And I would, just as soon I finished kissing him again.
This time I was the one who leaned toward him, but before I could get to him our phones started to go off, both at the same moment. We both took out our phones, checking our new texts. And I knew by the look on his face that we’d both just read a variation of the same headline.
THE RUPERTS SINGER RUPERT PIERPONT PLUMMETS 16 STORIES FROM HOTEL ROOF TO HIS DEATH.
What had the boys done?
That was all I could think. I know that we kidnapped Rupert P.—I know that he died in our room—but this was next-level crazy. Us fangirls—we were allowed to have the crazy. We had a monopoly on it. But when the boys acted crazy, that shifted the balance of things completely. The record that I’d been playing forever suddenly scratched, and I was left to wonder if I could ever play it again.
I had just been on the roof.
Was that noise Rupert K. and I heard … Was that Rupert L. and Rupert X. hauling up Rupert P.’s body? Did they throw their bandmate off the roof of a hotel to try and make it look like a suicide? Had I really spent the last two years of my life worshiping the dumbest boys alive?
Yes, I think I had.
Rupert K.’s face was stuck, unflinching, his eyes glued to his phone screen.
“Rupert, I’m sorry.” Forget what Erin said about girls apologizing too much. This time was different. I meant it and I needed to say it. “I’m so sorry.”
I really was. You have to believe me. Looking at his face right then made my stomach twist. I decided to tell him everything.
“Rupert, there’s something—”
He stood too quickly, cutting off my words. “I have to go.”
“Where are you going? We can talk about it.”
“I have to go,” he said again. And then he was gone, slamming through the pool doors and out of my life again.
After a time I made my own way to the door, down the dimly lit corridors. The closer I got to a door labeled LOBBY the louder the sound was. I recognized the noise right away: feet hitting the floor and taking off, running in every direction; orders being yelled, juxtaposed with steadier voices trying to keep the calm; and of course, there was the screaming, the constant ringing. It was the first stirrings of pandemonium.
The actual pandemonium greeted me once I opened the door. The sounds were nothing more than a buzzing dissonance in my ears, as distinct as the noise glass makes when it shatters. People whizzed past me in every direction. On the other side of the glass doors the entrance to The Rondack was madness. Bodies frantic and flashing lights and lots more police than there had been earlier. I was drawn to it, the cacophony, like any other person pulled into becoming a voyeur by chaos. But I had to stop just short of the doors when a cop stepped in front of me.
“How did you get in here?” he said. His hand was already on my shoulder, gently pushing me toward an exit.
“I have a room here.”
“Sure you do. You can’t be in here.”
I dug into my jeans pocket, thankful that I had one of the room keys on me. I showed it to the cop, who looked kind of disappointed to see that I wasn’t lying. “Go back to your room and await further instruction from the hotel staff.”
“Wha—”
“You can’t leave right now, miss.” Something over my shoulder caught his eye, something much more important than a wayward teen girl. He got out of my way.
I had to go back to the girls.
*
Even before I walked through the door I could hear the crying. I didn’t know who it belonged to, but I guessed it was Michelle Hornsbury. Maybe her crying sounded British (can crying sound British?), or maybe it was the fact that none of my friends would be crying over the current circumstances. When I walked inside, Michelle Hornsbury was sitting in the middle of the couch bawling, and Erin, Isabel, and Apple surrounded her, lending clearly apathetic shoulders to cry on and tapping her back with unsure hands. I guess they’d long given up the charade about caring for Rupert P., even for Michelle Hornsbury’s sake.
“I guess you guys heard what happened.” It was a dumb thing to say, I’m fully aware, but it was all I could come up with.
A new wave of sobs spilled out of Michelle Hornsbury.
“We didn’t just hear about it,” Isabel said. “We saw it.”
“What?”
“Check the window.”
I had forgotten our room faced the front of the building. I went straight to the window and looked down. The street was congested with people and police cars and ambulances, and I couldn’t even see the pavement anymore. Every inch was covered, even with people who clearly weren’t Strepurs (men, oldies, sane people), all of them clambering close with outstretched cell phones. The scaffolding was folded over like used tinfoil, all bent metal and splintered wood. And in the center of it—limbs bent in every unnatural position imaginable—was the body of Rupert P.