Vanessa was jogging down the street, thinking about the group channel. The past few shoots had been absolute failures. Sure, X made a video that got a lot of views, but that was a temporary fix. It was nothing like what they normally did, so it didn’t count.

The hardest thing for Vanessa to understand was why X was reacting like that. He should be grateful for the opportunity he has. 

And of course, there was Cherri’s fiasco from yesterday. It was a harmless prank, why was she so pissed? And why was she pissed at the others? They hadn’t done anything wrong, it was for content. 

Vanessa ran around the corner, and straight into their house. The jog had soothed her, but she knew they needed a good shoot or else their channel would fail. 

She found most of the group was awake, and it would be a shoot day that day. 

The theme was field day, and Vanessa would be the host. 

She started the intro. The concept was simple, they’d split into two teams, play some games, and whoever had won the most, wins. 

They split guys vs girls, and X joined the boys as they wanted to be with Caleb. It was fair enough, as Vanessa was the most athletic anyways. 

The first game was a game of capture the flag. Each team had a flag, the goal was to grab it and bring it back without the other team catching you. 

They had five minutes to discuss their strategy. 

“I think you should defend, and I’ll grab their flag. I’m pretty fast, I can do it” Cherri whispered. 

“No- no no no. I’ll get the flag. You just need to defend long enough so that I can bring it back. I want to win this game”

“I’m fast enough. You’d be able to catch more of them because you are much more aggressive. I’m stealthier”

“Cherri, listen. I’ve got this, ok? Just let me do all the hard work” 

Cherri crossed her arms and didn’t say another word. 

Lisa used a megaphone for comedic effect, “Each team’s home base is at either side of the lawn. If you get tagged past the halfway point, drop the flag, and go back to home base. Ready! Set! Go!”

Once Lisa said go, both Cherri and Vanessa took off from home base. X ran around them to get their flag, and both Cherri and Vanessa were caught in seconds. 

They lost.

“Cherri! Why didn’t you listen?” Vanessa said, throwing her hands up. 

“I told you what I was going to do. That’s all” 

Ridiculous. They could’ve won it easily. 

The next game was corn hole. Vanessa knew they could do it. 

Each team split, and stood at the opposite corn hole. The girls would go twice each, so that everyone on the other team could go once, and one person would go twice. 

Vanessa threw first, and got two in. She missed one, but mostly because Caleb shook her. 

“Caleb! Stop! Why would you do that?”

“It was funny?”

“You messed me up, thanks a lot!” 

Cherri then threw. She missed the first. 

“Cherri, throw a little higher. Like this” Vanessa demonstrated with her arm. She wished she could just take the bag from Cherri and throw it for her.

Cherri shook her head and threw the second. It hit the board, and slid until it was barely touching the hole. 

“Just a little higher this time”

“I know, Vanessa” 

She threw it much harder. It completely missed and hit X directly on the head

“Are you happy? I threw it higher!” 

“No, that's not what I meant! I just want you to get it in so we can win, Cherri? Don’t you wanna win?”

Cherri grabbed Vanessa’s arm and dragged her into the forest, away from the others.

Cherri found a decently far away enough place and began to talk. 

“Are you really that competitive? It’s just a stupid set of games! No one cares if you lose!”

“I care! I just want the best for you!”

“The best would be letting me try things, let me do something- you are holding me back Ness! It’s a different kind of hell to have to be on your team, goddamnit!”

“Well, if this video fails, we’ve failed 3 shoots in a row! I want this one to be successful for once!”

“Failed? We didn’t fail? Things weren’t working, and we learned that! That’s not failure, that’s just a part of the process!” 

Cherri took a deep breath. “Look, I’ve tried to ignore everything going on so that I could feel like everyone else in this house, but the real issue is that nobody cares. I notice everything that is going on, and it’s scary how little everyone else cares. I just- I can’t take it anymore” 

Cherri walked away. 

Vanessa was pissed. 

She saw things. She understood that X was not okay, she understood that Levi was burnt out. She saw Cherri go up to the rooftop. She saw the tears running down her face. 

But it was hard to acknowledge their feelings. It was hard to realize that they were humans with feelings as deep as hers. 

It’s hard to realize that when someone says “I’m okay”, they might also be lying. 

And it’s hard to realize that you have your own problems too. 

They are just buried deep inside.