by Alice Oseman
Dad pauses. I can imagine him nodding and smiling.
‘Okay,’ he says.
‘Hey, Dad?’
‘Yes?’
‘This is random, but … how do you think people become band managers?’
‘I’m a literature teacher, darling. I can answer questions about The Great Gatsby or Persian love poetry but not about the business of music, I’m afraid.’
‘Don’t worry.’ I smile. ‘I’ll google it when I get home. Would you still love me if I was a band manager?’
‘I’d still love you if you were a deep-sea submarine pilot and decided to live in the depths of the ocean for the rest of your days!’
‘Now there’s your next book idea, Dad!’
We both laugh, and God, I can’t wait to get home.
‘What about Mum?’ I ask.
‘Now she wouldn’t be quite so happy about it,’ he says. ‘But we’ve got plenty of time to deal with that.’
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘We do.’
When I sit back down with the girls Juliet crosses her legs and says, ‘I think everything that happened was supposed to happen.’
‘Like, fate?’ I say.
‘Maybe. The real world, am I right?’
‘Yeah, man.’
It carries on. The world, I mean. And we sit and we watch. And I know that I did something. Took a risk. Lived a real life.
Me. Angel Rahimi.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll do something else. Maybe tomorrow I’ll wake up and think about me and what I want. Maybe tomorrow I’ll believe in something other than boys on a screen.
‘They were just so normal,’ says Juliet. ‘The illusion’s been shattered.’
‘I know, right.’
‘Everyone’s normal, really, aren’t they?’ Bliss says. ‘I mean, everyone’s normal, everyone’s weird, everyone’s just trying to deal with their own life and keep calm and carry on. And hold on to something that’ll keep them going.’
‘Yeah,’ I say.
‘That’s why people get into fandom and bands and stuff. They just want to hold on to something that makes them feel good. Even if it’s all a big lie.’
‘I think that’s what I did, anyway,’ I say.
‘Seems a bit more sensible than carrying a knife around,’ says Juliet.
We all smile.
‘There are other good things, though,’ I say, looking at Juliet.
She looks at me. ‘Yeah, there are.’
‘Shall we start over?’ I say.
Juliet shrugs. ‘No. This has been an important part of our friendship development.’
‘It has, hasn’t it?’
My phone buzzes. I look at the screen.
‘Hey, it’s Jimmy,’ I say, and open the message.
Jimmy Kaga-Ricci @jimmykagaricci
Lister awake after leg surgery, he’s feeling a lot better
Thank you for everything
Then he sends me a picture of the three of them. Lister is in a hospital bed, his leg elevated and enclosed in the biggest cast I have ever seen, with an IV drip in his arm. Rowan is on one side, making the ‘okay’ sign with one hand, and Jimmy is on the other, making a peace sign.
Juliet laughs. ‘They look adorable.’
‘Shall we send a photo back?’
‘Why not!’
I open up my phone camera and take a selfie of us. I do Jimmy’s peace sign, Juliet does Rowan’s okay sign. Bliss smiles wide. I send it to them.
angel @jimmysangels
Tell him to get well soon!!
Thank you for everything too x
angel @jimmysangels
Tell him to get well soon!!
Thank you for everything too x
I smile and look at the photo again. They look vaguely happy. Angel’s still wearing Grandma’s floral scarf. Juliet’s resting her head on Angel’s shoulder. Bliss looks happier than I’ve seen her in a long time.
The heart-rate monitor – or whatever the hell it is – beeps rhythmically, just to assure everyone in the room that Lister is still alive. Not that we really need to hear that when Lister is, in fact, sitting up and furiously making his way through a family-size packet of Doritos.
Rowan wrinkles his nose from where he’s sitting on the windowsill. ‘You’re literally covering yourself in Dorito dust.’
‘Let me have this, Ro Ro. I got accidentally stabbed.’
‘Is that going to be your excuse for everything from now on?’
‘… probably.’ Lister shovels more Doritos into his mouth. ‘Need to live my life to the fullest. Never know which day might be your last. Et cetera.’
‘And that involves … Doritos.’
Lister waves the bag at Rowan. ‘If I had my way, everything in my life would involve Doritos.’
The taxi ride here was probably the worst half an hour of my life. For most of it, I convinced myself that Lister was already dead. Only when we got to the hospital and we heard he was in surgery did I allow myself to hope.
When the paparazzi and the fans started appearing, we were allowed to hide in a staffroom. Unsurprising that someone saw us and leaked our location.
