Amelie asks.
I don't reply to that one, mostly because I can't remember if the camera is on or not. I'm not sure what the honest answer is. More importantly, I'm not sure what the correct answer is.
Amelie must take it as a sign that I agree with her, that I relate to her in some sense of the word. She leans in close, resting her head on my shoulder. I don't have enough energy to push her off.
After that night, she is pretty much attached to my hip. I'm not totally sure what to make of it, but I know the fans are loving it. Amelie brings our ratings up a lot, unintentionally. She's irritating, overbearing, and loud, but that makes her one thing the trinity never has been: authentic.
On her second to last day in the ward with me, she is laying on my bed, scrolling through comments online. The camera is on.
"Look at this edit of us," she murmurs, tugging me down to watch it. It's nothing all that exciting, not even all that good. It doesn't even have 10K likes yet.
"Mmm." I shift back into my bed.
"People really want us to get together."
I hold back an eyeroll - like hell they do. She's just been watching the few videos that don't hate her. Most of my fans don't like her. She's ruining their OT3, and apparently I'm clearly uncomfortable.
The Managers haven't told me how they want me to approach the situation, so I've just been honest, mostly. Neutral.
"I mean, it's not like Lily's gonna want you. She's clearly over it."
"Probably."
"Don't be so jealous." Amelie giggles, touching my face. I pull away, slapping her hand away. Where are the Managers? No one is supposed to be able to get this close to me for so long.
"I'm not jealous."
"Sure."
"We're not going to get together, Amelie. It's not happening."
Amelie groans, sitting up and glaring at me. "God, Ben, why are you like this? Why are you so afraid of being understood? I mean, come on. Those people don't care about you, they don't even really know you."
I raise a brow. "And you do?"
Somehow, that makes her expression soften. "It's okay to not be ready yet, Ben. I know it's scary to leave things you've always known. But I like you, and you like me. That's all there needs to be for now."
For the first time in a long time, the Managers have something to say. I am not supposed to outright reject her yet.
"Okay," I say instead, resting my head on the pillow and turning away from me. It takes her a long time to leave, but she does, eventually.
By the day Amelia leaves, I've decided I don't like her very much at all: she's always asking questions. I guess the Managers are using her to have someone who can make a public statement about us, tell the whole world that we are so very for-real.
"I feel like we've gotten really close," Amelie says. She can walk now, only on crutches. She's not supposed to but that hasn't stopped her yet: she's standing over my bedside table now.
"Yeah," I reply.
"You know, it really sucks that all of your friends are, like, so fake to you. They don't even like you."
"Maybe."
The camera clicks on.
"I like you," she says.
"Yeah," I frown. "Wait."
"Like, really like you. I think we could be something. For real." She presses her hand against my chest. I can't move away. God, why can't I move?
"Wait."
It occurs to me that, while I've been in the hospital, I haven't been selling anything. No Targets for me.
"Sometimes," I recall a Manager telling me, years ago, "if you can't identify what someone's profiting off of, they're profiting off of you."
Data, usually. Or, in this industry, your presence. Your reaction. Your reality. Relatability. People like you more, Lily whispered to me once, if something horrible has happened to you. Because it makes them feel like you get them.
Amelie leans in, grabbing my chin. The Managers are, for once, not in my ear. I think of Lily, polished nails tapping my cot's arm rest (if something horrible has happened). She hasn't come back. I don't know if it's because the Managers don't want her interfering with my new Arc, or the idea just hasn't occurred to her.
I still can't move. The damn Chip.
Amelie is so close now I can feel her breath, hot and sweaty against my lips.
"Wait," I whisper. Someone is going to come in and stop her. Someone has to. It's real, it's happened.
No one does.
When she finally pulls away, Amelie writes her phone number on a post-it and sticks it to my bedstand. For a moment, it sits next to the card from Mama. Then, with a gust of air from the fan, it blows off, falling under the cot. I don't pick it up.
A Manager comes in In Real Life to discuss the event. Lily comes in with him, a small frown on her face. She wraps her hand in mine, squeezing it tight. The skin around her nails is redder than her nails, now, peeling and raw.
