I was in the hospital for another day, before the doctors finally decided that I had nothing wrong with me other than my propensity to fall asleep in unfortunate places. But the near drowning fortunately didn’t cause any additional problems with me, and we all knew what the actual cause of my near-death experience was.


    After I was sent to the hospital, Circe was sent home, as I wasn’t going to be up to doing the exorcism until I was fully healed. Besides, having been in the hospital for a couple of days, she claimed that my body had already flushed out all the oils and holy water that I’d been taking, so she wanted me to start that process over again. And, considering the strength of the demon even after we’d burned the assumed trigger object, I was going to need more of it than I’d assumed.


    I sat on the couch, watching the cut of the newest YouTube video that Liam had put on the screen while he’d run to get me a cup of coffee with extra rosemary and oregano oil (because honestly, hopefully, you never have to have it, but if you do, coffee does an actually okay job of masking the god awful flavor of it). I guess watching isn’t really the right word - I was too tired to fully digest what I was seeing on the screen, but even having the video on in the background created a sense of normalcy that I had been missing. Even though I had to admit, it felt crazy that this had already registered itself as my new normal.


    Liam quietly walked into the room as Luke was giving a brief history of the Queen Mary. He handed me a cup of some nondescript pale tea with a light smile. “I was half hoping that you’d be asleep,” he said, just loudly enough to be heard of Luke’s explanation. “It’s late, and you’re supposed to be rebuilding your strength.”


    “Then what’s with the cup of tea?” I asked, lightly blowing on the hot liquid in the cup.


    “Optimism,” he answered with a shrug, sitting next to me on the couch. In a matter of moments, he’d winded his arm around me and dragged me closer to him. “What do you think of the episode?”


    I shrugged, taking a sip of what was apparently a bad chamomile tea. “I wouldn’t say it’s groundbreaking in the field of ghost studies or anything, but I’ve seen enough ghost videos to know that the Queen Mary is a fan favorite, so I assume it’ll go over well with the viewers.”


    “Such a fake fan,” he joked lightly, then sighed. “Actually, I’ve got something that I need to talk to you about.” I felt my heart sinking quickly, only for that feeling to be stopped a moment later when he continued. “Well, I wouldn’t say it’s really me who needs to talk to you about it, but Caitlin basically told me that if I didn’t talk to you, she would, and she’s never been known to gently say anything about the videos before.”


    I let out the breath that I’d subconsciously started holding. “My dude,” I said, taking another sip of chamomile tea because lord knows I needed something to calm my nerves, “you don’t say something like that to someone you’re kind of seeing. I thought you were breaking things off or something.”


    “Kind of sort of seeing?” he asked, raising one eyebrow as he looked down at me, then he gave a quick shrug. “I guess we haven’t really had the talk about making this official or anything. I just hope you don’t think that I let every woman I fuck live in my house and come on ghost hunts with us.”The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    “You only let me come on ghost hunts because I can see ghosts,” I argued back, completely unable to think of any reason why I would argue his point.


    “Originally,” he admitted, “although we haven’t even caught that much evidence of you seeing ghosts on film. Which, I guess, comes to the crux of Caitlin’s issue - the audience doesn’t believe you anymore.”


    I rolled the last few videos we’d filmed through my mind as Liam quietly held me, clearly waiting for me to have some sort of a comeback. He was right, of course - I’d seen a few ghosts when we were actually on location, but other than the couple of ghosts at the prison, I hadn’t seen many while we were actively filming, and really the only tangible proof that I had seen something were the bodies. And while it was obvious that we were talking about them, Luke and Liam had made sure to cut any footage that actually showed the bodies because we’re not Logan Paul or anything, so there was nothing other than our word to say that we actually found anything at all. Luke and Liam had grown their audience up from the ground, and as such, their audience had a lot of trust in them. But there was only so far that they could stretch that trust, and their audience had just met me. “So they don’t think I’m actually seeing ghosts?”


    “They don’t,” he confirmed. “When you first got here, they seemed all in on you. We even had a couple of people saying they wanted a spin-off with you doing solo investigations in places. But then we started getting into this whole demon thing, and it seems the audience thinks it''s…” he cringed as he finished the sentence, “overplayed.”


    “It is overplayed,” I agreed, and Liam visibly relaxed. “I don’t know how many creators I watched before I ended up calling you guys, but basically everyone was possessed by a demon at least yearly. It’s a big part of why I thought it was all for show, too.”


    “It might be for a lot of them,” Liam admitted. “After having seen this actual possession, I’m honestly not sure if we were actually possessed every time we claimed we were. It was never anything like this,” he said, loosely gesturing toward me. “Luke and I have ended up in the hospital because of ghost hunting before, but it’s always because we were being dumbasses. Demon attacks are a first.”


    “There’s probably plenty that weren’t actually demons, but for the audience who isn’t here living it, I don’t think it really matters.” We sit silently for a moment, watching Luke walk through the hull of the ship, talking to nothing but thin air. “Does Caitlin have any ideas on how to fix it?” I finally asked.


    “Oh she’s always got ideas,” Liam answered sarcastically. “Her first option was to kick you off the channel and bring it back to just Luke and I, and I told her that that was never gonna happen.” He squeezed me lightly with the last three words as emphasis.


    “I mean, if it would help the channel..” I started, but Liam immediately shook his head.


    “We’re not removing you from the channel because you have one rough spot with the audience. Especially when your rough spot is just not lying about not seeing ghosts - it’s not like you were part of a scandal or something. Besides, I already talked to Luke about it, and he’s in agreement, too. You’re staying on the channel, whether Caitlin likes it or not.”


    I let out a long breath. “When what are her other suggestions?”


    Liam shrugged. “Well, the main one is that we bring you to places that are undoubtedly haunted. After you’re done healing, of course. And in the meantime, I was thinking that maybe we could watch some other YouTuber’s videos, just to see what ghosts are even in places. If we find somewhere that’s got tons of ghosts, you’ll be bound to see something. And then, when we get there, maybe you hype it up a little more than necessary. Not lie,” he said, cutting me off when I opened my mouth to protest. “Just exaggerate your emotions a bit. You’re very matter of fact about the ghosts being there, but you’ve got to remember that the rest of us, including the audience, isn’t seeing what you’re seeing. Even if it’s mundane to you, you could act excited about seeing it, or give us some great detail or whatever.”


    I thought about it for a moment. Lying about seeing ghosts for a YouTube video was something that I had never even considered, but Liam was right - acting excited about something I was actually seeing is nowhere near the same as lying about seeing a ghost. “Alright,” I said after too long in silence. “I can act up for the cameras.”


    “Perfect!” he said, planting a small kiss on my temple. “I’ll make up a list of videos for us to watch this week. In the meantime, let me know if there’s anything that I can change about this Queen Mary video, because there’s something about it that feels a little uncanny valley to me.”