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Fun new fact about me: apparently, I lose my inhibitions at precisely midnight. “Okay, I have to ask. How much do you know

about the shippers?”

“Too much,” says Walter.

I laugh. “Do you know about the Hayters?”

“Uh, yeah. They’re up my butt, like, 24/7.”

“Oh my God.” I clap a hand over my mouth, glancing at Mark.

“I mean, I just see what’s in my mentions,” adds Walter, “but yeah. They’re not particularly subtle.”

I let out a laugh. “No. No, they are not.”

“Like they splice together these clips from VidCon and stuff, but it’s slow motion and set to music—and I don’t really care

if they make them. It’s public footage, whatever. But then they tag me in it, and I’m like, ‘Am I supposed to leave a comment?’

Or they’ll invite me to be a collaborator on the post. I—no.”

“That’s so insane to me,” Mark says.

“I mean.” Walter shrugs. “They’re better than the ones who accused me of queerbaiting for three years.”

“Ah. The Hayteros,” I say.

Walter almost snorts. “Do they really call themselves that?”

“Well, the shippers call them that. I don’t think the Hayteros are self-aware,” I say.

Mark shakes his head. “So what does your actor friend think of all of this?”

“Oh, we’re pretending we don’t know Hayden’s name, now?” I turn back to Walter. “Ignore him. We respect your bestie, I promise.”

“You can disrespect him,” says Walter.

He’s smiling like it’s a joke. But there’s something sharp in his voice.

“Whoa.” I smack the ground. “What did he do?”

“What did who do?” asks Mark.

“Hayden.” I look at Walter, but he’s staring at the ground. “You don’t have to tell us. You know that. I’m just being—”

“No, it’s fine,” he says. “I just don’t want to, like—dump the drama on you.”

“Waltermelon, I am deeply fine with receiving your drama.”

“Waltermelon?”

“It means she likes you enough to terrorize you with a nickname,” Mark explains.

“Markeroni, I’ll show you terror.” I pinch his nose, turning back to Walter. “Okay, for real, though. No pressure.”

“No, it’s fine! It’s just not really public. Like, at all.”

“Got it. Lips are sealed.”

“You can tell Natalie and stuff. Just don’t tweet it, I guess?” He pauses. “So, uh. First of all, Hayden and I don’t talk

anymore.”

My mouth falls open. “Oh.”

“At all. Or we haven’t. It’s been almost a year.”

“Wow. Okay.” I glance at Mark, before turning back to Walter. “I had no idea.”

“Right. No, yeah. I don’t talk about it.”

“That’s got to suck,” Mark says.

He laughs nervously. “Yup.”

None of us speak for a moment.

“Sorry. I don’t want to, like, shatter anyone’s image of him.”

“I care,” Mark says, “so little about Hayden.”

“Yeah, shatter away,” I add. “What did that fucker do?”

“Other than giving me the silent treatment for most of his senior year, and then ghosting me the second he graduated?”

I stare at him. “ What ?”

“Yep.” He smiles tightly.

“His senior year?” I blink. “But you guys were still doing Drama Clash.”

“Yeah. So. It was like—literally every time we weren’t actively filming content together, he’d just completely ignore me.”

“Jesus,” says Mark.

“But it was the absolute biggest mindfuck because he’d act completely normal when we were filming. And he’s such a good actor. Like, he’s honestly pretty incredible. So, every single time, I’d actually start to wonder— wait, is this in my head? Are we even fighting? ”

“This is”—I shake my head—“so unbelievably messed up.”

“And then he just fully ghosted?” Mark asks.

“Haven’t heard from him since he moved to LA.”

Both hands fly to my mouth. “I don’t even know what to say.”

“And he never gave you any kind of explanation?” asks Mark.

“Nope. I mean, I have a few theories.”

“Sounds like someone thinks he’s a big-shot movie star now,” I say.

“Well, he kind of is one.” Walter leans back on his elbows. “I don’t know. I think being in the public eye made everything more complicated. And the shipping stuff.”

“Right.”

“Like, we both thought it was hilarious at first. But then I think Hayden started feeling kind of weird about it. Which—totally

valid. He’d only complain about it behind the scenes, though.”

“Like... homophobic complaining?” I ask.

“Oh, not at all—no. It was just certain comments that bothered him. Like, okay, we did this AMA, and someone in the chat asked

him—they asked Hayden —if I had any, um, secret freckles—”

“Are you serious?” Mark’s eyes go wide.

“I know. I think it was a kid, so it’s like—I never know how to feel about it. But. Anyway, Hayden responds, and he’s like,

‘that’s what Walter wants you to think.’”

I pause. “I don’t get it.”

“Me either.” He shakes his head. “I think the gist of it was, like—I’m lying about secret freckles in order to lure people

into seeing me naked? Something like that?”

“That’s like... nonsensical.”