"Hey, kiddo," the Manager says, "I'm Tim. I heard there was an incident."
"I remember you." Tim was one of the first Managers I met. He is everything a Manager is: slicked back hair, plain grey suit, warm smile and friendly eyes. Tim taught me how to look at the camera when I was four, and media trained me the year afterwards.
"Yes. I heard there was an issue with a patient. Amelie."
"She kissed me. I was waiting for someone to come and help me," I reply. The camera clicks off.
Tim winces. "Um, buddy. You need to be careful with how you talk about the incident."
"What?"
"Well, we're on air. We don't want this to come off like it's any of us on your team who are responsible, you know? It's just that girl's fault. So, you can talk about how horrible it felt, we want you to be honest with your feelings, but you can't say stuff like you were waiting for the Managers."
"But -"
The camera clicks on. Tim smiles comfortingly, grabbing my hand. I don't flinch. "None of us were nearby. We're just so sorry that you had to go through that."
Lily turns towards the camera. "We hope that all of you feel safe to reach out for help if you or someone you know has been SAed or graped."
It's weird to hear those words (or the Str3ami3s friendly versions of those words) applied to me.
"Did everyone..."
"See?" Lily's eyes flicker over to Ted, narrowing. "I don't see how the stream wouldn't have gotten shut down."
"Lily, please. None of the Managers were watching this stream, there was enough happening with us already," Ted insists.
"What else was there?" I scoff. Like the Managers really weren't watching. Fat fucking chance. They were always watching us.
But then Lily's face falls, and she sort of tears up, and even Tim looks like he might cry.
"No one told you?" Lily whispers. I shake my head. Sometimes the commenters update me, but they lie. To make their edits of us better. The sad songs fit better when there are really for real clips of us thinking one of us died.
Tim clicks the camera off, and that's when I know something is really wrong here.
"Can I tell him? Just us, please, Ted. For a second," Lily says. God, she sounds so young. Tim stiffens, but nods, and then we're alone.
"Ben -" her voice hitches, and she falls against me before she gets another word out. I try not to flinch, holding her tight, whispering to her.
"Lily, it's okay. We're okay. What's wrong?"
"George," she chokes out.
I don't bother waiting for her to finish her sentence; I just turn on the TV. Our Str3ami3s is down for the moment, which is weird in and of itself. Luckily, Str3ami3s keeps a news tab ('Stay Up to Date With Your Favs Off the Air!'), so I click that instead.
It's re-running the same clip over and over again when I click to it: George, being escorted out of a house part in handcuffs. There's blood staining his glasses. They zoom in on his face, manic and gleeful.
"What -"
"He was on coke. Killed a guy for calling him a loser, or something."
"Was it really..." My voice trails off on 'him.'
The Managers will make sure no one hates you again
We get enough staged allegations as it is
Or nothing, Ben. That's all there is to it.
Sometimes, if you can't identify what someone's profiting off of, they're profiting off of you.
We don't want this to come off like it's any of us on your team who are responsible, you know?
I play it off as a cough. "When's his indictment?"
Lily bites her lip. "Don't know. We're not going, though."
"Of course," I manage. That's it, then. George is done. We've moved on. He's not part of this anymore.
Lily lays down on the cot, practically on top of me now. She curls into me, her voice quiet in my ear as she speaks:
"I don't know how much longer I can do this, Ben."
There's a wetness against my cheeks, quiet snuffling. Red nails, digging into my skin.
I rest my head in her hair, sighing. "You could always quit."
Even as I say it, I know it's not really true. The Chip gives a faint buzz, and I hear our apology script playing. Our Redemption Arc starts now, it tells me.
My eyes land on my bedside table as the cameras come on.
"If I had one wish," I tell the viewers, "I would wish all of this away."
 |
| Image generated with OpenAI |
"Georgie, you're such a nerd," Lily laughs, shaking her head, "isn't he such a nerd, guys?"
She'd found an old poster hanging up on the walls, which was shimmering in her hands, switching between a few different movies. Her nails, red for the time being, crinkle against the poster paper, crumpling it.
I snatch it away from her, peering down at it. "These movies are, like, two years old, Georgie! You're really still on this?"
