Mon cœur s’est mis à battre si fort ensuite que j’ai dû m’asseoir sur le bord de la baignoire pendant dix minutes.

Melissa m’avait dit que j’exagérais.

Maintenant, des inconnus se moquaient de moi.

J’ai fait défiler vers le bas.

Ces commentaires m’ont donné la nausée.

Grand-mère a besoin de se détendre.

Relevez le défi du seau d’eau ensuite !

Ses réactions sont inestimables !

Une personne a suggéré que Melissa me fasse des blagues tous les jours.

J’ai rendu le téléphone.

« Depuis combien de temps fait-elle ça ? »

Ethan s’est assis à côté de moi.

“Je ne sais pas.

Quelques mois, peut-être.

“Saviez-vous?”

« Pas au début. »

« Et quand l’avez-vous découvert ? »

Il avait l’air malheureux.

«Elle a dit que c’était sans danger.»

She said people liked watching us together.”

“Us?”

He nodded.

“She said we could make family videos.

She told me lots of people do it.”

I remembered Melissa talking about social media several months earlier.

She had complained that her videos never got much attention.

She worked long hours, felt unappreciated, and often talked about people who earned money online by filming ordinary moments.

I hadn’t paid much attention.

Now I wished I had.

“Show me the account,” I said.

Ethan hesitated, then opened the profile.

It had a cheerful name about family fun.

The profile photograph showed Melissa, David, and Ethan smiling together.

I wasn’t in the picture.

But I was in nearly every recent video.

There was the purse incident.

The caption read:

Grandma loses her purse AGAIN!

I watched myself search the room while Melissa asked whether I remembered where I’d left it.

At one point, I said, “I know I put it on the table.”

Then the video cut to Ethan pulling it from behind the couch.

What viewers didn’t see was Melissa telling him to hide it.

What they didn’t hear was me explaining that I needed my medication.

To anyone watching, I looked confused and forgetful.

My stomach tightened.

“Play the next one.”

It was the coffee incident.

I took a sip, made a face, and pushed the cup away.

Melissa laughed.

The caption read:

Grandma’s taste buds aren’t what they used to be.

Then came the screaming sound beneath my chair.

The mask.

The hidden reading glasses.

I remembered that last one.

Melissa had moved my glasses from the kitchen counter into a drawer.

She laughed when I finally found them.

At the time, it had seemed so small that I’d forgotten about it.

Now it was part of a collection.

A collection of moments carefully designed to make me look foolish.

I scrolled through the comments.

Some people were laughing.

Others were not.

Why does the grandma look genuinely scared?

This is getting mean.

Does she know she’s being filmed?

One person wrote:

Stop messing with elderly people for views.

Melissa had replied with a laughing emoji.

I put the phone down.

For several minutes, neither Ethan nor I spoke.

Then I asked the question that had been forming in my mind.

“Did your mother tell you what she planned to do with today’s video?”

He looked away.

“Ethan.”

“She said it would be the biggest one yet.”

“Biggest?”

“She said the other videos were doing really well, and people wanted something more dramatic.”

I felt cold again, though my clothes were dry.

“So she arranged my birthday dinner around a video?”

He didn’t answer.

He didn’t have to.

I remembered how Melissa had insisted on hosting.

How she had invited relatives I hadn’t seen in months.

How she had positioned my chair with its back toward the kitchen doorway.

How she’d told me not to move because she wanted a nice birthday picture.

I had thought she was being thoughtful.

She had been arranging the shot.

« Grand-mère, » murmura Ethan, « je ne savais pas qu’elle allait te faire ressembler à ça. »

Je me suis tournée vers lui.

“Comme quoi?”

Il avait du mal à trouver les mots.

« Comme si tu ne savais pas ce qui se passe. »

Mon cœur s’est serré.

J’ai repris le téléphone.

Sous l’une des vidéos, Melissa avait écrit :

La vie avec notre grand-mère de plus en plus distraite.

Nous l’adorons, mais certains jours sont un vrai défi !

Je l’ai lu deux fois.

Alors j’ai compris.

Le sac à main disparu.

Les lunettes égarées.

Le sel dans mon café.

Ce n’étaient pas de simples blagues.

Ils étaient en train de construire une histoire à mon sujet.

Une histoire où je devenais confus, distrait et déraisonnable.

Une histoire que je n’avais jamais accepté de raconter.

En bas, j’ai entendu les invités de l’anniversaire commencer à partir.

Melissa a appelé Ethan par son nom.

Il se leva immédiatement.