Once Lister was out, alive, drugged up and unconscious, we were all moved to a private hospital room for a few hours. Then he went back into theatre for surgery on his leg, leaving us alone again, and the whole time he was in there, I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
When he got back and woke up a few hours later, I went ahead and had a bit of a cry and apologised a billion times. Lister tried to make me stop but I definitely haven’t apologised enough. In fact, Lister is pretending that he feels completely fine, but every time he moves too fast, I can see his eyes twitch as he suppresses a wince.
And I still hate myself.
Just FYI.
Still think I’m the worst.
But, you know.
That’s not uncommon.
I stand from my chair and go and join Rowan at the window. We’re facing the courtyard. Rowan seems to be watching a couple of kids playing hopscotch.
We haven’t talked about anything yet, but I can feel it about to happen.
‘What are we gonna do about him?’ Rowan murmurs to me, nodding his head slightly at Lister and his cloud of Dorito dust.
It takes a moment for me to understand Rowan’s meaning.
‘Oh,’ I say. ‘The alcohol.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Well, I have a lot of good therapy connections.’
Rowan chuckles. ‘That’s good. I think we all need therapy, to be honest.’
‘Yeah.’
‘You can still leave, if you want to. I don’t want you to be unhappy.’
‘I don’t want to leave.’
He looks up at me, shocked. ‘What?’
‘Well, I do, sort of,’ I say.
‘Stop contradicting yourself,’ he says, and then laughs. ‘Make some sense, damn it!’
‘The three of us … we were born to be together,’ I say. ‘And I can’t leave that. I don’t want to leave that.’
‘Born to be,’ Rowan echoes my words. ‘Fate, or something?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I’ll put it in a song.’
‘You should. This would all make a pretty good song, actually.’
Rowan smiles. ‘It actually would, wouldn’t it?’
‘Being in The Ark is really … horrible sometimes.’
‘You said it.’
‘But leaving that … leaving you two … would be terrible.’ I look at Rowan. ‘You two are the most important thing to me.’
‘Speak up,’ Lister calls from the bed. ‘I’m missing your emotional speech. I think I should be involved, since I’m the stab-ee.’
Rowan groans. ‘Please stop calling yourself the stab-ee.’
‘I won’t and I’m not going to for the foreseeable future.’
I smile at Lister. ‘I was just saying that I love you both.’
Lister rolls his head onto one side. ‘Aw! What the fuck! You nea
rly let me miss that? A rare display of positive Jimmy emotion?’
‘And I’m not leaving the band.’
‘You’re not?’
‘No.’
Lister’s smile drops, and he looks at me sincerely.
‘You know we’re going to change things, though, right?’ he says.
‘What d’you mean?’
‘No more of this … being pressured to do things. Being manipulated and forced to act in a certain way. We need to stand up for what we want. What we all want. The new contract can literally go and fuck itself.’
‘Yeah,’ murmurs Rowan, looking at me.
‘Like …’ Lister continues, ‘like that girl, Angel. She knew what she wanted. What she believed in. What she loved. And she … she just did it.’ Lister shakes his head. ‘I’ve never met anyone like that.’
Rowan looks back out of the window. ‘She definitely wasn’t what I thought she was.’
‘She wasn’t a maniacal fan, you mean?’
‘She was a maniacal fan, but I don’t think the maniacal fans are what I thought they were. Well, not all of them, anyway.’
‘They’re just a bit normal, really,’ I say.
‘Or we’re all weird.’
‘You can say that again.’
Lister bellows, ‘WE’RE ALL WEIRD!’ so loud that I flinch and Lister actually winces in pain once he’s finished. ‘Okay, that hurt.’
‘Get some rest, oh my God,’ says Rowan.
‘Rest is so boring,’ says Lister.
After another ten minutes, he falls asleep again. Rowan and I stay seated on the windowsill, watching the slow rise and fall of his chest, listening to the steady beeps of his heart.
‘I think he’s got a crush on you,’ says Rowan.
I look at him in alarm. ‘What?! How did you – How did you know about that?’
Rowan shrugs. ‘Just an observation.’ Then he raises his eyebrows at my flustered expression. ‘Why, has something happened?’
‘Erm …’ I try, and fail, to stop myself going red. ‘Erm. We can talk about that later.’
Rowan laughs. His laugh always makes him look younger, reminds me of his younger self. ‘Changes are coming.’