"I like them! They're..." George hesitates, pushes his glasses up with his thumbs as he struggles for the words to describe it.
Of-fucking-course.
The cameras click off. I bite back a sigh.
"Damn it, George! We get enough 'staged' allegations as it is without you not knowing the fucking posters hanging in your room." Lily slams her hand down on the desk, shaking her head.
"I did! There are a million things in this room, Lils, I'm not perfect."
"We can't convince anyone of shit if you can't even pretend to know what you're saying and mean it." Lily rips the paper from my hands, shoving it at George.
George throws it right back. "Who cares if we make people want to watch some movie! We have actual Targets, Lily, actual things to promote."
"You -"
"Enough," I cut them off, rubbing at my forehead. God. "We need to get the cameras back on. People will get bored." Str3ami3s is a constant-stream site; we'll lose our place on For-You soon.
The camera clicks just as I say it, and Lily beams. "What was that about the movies, Georgie?"
Georgie begins a long spiel about the movies, which I guess the Managers put into his head while we were talking. He's looking at the viewers now, clip-farming. There's a trend now for fans to edit the 'nerds', and the Managers really want him playing into it. George runs a hand through his unbrushed-mop hair, messes with his wired-frame glasses again.
I tune him out almost subconsciously, shifting my attention to other things in the room. The viewers already see me as sort of spacey, so I do need to work on it, but right now I think it fits fine. Of course I'm bored by George.
He is supposed to be the butt of our joke. The fans who like Lily and I best find it funny, and George's fans are only George's for the angst of him being our least-favorite friend.
There's a comment in my head laughing at my posture, from the viewers judging by the tone (lighthearted, unserious. Definitely not Managers). It must have gotten seriously upvoted for me to be hearing it, usually the Managers wait until my 'break' to give me the viewers feedback.
Though I guess that was the point of giving us the Chip when the Managers took us as clients; I remember Mama telling me how much easier things were going to be, when I got the Chip.
"It'll keep you safe," she whispered, kissing my forehead, "you don't want more hate comments, right? The Managers will make sure no one hates you again. Be a big boy, okay?"
God. Mama.
The Chip does make it easier, I guess. The Chip supplies the more exciting, most profitable move and I don't even have to think.
It buzzes. I am supposed to be paying attention.
I straighten up just as Lily says my name.
"Ben," she begins, leaning in close, "what cologne is that? You smell so good."
This would be weird if we were off camera, certainly, but right now it's just worrying. Lily is supposed to be enthralled with George right now, part of a years-long Arc.
The viewers will not like this. She is, essentially, cheating. With her boyfriend's best friend. Yikes.
The Chip alerts me of rising viewership. In my head, I see more sad edits of George and sexy-evil-bad-boy edits of myself. My likeability will fall, but we can't have two sweetheart good guys. George and I take turns being smoking-cheating-sexy-asshole.
Flirt back, the Chip alerts me, now.
"Thanks, Lils," I smirk, winking at George. I think of Mama, kissing my forehead when the Managers told her they wanted to Chip me. Hire me, they said. They wanted to hire me. To forge my image. Make me famous.
I wonder if Mama knew they were making me this brand of famous. I wonder if she's watching.
"The cologne name?" Lily purrs, blinking at me. God, poor George. Or, poor pretend-George. I am not sure how real George will feel about this. But this is one of our Targets. We have to hit it.
Probably doesn't matter. Probably, we will have new issues to discuss the next time my 'break' is at the same time as him.
"Sultry Pines. The most sensual tree, pines," I tell her. The Chip produces the joke in my head just in time, but I'm not confident in the tone of it. Lily plays it off well, echoing the words back to me. She does much better, I am sure that clip will become a soundbite. It will boost her ratings. She wraps her hand around my bicep, and I glance down at the chipped red nail polish. The Managers really need to give her a Glow Up Arc.
I don't know how I didn't realize it, but, clearly, I have underperformed, because I recognize the static electric feeling the Chip supplies in my mind. George clocks it the second I do, his gaze shifting to mine. I think I see a hint of apology in his eyes, a prerequisite, but I'm probably making it up. Pretend-George would never apologize to me right now, and real-George would never make the mistake of showing the viewers.
