Page 72 of If This Gets Out

“Not exactly hard to find you,” Pauline’s saying to Jon when my mind starts processing words again. “Your photos were all over Twitter. You boys can’tcoughwithout it being recorded online, why’d you think you’d be able to go out without us? If you wanted some air you could’veaskedus, wecould’ve gone for a walk around the grounds. We wouldn’t have even needed to tell Erin! Now look!”

Of course they found us. We’ve been missing for barely fifteen minutes, and they tracked us down.

We’ve been missing for barely fifteen minutes, and we’d come a hair’s breadth away from being mobbed. Or worse.

I’ve never been quite so aware of how monitored I am. But at the same time, I’ve never been so grateful to be closely monitored. Of course, the downside is, they’re taking us back to the hotel, where our whole team is going to find out what we did.

Climb onto my head. I’ll swim you across the river.

FOURTEEN

ZACH

Saturday is still trending.

I keep waiting for it to die down, for something else to take over. God, please let a Kardashian do something,anything,to get the spotlight off us.

But no. It seems like the whole world has decided to pause so everyone can give their opinion about what is now known as Angel’s Meltdown.

And boy, people sure are enjoying giving their opinion.

Today is supposed to be a rest day before our second show in Berlin tomorrow, but nobody can sit still. For most of the day the four of us have been stressing in Jon’s room, because it’s the cleanest, honestly. I’m at the desk, trying to tinker with the lyrics in “End of Everything.” Ruben, Jon, and Angel are on the bed, trying to watch TV or browse on their laptops.

Chorus changed the passwords on our social media accounts, a temporary freeze, they promised us, so we can’t post anything that could get us in even more trouble. I have been checking, though, and the Saturday account has posted a selfie of the four us we were asked to take a few days ago. In it, we’re all smiling, and it seems like everything is fine.

Angel picks up the remote, and changes the channel away from the nature documentary that was on.

“Hey,” says Jon. “I was watching that.”

“You need a life.” Angel flicks through to find a trashy news show.

They’re talking about us. In German. It’s really weird.

“Why?” moans Jon, resting his head back against the headboard as Angel turns on the subtitles.

“Just checking in,” says Angel. “If they’re talking about me, it’s only fair that I hear what they’re saying.”

Jon pretends to fake cough. “Narcissist,” he says, between coughs.

“Takes one to know one. I’m just not coy about it.”

The show is a glossy panel show, the sort of thing that would air on E! at home. Behind the panelists is a screen with the words ANGEL:DURCHGEDREHT?in big white letters, along with a photo of Angel mid-tirade.

We read the subtitles: “We’ve seen this all before, it’s very Hollywood. They get famous too young, the power goes to their heads, and then this happens. Is it inevitable? Opinion?”

“Look, no, I wouldn’t say it’s inevitable. There are hundreds of kids who have grown up under the spotlight who never do anything like this. I wish we talked more about them.”

The audience applauds.

“Angel clearly has two paths ahead of him. One is he gets his act together and gets his life back on track. The other… well, I don’t want to think about that, but we’ve seen it before.”

“What could stop it, though?”

“He’s the only one who can. Until he makes the connection that he’s ruining his life, there’s no helping him.”

“Fuck off,” says Angel, turning off the TV. “I bet they’re all using the second they get backstage. Hypocrites.”

I turn back to my computer, and check Twitter. If anything, it’s worse. I don’t know what I expected.

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