I pulled out my phone. In my mind, at that moment, that was all I could think to do. Erin wasn’t herself and she needed help. Luckily, I had my therapist on speed dial. “Dr. Schwarcz-Levinsohn is great,” I said. “She’ll whip you right back into shape.”
Erin yanked the phone out of my hands. “Get a grip,” she said. “I’m of sound mind. Actually, my mind’s never been sounder. You may not understand my actions right now, but one day you’ll come to realize that what I’m doing is really great. No, not just great—right. Boy bands need to go. And we’re going to be the ones to eradicate them.”
I stood up. I had too many feelings racing through me—spilling out of me—to just sit there and listen to this. “Where is this all coming from? We love boy bands, Erin. You love boy bands. You love The Ruperts.”
“I hate The Ruperts.”
“What?”
“I hate The Ruperts.” It was like she liked saying it, liked the idea of it, liked the way the words bounced around on her tongue.
Liked the way my face fell upon hearing it.
Erin always could make anything sound seductive, the way she spoke. But not this.
“How many hours have we spent watching their videos together?” I said, incredulous. Maybe all she needed was to be reminded of how much she loved The Ruperts. “How many times have we gone to your house and laid on the floor in your room and sung their album at the top of our lungs? We’ve told each other stuff. We’ve told each other our deepest fantasies about Rupert X. and Rupert K. All we do is talk about them!”
“All you do is talk about them,” Erin said calmly. “And you’ve obviously not noticed, but lately all I do is listen. I’m sorry, but I’m done listening. The boy band is everything that is wrong with society.”
“Jeez, Erin, it’s just a boy band. It’s not that serious.”
“Tell that to a world of girls who worship them. Do you see how many girls there are outside of this hotel? Thousands of girls, screaming their throats raw. And for what? A quartet of trendy haircuts who don’t even know they exist. Those girls outside are lobotomies. They’re zombies. Only instead of brains they want stupid boys with mediocre singing voices. I’ve seen the light, and I’m not going to be part of the trend anymore. I won’t just stand around and watch as a whole generation of us devolve into a sniveling puddle over some … boys.”
“A whole generation of girls? You’re the one who always said boy bands have a shelf life of two to four years.”
“That’s my entire teenage life!”
Now she was angry. She stood from her seat and finally raised her voice, the loudness of it matching the panic in mine. And it made me realize that I’d only seen the tip of the iceberg of some new blackness in her heart. The Erin I knew didn’t just suddenly start hating the boy band that she’d once obsessed over. There was so much more to this that I didn’t know.
“What happened at the Dublin show?”
She looked down, combed her fingers through her hair, and it kind of made me sick that I was still focused on how beautiful she was despite the fact that she was also obviously upset about something. “My mom dropped me off and told me to call her when the concert was over so she could come pick me up. I told you that part.”
I nodded.
“What I didn’t tell you is that after the show I managed to sneak backstage. It’s really not that hard when you know how to talk to certain people. I found Rupert X.’s private dressing room. And then I took all of my clothes off, sat on his couch, and waited for him to find me.”
“You didn’t.”
“Yeah, I did. I still can’t believe I did that. I was such an idiot.”
She’d never told me any of this, and hearing it was shocking. This was big. This was huge. This was story-worthy. It was especially something you’d tell your best friend. If not as soon as it happened, then at least some time within the six months since it’d happened. “Wait a minute. You’re doing all of this because Rupert X. rejected you?”
“Who said he rejected me?”
I sat down again, my knees suddenly giving out. “Are you saying …?”
“I told you I was saving myself for Rupert X. And I did.”
“What the fuck?” There I went again. I said it a bunch more times, differently now than how we’d started this conversation, but still with just as much meaning behind it. Erin’s admission was shocking on so many levels. Not just because she was talking about sex with her actual favorite boy bander, which was a mindfuck and the most improbable thing ever, but because Erin had had sex at all.
And didn’t tell me about it.