I tell myself George is sorry, for this. He is only following the Chip's orders.
George pushes up his glasses with his thumb and socks me right in the face. I slam to the ground, straight into the shaggy blue carpet. Fucking George. Even as the weak one, he can still clear me, because the Managers gave him a Winter Glow Up Arc last year, partially to help him finally bag Lily and partially to have him advertise ChuBeGone, the hot new thing in protein powder.
The Arc got cancelled because ChuBeGone was proven to cause scurvy, but he hasn't managed to shave off the gains yet.
In any case, George is strong: when he punches, it fucking hurts. He doesn't stop at one, either, because the electric feeling hasn't faded, meaning this is going to be a long break.
Maybe it's not my fault. I can almost convince myself of that. Maybe there is some new medicine they need to promote, maybe some new operation they want me to get. Maybe this is their way of explaining away the nose job they've wanted me to get for the last eight years.
This would be a good way of excusing a nose job.
The camera stays on as red and blue lights flash, and I am eased away by paramedics. As I lay on a stretcher, the paramedics tell me that it is not just my nose, but my skull, which cracked open when I slipped on SugaBall, a rival brand to one of our Targets. Str3ami3s is replaying the clip now on the Clips-feed, with a special focus on the bouncy ball that took me out.
The Managers have sent me a new chart: purchases for Sultry Pines are up, and SugaSuga is down.
People have been influenced today.
The hospital is public: I am followed by one of the cameras, making this incident look unscripted, and there is a conglomerate of fans who are not being restrained by the paramedics.
I let the fans lean in for selfies, kiss my cheek, or slap me for being an ass. My head stings, flashing lights going off and all my synapses firing to try and keep me cool. The chip keeps buzzing: touch that girl's hair (soft), groan (ouch), kiss her cheek (sweaty).
I try to grin. The Managers tell me it's good, because you can see the blood on my teeth. Good clip.
"I think you're, like, so beautiful," one girl coos at me. "I, like, literally don't even remember a year of my life that I didn't have a crush on you."
"Oh my God, you were a baby when the trinity blew up?" an older woman says, tightening her grip on my arm. Ow.
"Um, yeah?"
"That's so crazy. I remember watching their first stream in my first fucking apartment. You three have grown up so much since then, you're sure not kids anymore!" She laughs, pressing her hands into my cheek.
We just celebrated Lily's 17th a few days ago, and she's the oldest of us.
The paramedics, finally deciding that my concussion is serious enough to deserve to be treated, push me past the fans.
I don't even get a private room, which seems a little bit twisted to me. All my work and the Managers can't even get me a private room? Not even private doctors? Nothing?
A few moments later, the Managers buzz in my ear informing me of the reason why I'm not getting the star treatment I've become so accustomed to.
The viewers didn't like the scene of George punching me. We're coming under fire for being scripted, which is ridiculous, because we wouldn't be on Str3ami3s if we were scripted. We'd just be on the regular feed.
The Managers don't care about that, though, because of course they don't. They care about keeping our ratings high. All of us do, so I'll cope with the public hospital. It won't be so long.
The girl in the cot next to me shifts over to look at me, blinking. Her leg is lifted into the air, like the cartoons Lily and I used to watch sometimes.
"What happened to your leg?" I ask.
She blinks again. "Usually people ask for names first."
"Oh."
"My name is Amelie."
"Okay."
"I broke my leg snowboarding. It fractured. Like, split in half. Bad shit."
I'm not confident legs can be split in half. "Cool. Snowboarding's cool."
"Mhm."
I sort of think we're done talking, but right as I turn over on my bed, she coughs, calling back my attention. I wipe some sweat from my forehead, pull some of my hair out from under the bandages.
"I like your content a lot."
"Thanks."
"I don't think you're, like, a bad guy. I was watching the stream when George punched you."
"Oh."
"I don't think it was your fault. Lily's a total bitch, though." She pauses, looking up at the camera. "Am I on the stream right now?"
"Yeah."
"Weird."