“Yup.” He tips his palms up. “I don’t think he meant it as any kind of insult. The question just made him uncomfortable, so

he was joking around to deflect it. Afterward, he was pretty upset that they asked it.”

“I mean, yeah, that’s a creepy, shitty question, but he didn’t have to shit on you in the process.”

Walter smiles wryly. “So, like—I thought, okay, maybe I’m overreacting.

I knew I could be a little sensitive about the queer stuff.

That was when I was, like, actively questioning.

Which—that was a whole thing, too, doing that under a microscope, with all the queerbaiting accusations flying around. ”

“Those fucking Hayteros.” I exhale.

“The worst.” He tucks his knees up. “So, it’s like—Hayden would just say stuff like that sometimes. But it was never overtly

mean. I know I’m not explaining this well—”

“No, you are! You’re good.”

“It’s just kind of confusing? It’s, like, foggy, almost. I tried to bring up the freckles thing, but he didn’t like that.”

“Oof. Okay.”

“So I let it go. Didn’t want to make it into a big thing. And it really was just a lot of little stuff, for the most part.

We still got along. Still talked all the time, texted all the time. I just always felt like I had to be sort of... careful?”

“Like walking on eggshells?”

“Exactly.” He pauses. “But then I’d question myself a lot, because—I mean, I know I was part of that dynamic. I’m anxious.

Like, diagnosed generalized anxiety disorder. I don’t really talk about it much online, but—yeah.” He shrugs. “So it was hard

to tell sometimes how much of the eggshell feeling was the actual dynamic, and how much was in my own head. I don’t know how

to be objective about that.”

“I literally can’t believe you had to deal with all of this.”

“Oh, it’s not—it really wasn’t that bad, mostly? Or it didn’t seem that bad at the time. I don’t know. It’s, like—I still

feel really foggy about it. Like it doesn’t add up in my head. I keep thinking I’m overreacting. Or that I must be missing

some big part of the picture.”

“I don’t think you’re overreacting.”

“I mean, Hayden and I were best friends. Or I thought we were? Right up until he decided we weren’t.” Walter tilts his head. “Also, I had kind of a weird experience coming out to him.”

“Is this, like—the story from yesterday?” Mark asks. “Where he thought you’d already come out?”

“Yeah... I leave out some details when I talk about it publicly.” He stares at the grass for a moment. “But it ended up

being fine, and he was super supportive that whole weekend at VidCon. Like, he was the most attentive friend. Not in a weird

way. Just—confusing.”

“And this was the VidCon with the nine hundred people? Where someone asked you—”

“Yes.”

“And you guys hugged afterward, right? That was a big thing online for a second.”

“Yup. Fun times.”

“Can I just say—this is actually so wild, hearing all of this from your perspective.” I study his face. “Like—God. Thanks

for trusting us with this.”

“Thanks for being up for hearing it.” He bites his lip. “I promise I don’t normally overshare this much. I just—I don’t know!

I knew you guys would get it.”

“Of course. Yeah. I mean, I’m horrified —”

“Oh, it gets even more fun,” he says.

I sit up straight, turning to gape at him. “How?”

“Okay, fast-forward to spring of junior year. Hayden’s coming up on graduation, and I’m finally starting to think about publicly coming out.

So I talk to him, and obviously he’s fully supportive.

We go ahead and schedule this whole video call with our management team—and I’m like, okay, cool, I’m going to come out to the team, and then we strategize the next stuff.

” So I get to this meeting, and”—Walter’s eyes flick upward—“Hayden just casually outs me to the team.”

“He did WHAT?”

“Yeah, he just mentioned my coming out like it was a regular discussion item on the agenda. And obviously, at that point,

I was fine with them knowing—”

“Does your team, like, get a say in whether or not you can come out?”

“No.” He shakes his head. “I mean, not my team. They’re pretty chill. That does happen, though. Like, I literally know people who have to stay closeted, or they’ll

lose contracts and stuff. But in this case, it was just... weird? Like I don’t think Hayden was being malicious, but it

just threw me off, I guess. So I texted him after the meeting, just to ask him about it, and first he’s like, ‘you already

came out to them.’”

“Wow, so that’s, like, his one move?”

“Right? So I’m like, ‘no, I didn’t—and we literally discussed this? In detail?’” Walter rubs his cheek. “When I tell you he

absolutely flipped his shit... Like, he was operating from a whole different reality.”

“This is so fucked.”

“I know. And then he goes off on how I’m unfairly accusing him of outing me, when the only reason he was on the call in the first place was to support me.

And that it was this huge sacrifice for him to even be there, because he was flying out to LA the next morning for an audition.

Which—I mean, he was flying out there every week at that point, so—who knows.

Maybe this was a callback or something. Anyway, he basically didn’t forgive me for that. ”

“For what ?”

Walter tips his palms up.

“I just—I actually fucking hate this guy.”

“I don’t hate him,” says Walter. “It’s just—he kind of broke my heart.”