This was huge. Sex was huge. Here was Erin, having actual sex (with arguably the hottest boy on the planet, no less) and here I was, thinking we were best friends. But best friends told each other this sort of thing as soon as it happened. How could she keep it to herself all this time?
“When Rupert X. came into the room he was looking down at something on his phone, so he didn’t notice me at first,” Erin said. “But then when he finally did he had the strangest look on his face. His eyebrows sort of scrunched together, but he smiled. He looked at me like I was a puppy who’d managed to find some hidden treat or something, and Rupert X. couldn’t be disappointed because it was so damn adorable. He didn’t even look particularly surprised. He didn’t turn me down. But obviously I didn’t want him to.
“After we were done he took pictures of me on the couch. I thought, ‘Wow, he must like me so much he wants to remember me.’ But then he said, ‘I’m going to send these to the lads.’ Don’t you just hate it when they call each other ‘lads’?”
“Erin …”
“I told him not to send the pictures to anyone. I told him that I wanted him to delete them. But he just kept talking like he hadn’t even heard me. He said, ‘I think I’ll title the message Party in My Room.’ I said, ‘Please, don’t.’ I started to cry. I pleaded with him not to send those pictures to anyone. I asked him, ‘What do I have to do to keep you from sending them out?’ And he said, ‘I want you to beg for me, love.’ ”
The words echoed in my mind. I’d heard them before. And then I realized I heard them when Erin herself had said them to Rupert P.
“So I begged. He stroked my face, and gave me this ‘poor you’ smile. And then he sent them anyway. A second later Rupert L. and Rupert P. came bounding through the room. Now that I think of it, Rupert P. looked like he was just coming along ’cause it was something to do, not because he actually wanted to see a naked girl. Rupert L. looked way more excited.
“I took one of the couch cushions and tried to cover myself up, but it wasn’t really enough. And then Rupert X. held my clothes up and said, ‘Looking for these?’ I tried to grab them and he said, ‘It was just a Snapchat, love. Are you really going to go?’ He laughed, and then he gave me my clothes. And I ran out of there.”
I couldn’t imagine Erin like that. Naked. Vulnerable. At the mercy of someone who wasn’t partial to her charms. “And you took his dagger necklace,” I said. It wasn’t a replica I’d found in her bag. It was Rupert X.’s actual necklace, the one he hadn’t been seen wearing for the last six months.
Erin’s eyes were dark and shimmery and distant, like she was back in that room. “Do you have any idea how much it hurt?”
I didn’t know if she meant emotionally or physically. Probably both. I couldn’t believe that anyone was capable of hurting Erin. I couldn’t believe that someone had succeeded. And I couldn’t believe that the boys—our boys, who we loved so much—could be so horrible. “I’m sorry, Erin. Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
She shrugged, and when she blinked part of the shimmer in her eyes went away, and it was like she was back in the present. “I was embarrassed,” she said. “I was stupid. But I refuse to be stupid any longer. That’s why I need to do this.”
“We already got Rupert P. out of the band. How much more damage do you want to do?”
“As much as I can.”
I swallowed hard, confuse
d and more than a little scared. “Do you realize what you’re saying, though? You want to destroy people’s lives.”
“Four boys for the price of millions of girls. I think it’s a fair trade.”
“Those girls outside the hotel—all the Strepurs of the world—love those boys. Who are you really hurting here?”
“Strepurs don’t know what they want. Those girls outside the hotel could overthrow governments with their passion! They have the potential to do so much more. To make music, or art, or to write something that isn’t rpf fanfic!”
A slap in the face. A thunderclap that shook me to my gut. “I thought you liked my fic.”
“You’re so talented. You could be using your skills to do so much more than just that.”
“And you could be using your skills to do more than destroy a boy band! Erin, you can’t just go destroying people’s lives because Rupert X. screwed you over.”
Poor choice of words, I know, but it was too late to take them back.