There's a quiet knock at the door, and then Lily bursts in. She shuffles awkwardly at the entryway for a few seconds, fiddling with one of her necklaces.
"Hey," I say.
"Hi," Lily takes my speaking as her cue, rushing over to my bedside. "I was really worried about you. George was too."
"No he wasn't," I scoff. There's some general sadness from the viewers coming through the Chip now, which I guess is the Managers way of tellingme to keep hamming it up.
"He was. He just... I mean, you know. He was amped up."
"What's been going on with him lately?" I don't even register the words until they're already out of my mouth. I guess the Managers really wanted that line.
"I don't know. I'm getting really worried about him, Ben. I think he's doing drugs."
The cameras click off, presumably following George. Lily sits down in the visitor's chair, slumping over.
I lay my head down, listening to the droll buzzing of the hospital room, the faint sounds of patients' conversations from down the hall, Amelie's heavy breathing.
"Is he really?" I ask. George and I were recruited at the same time. He was crying when I met him; I think I held his hand (or he held mine) for the first week straight at the filming house.
"Really what?" Lily asks, picking at her nails.
"Doing drugs."
Lily looks up at me. "Not sure. I think so, but I also think it might be because... you know." She glances over her shoulder, glaring at Amelie, who isn't even pretending not to be eavesdropping. "I guess it doesn't matter anyways," she finally says.
"Of course it matters. He could be having a serious mental health crisis, or -"
"Or nothing, Ben," she interrupts softly, "that's all there is to it."
I open my mouth to argue, but there's nothing more to say. If the fans are seeing George go through addiction, then for all intents and purposes, he is.
And we're not scripted anymore, so my bet is the Managers really do have him doing them for real. No pretending, that'd be too easy to detect.
Lily suddenly stands, dropping something on my bedside table. "From your mom. Managers cleared me to leave." She hesitates, glances back at me one more time before she goes. "You are okay, though, yeah?"
"Yeah," I pause. "Lily?"
"What?"
"Are you here because of the Managers, or..."
Lily purses her lip, cocking her head. "What's the difference?"
I think, for a moment, that it does make a difference. I've always thought the three of us were close, really close, underneath all of the pretend.
Lily looks at me for a long moment, waiting for me to reply. I think of meeting her for the first time, Mama holding my hand and telling me I was gonna collab with a creator my age. A friend, Mama called it, you're going to meet a friend who really understands you.
"Thanks for coming to see me, Lils," I mutter.
"Of course." Lily leaves the door open when she goes, and I watch the fans swarm her as she sashays away, flipping her hair over her shoulder. It hits a guy in the head, but he doesn't seem too bothered.
"That was so fucking weird," Amelie says. I'm not listening to her, picking up Mom's card. There's a little lamp printed on the front, and words that read: If I had one wish...
The lamp is replaced by a genie, who tells me: I would wish all of this away! - Mom
Her signature, at least, is exactly how I remember it from permission slips and reading logs when I was younger, when the Managers made us do school for a few hours a day.
The Chip buzzes me. Stop being distracted, that's what it's trying to tell me, you have work to do. I pull out my phone, logging onto a private Str3am. I read some comments, engaging with the fans. It's the only way to keep them interested when in recovery, that's what the Managers have always said. Remind them that you're their 'friend'. The fans seem generally empathetic today, asking if my nose feels better yet. Some of them tell me I suck for betraying George like that. One guy leaks my address, my room number.
I roll over in bed and tell the friends it's my naptime.
I'm not cleared to leave the hospital for nearly a month, mostly for production reasons (the Managers explain that Lily and George need a BreakUp Arc). Amelie will leave before I do; in two more weeks. The days pass, mostly, uneventfully. The nurses stop coming in for treatment pretty soon, but they fake check-ups every once and a while. For appearances. Amelie and I get food, talk to each other, and sleep. I try to watch our stream whenever I can. One night, we go up to the roof. I take her on a wheelchair; she knows all the tricks to get up there. Amelie, she reminds me, broke her leg snowboarding because she was trying to impress her friends.
"I don't think they cared, though," she told me. "I don't think my friends like me very much."