I shake my head. ‘Changes? What changes?’
‘Changes.’
‘That sounds very, very ominous.’
Rowan lifts his arm and wraps it round my shoulders. ‘It’s good, Jimjam. We’re doing good.’
We sit quietly until we start to hear screaming and cheering coming from outside the window. Confused, we both turn to look again, and there, in the centre, are a small gaggle of girls, waving and screeching as we look down again. I faintly hear one of them shout ‘GET WELL SOON, LISTER!’ and another of them is just standing and watching, smiling so wide.
I glance at Rowan. He’s smiling. He raises a hand and waves at the girls.
‘It’s a funny old world,’ he says.
I look at the girls and start waving too. Sending love through the turn of a hand.
This book was terrifying to write and came at me in a whirlwind. And yet, here we are, with a story I’m so proud of, characters I deeply love and a fresh book to share with you all.
I wouldn’t be anywhere without my champion agent, Claire Wilson, who has supported me for all these years. My first and biggest thanks is to her.
I was lucky enough to work with Sarah Hughes on this book – an incredible editor who understood exactly what I was trying to achieve and had so many amazing editorial suggestions. I was also granted the honour of being a little involved in the cover design for this book and the redesigns of my previous two, so big thanks to Sarah and the outstanding designer, Ryan Hammond, for hearing out my ideas, taking note of my sketches and giving my books the most perfect covers. This was SO much fun.
To the whole team at HarperCollins Children’s – thank you for sticking by me for all this time. Even though my books are a bit odd.
I’m not very good at making friends and I sometimes feel alone in the writer world, but thankfully, about four and a half years ago, Lauren James messaged me on Tumblr. Nowadays she’s not only one of my closest friends but also my first port of call for all my creative projects. Thank you for being there. Can’t wait for us to tell more stories and frantically message each other about them.
Huge thanks as always to my family, for nodding politely at my strange ideas, and my friends, even the ones who haven’t read my books. Patrick – write your damn book.
Thanks to Mehak Choudhary and Ahlaam Moledina, who gave me invaluable guidance in writing Angel’s religion and culture, and thanks to Vee S, who beta-read this book and gave me such thoughtful and intelligent advice in writing Jimmy’s experience as a transgender young man.
A very grateful thanks to those who shared with me their experiences of being transgender: Max, Kai Smith, Alexander Yeager, Isaac Freeman, Kan, Ezra Rae, Alex, Ell Eggar, Amanda, Ardell A., Alice Pow, Klaus Evans, Al Vukuši´c Reeden Ashworth, Eleanor Horgan, Ari Lunceford-Guerra, Blu W, Phobos, Noah, Charli F, Eli, Noodler, Robin, David K, Arthur Blum, Fitz, K. Funderburg, Felix, Alexander, Alec R, Vivian Hansen, Cedric Reeve, Kit Stookey, Jaxon Stark, Phoebe, Ollie, Marianne Orr, Bryn Kleinheksel, Anna, and Jace C. And to those who shared their experiences of being Muslim: Sarah K, Aisha Tommy, Amena, Inas K, Mariam Aref, Sara Almansba, Yasmina Berraoui, Shatha Abutaha, Usma Qadri, and Hizatul Akmah. Your wisdom and insight has taught me so much and brought Jimmy and Angel to life.
I want to thank my readers. A little cheesy, I know, but the truth is I’m still able to sit here and write my books because of you. In particular, thank you so, so dearly to all the people who post about my books and characters on the internet. Your support has kept me afloat through all my existential crises.
And, finally, thank you to the fans. All fans. Fans of bands and musicians and YouTubers and actors. Fans of books and video games and films and comics. Thanks for being you. You have so much love and passion inside of you. The deepest hearts.
Click on the cover to read more.
Frances is a study machine with one goal. Then she meets Aled, and for the first time she’s unafraid to be herself. So when the fragile trust between them is broken Frances is caught between who she was and who she longs to be.
Frances is going to need every bit of courage she has.
Click on the cover to read more.
My name is Tori Spring. I like to sleep and I like to blog. Last year I had friends. Things were very different, I guess, but that’s all over now. Now there’s Solitaire. And Michael Holden.
I don’t know what Solitaire are trying to do. And I don’t care about Michael Holden. I really don’t.
Books by Alice Oseman
I WAS BORN FOR THIS
RADIO SILENCE
SOLITAIRE
About the Publisher
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United Kingdom
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