“This isn’t about Rupert X. anymore. He’s just a stupid fuckboy. But he did make me realize something. I’m not just going to be a victim. I’m doing something about it.”
“How could you involve me in this?” I said.
“You could’ve walked away from this at any moment. But you didn’t.”
It was the truth, and it particularly stung because it meant I couldn’t just blame Erin for this. It was no one’s fault but my own that I never walked away, that I never freed Rupert P., that I never even had the balls to stand up to my friends. I was always following Erin blindly. I was a coward.
I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of admitting that, though. “You’re being psycho.”
“I’m the psycho? At least Rupert K. isn’t a recurring guest star in my daydreams.”
Another slap in the face. They were starting to sting.
I’d told her about that in confidence.
“Think of all the things you’ve sacrificed for this band,” Erin went on. “Friends—”
“I have friends.”
“Friends who you don’t communicate with on the Internet. Discovering other interests. You’ve got this tunnel-vision obsession that’s keeping you from seeing real life.”
I couldn’t believe she was saying this to me. I knew other people didn’t understand me, didn’t understand why I cared so much about these boys, but the one person I thought got it was the one person who was throwing it all back in my face. I always thought we were in this together.
I was so wrong.
And I think that hurt more than anything.
“Why am I even here, then?” I said. “Why did you invite me along if you knew I would be opposed to this?”
“I hoped you’d see my side of things. You’re my best friend. I want to save you too.”
I’d chased her all the way in here, but suddenly I wanted to be as far away from her as possible. “I’m so grateful,” I spat. I tried saying it with as much venom as I could, but Erin was always the one who had a way with words.
There was this girl at school who used to taunt me sometimes. Leslie Hamilton. She was a sophomore and I was a freshman, and this was early on in the school year, the worst the bullying ever was. She didn’t do anything major, just spewed shit consistently. Stuff about my clothes, my hair, about how I didn’t have a dad—really childish stuff. One day in the locker room, while everyone else headed into the gym for PE, Erin took my hand and pulled me back. The two of us were the only ones left.
“I have something for you,” she’d said. Her hair was up in a high ponytail, her lips still super red, even for gym. She held out a pink water bottle for me to take.
“Thanks,” I said. “But I’m not thirsty.”
“It’s not for you, silly. That’s Leslie’s water bottle. She keeps it locked in her locker because she occasionally enjoys a bit of vodka in her post-gym refresher. But combination locks are a breeze, and no match for me.” She held it out again, shaking it a bit. “So here, take it. I think you should pee in it.”
I read her face, trying to make out if this was some sort of joke, but she was serious. “What?”
“Pee in the bottle. She deserves it.”
“Erin,” I said. It was more of a shocked laugh than a name, the way it came out. “I can’t just … I can’t just pee in someone’s water bottle.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s really mean.”
Erin sighed and dropped her hand, the water bottle colliding limply with her thigh. “How can you stand the way she treats you? I can’t.”
“Yeah, but what you’re proposing isn’t any better. It isn’t nice.”
I thought she’d drop it then, that she’d see the error of her ways, but Erin only came closer, smoothed out the shoulder of my gym T-shirt, and said, “Fuck nice.” She held out the bottle again, giving it a little shake. She smiled.
I was enthralled by everything about her. By the fact that she was so appalled by Leslie Hamilton’s treatment of me that she’d steal the girl’s water bottle. By the fact that she wanted to get revenge on Leslie Hamilton simply because she cared about me.
I loved that memory of Erin sticking up for me in her own way. And I especially loved the look on Leslie Hamilton’s face when she spit out her water in disgust. Now, after everything, that memory seems tainted somehow, and I just see the situation for what it was: shady as fuck.
Because the truth was, my best friends were psychopaths.
Officially.
I mean, there really was no denying it now. When they weren’t kidnapping boy band members, they were plotting to destroy them.