I can't see her face in the dark, but I know that she's looking at me. I'm not totally sure how to reply, and the Managers have cut back the amount of assistance they give me lately. Trying not to be scripted.
"That one's Virgo," I say, pointing to the constellations, "and that's the Dipper."
Amelie hesitates, like she's waiting for me to continue. "Big one or little one?"
"Dunno."
"Are you guys really as close as they make you seem?" Amelie asks.
I don't reply to that one, mostly because I can't remember if the camera is on or not. I'm not sure what the honest answer is. More importantly, I'm not sure what the correct answer is.
Amelie must take it as a sign that I agree with her, that I relate to her in some sense of the word. She leans in close, resting her head on my shoulder. I don't have enough energy to push her off.
After that night, she is pretty much attached to my hip. I'm not totally sure what to make of it, but I know the fans are loving it. Amelie brings our ratings up a lot, unintentionally. She's irritating, overbearing, and loud, but that makes her one thing the trinity never has been: authentic.
On her second to last day in the ward with me, she is laying on my bed, scrolling through comments online. The camera is on.
"Look at this edit of us," she murmurs, tugging me down to watch it. It's nothing all that exciting, not even all that good. It doesn't even have 10K likes yet.
"Mmm." I shift back into my bed.
"People really want us to get together."
I hold back an eyeroll - like hell they do. She's just been watching the few videos that don't hate her. Most of my fans don't like her. She's ruining their OT3, and apparently I'm clearly uncomfortable.
The Managers haven't told me how they want me to approach the situation, so I've just been honest, mostly. Neutral.
"I mean, it's not like Lily's gonna want you. She's clearly over it."
"Probably."
"Don't be so jealous." Amelie giggles, touching my face. I pull away, slapping her hand away. Where are the Managers? No one is supposed to be able to get this close to me for so long.
"I'm not jealous."
"Sure."
"We're not going to get together, Amelie. It's not happening."
Amelie groans, sitting up and glaring at me. "God, Ben, why are you like this? Why are you so afraid of being understood? I mean, come on. Those people don't care about you, they don't even really know you."
I raise a brow. "And you do?"
Somehow, that makes her expression soften. "It's okay to not be ready yet, Ben. I know it's scary to leave things you've always known. But I like you, and you like me. That's all there needs to be for now."
For the first time in a long time, the Managers have something to say. I am not supposed to outright reject her yet.
"Okay," I say instead, resting my head on the pillow and turning away from me. It takes her a long time to leave, but she does, eventually.
By the day Amelia leaves, I've decided I don't like her very much at all: she's always asking questions. I guess the Managers are using her to have someone who can make a public statement about us, tell the whole world that we are so very for-real.
"I feel like we've gotten really close," Amelie says. She can walk now, only on crutches. She's not supposed to but that hasn't stopped her yet: she's standing over my bedside table now.
"Yeah," I reply.
"You know, it really sucks that all of your friends are, like, so fake to you. They don't even like you."
"Maybe."
The camera clicks on.
"I like you," she says.
"Yeah," I frown. "Wait."
"Like, really like you. I think we could be something. For real." She presses her hand against my chest. I can't move away. God, why can't I move?
"Wait."
It occurs to me that, while I've been in the hospital, I haven't been selling anything. No Targets for me.
"Sometimes," I recall a Manager telling me, years ago, "if you can't identify what someone's profiting off of, they're profiting off of you."
Data, usually. Or, in this industry, your presence. Your reaction. Your reality. Relatability. People like you more, Lily whispered to me once, if something horrible has happened to you. Because it makes them feel like you get them.
Amelie leans in, grabbing my chin. The Managers are, for once, not in my ear. I think of Lily, polished nails tapping my cot's arm rest (if something horrible has happened). She hasn't come back. I don't know if it's because the Managers don't want her interfering with my new Arc, or the idea just hasn't occurred to her.
I still can't move. The damn Chip.
Amelie is so close now I can feel her breath, hot and sweaty against my lips.
"Wait," I whisper. Someone is going to come in and stop her. Someone has to. It's real, it's happened.
No one does.
When she finally pulls away, Amelie writes her phone number on a post-it and sticks it to my bedstand. For a moment, it sits next to the card from Mama. Then, with a gust of air from the fan, it blows off, falling under the cot. I don't pick it up.
A Manager comes in In Real Life to discuss the event. Lily comes in with him, a small frown on her face. She wraps her hand in mine, squeezing it tight. The skin around her nails is redder than her nails, now, peeling and raw.
"Hey, kiddo," the Manager says, "I'm Tim. I heard there was an incident."
"I remember you." Tim was one of the first Managers I met. He is everything a Manager is: slicked back hair, plain grey suit, warm smile and friendly eyes. Tim taught me how to look at the camera when I was four, and media trained me the year afterwards.
"Yes. I heard there was an issue with a patient. Amelie."
"She kissed me. I was waiting for someone to come and help me," I reply. The camera clicks off.
Tim winces. "Um, buddy. You need to be careful with how you talk about the incident."
"What?"
"Well, we're on air. We don't want this to come off like it's any of us on your team who are responsible, you know? It's just that girl's fault. So, you can talk about how horrible it felt, we want you to be honest with your feelings, but you can't say stuff like you were waiting for the Managers."
"But -"
The camera clicks on. Tim smiles comfortingly, grabbing my hand. I don't flinch. "None of us were nearby. We're just so sorry that you had to go through that."
Lily turns towards the camera. "We hope that all of you feel safe to reach out for help if you or someone you know has been SAed or graped."
It's weird to hear those words (or the Str3ami3s friendly versions of those words) applied to me.
"Did everyone..."
"See?" Lily's eyes flicker over to Ted, narrowing. "I don't see how the stream wouldn't have gotten shut down."
"Lily, please. None of the Managers were watching this stream, there was enough happening with us already," Ted insists.
"What else was there?" I scoff. Like the Managers really weren't watching. Fat fucking chance. They were always watching us.
But then Lily's face falls, and she sort of tears up, and even Tim looks like he might cry.
"No one told you?" Lily whispers. I shake my head. Sometimes the commenters update me, but they lie. To make their edits of us better. The sad songs fit better when there are really for real clips of us thinking one of us died.
Tim clicks the camera off, and that's when I know something is really wrong here.
"Can I tell him? Just us, please, Ted. For a second," Lily says. God, she sounds so young. Tim stiffens, but nods, and then we're alone.
"Ben -" her voice hitches, and she falls against me before she gets another word out. I try not to flinch, holding her tight, whispering to her.
"Lily, it's okay. We're okay. What's wrong?"
"George," she chokes out.
I don't bother waiting for her to finish her sentence; I just turn on the TV. Our Str3ami3s is down for the moment, which is weird in and of itself. Luckily, Str3ami3s keeps a news tab ('Stay Up to Date With Your Favs Off the Air!'), so I click that instead.
It's re-running the same clip over and over again when I click to it: George, being escorted out of a house part in handcuffs. There's blood staining his glasses. They zoom in on his face, manic and gleeful.
"What -"
"He was on coke. Killed a guy for calling him a loser, or something."
"Was it really..." My voice trails off on 'him.'
The Managers will make sure no one hates you again
We get enough staged allegations as it is
Or nothing, Ben. That's all there is to it.
Sometimes, if you can't identify what someone's profiting off of, they're profiting off of you.
We don't want this to come off like it's any of us on your team who are responsible, you know?
I play it off as a cough. "When's his indictment?"
Lily bites her lip. "Don't know. We're not going, though."
"Of course," I manage. That's it, then. George is done. We've moved on. He's not part of this anymore.
Lily lays down on the cot, practically on top of me now. She curls into me, her voice quiet in my ear as she speaks:
"I don't know how much longer I can do this, Ben."
There's a wetness against my cheeks, quiet snuffling. Red nails, digging into my skin.
I rest my head in her hair, sighing. "You could always quit."
Even as I say it, I know it's not really true. The Chip gives a faint buzz, and I hear our apology script playing. Our Redemption Arc starts now, it tells me.
My eyes land on my bedside table as the cameras come on.
"If I had one wish," I tell the viewers, "I would wish all of this away."
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