I thought of going back to the bar again, but then I also felt like I needed a change. So instead of going down I went up. I took the elevator as high as it would go, and then when it wouldn’t go any higher I found the nearest stairwell and kept going up til there was nothing but a door. I pushed it open, and a gust of wind assaulted me. It whipped my hair in all different directions and shouted in my ears. The fresh air was violent, but I felt better already.
I took out my phone and clicked on Twitter. My feed was blowing up, just as I knew it would be. It was a volley between Rupert P. fangirls tweeting threats to kill themselves or anyone else if the news of Rupert P.’s departure was true, and other Strepurs being surprisingly excited by the news of Rupert P.’s exit. My Tumblr dash was a mess too, with people reblogging tear-stricken selfies and hundreds of posts of girls freaking out. Buzzfeed already had a slew of lists up, from “Twelve Signs That Rupert P. Was Bound to Leave The Ruperts” to “Sixty Reasons Why The Ruperts Will Be a Better Band Now That Rupert P. Is Gone.” Isabel’s website was my last stop. She’d already posted about the whole debacle, speaking about it as if she had some sort of insight on the matter. Well, I guess she kind of did. She was promising more updates soon. I tried scrolling through her comments section, but it seemed impossible to get to the bottom of the page. Her site was extremely popular, but I’d never seen her get this many comments. She must be somewhere right now high-fiving herself or threatening people’s well-being, or whatever it was Isabel considered celebratory.
My battery was down to 30 percent. I put my phone in my pocket and walked over to the edge of the roof. The wall at the edge came up to my waist. Normally I would’ve been scared. I was really high up, and if I leaned too far out—splat—it’d all be over. But fear hadn’t done me any good today. Fear had stopped me from confronting Erin about all this. From making up my own mind. I looked over the edge. Down below were the screaming girls, a whole ocean of them. I may not have been down there with them, but I was one of them.
I loved being a Strepur. Maybe I was obsessed, but so were millions of other girls. I wasn’t out of my depth. And I was happy in my obsession. But was Erin right? Was I just a drone, wasting my time and potential on boys who would never know I existed?
I stuffed my hand into my jeans pocket and fished out the elastic string of my bracelet and the few beads I�
��d managed to find after Rupert P. broke it. I pinched one end of the elastic and strung the remaining beads onto it. Some of the letters were missing, and I only managed to spell out “Ddy.”
You know that feeling you get when you’re about to cry? When your chin quivers and the back of your throat twists and hurts? I hated that feeling. I blinked, trying to stave it off. I sighed deep and shut my eyes, tried to think of something better, and then …
“Please don’t jump.”
The new voice frightened me, and I spun to see where it came from. And then I froze. Because standing behind me was … my boy.
My life ruiner.
My Rupert K.
My face at that moment was that Heart Eyes emoji.
“Please, think about what you’re doing,” he said. He was coming toward me with careful steps, his arms outstretched before him as if ready to catch me if I fell. Was it bad that a part of me wanted to just so he could? “It gets better. Life is precious. Uh, life is beautiful?” He cursed under his breath and squeezed his eyes shut for an instant, embarrassed by his triteness. “I don’t know what people usually say in these sorts of situations. Just, please don’t jump.”
He was standing right next to me. He wore a gray peacoat over a white shirt, buttoned all the way up to the collar, and he gripped his black hat onto his head with one hand.
This wasn’t real.
This was not happening.
I was losing my mind. I was absolutely losing my mind. But I didn’t care. Rupert K. was trying to talk me out of killing myself.
This was the best day of my life.
“Please, step back,” he said. He said it as if I could move—as if I had any sort of control over my limbs in his presence. “If you move I will be forced to take matters into my own hands.”
Did “matters” mean me?
I lunged for the edge.
Just as he’d promised, Rupert K. grabbed me by the waist and pulled. I didn’t have to stumble back and make myself fall on top of him.
But reader, that’s exactly what I did.
The two of us were a jumble of limbs on the cold concrete roof. As we were clearly meant to be.
Kill the Boy Band Page 11
