“Michelle,” I said, breathless. “What are you doing here?”
She looked scared to see me too for a second and wiped her eyes quickly, but then she squinted, her brows knitting together. “I thought you girls had left,” she said in a tear-clogged voice. “Are you going to stay the night? I know this was originally your room, but you left and, well, you know what they say—finders keepers and all that. I’m afraid I’ve already claimed the bed, you’ll have to take the couch.”
Relegated to the couch. Again. I shook my head, trying to get back to the matter at hand. “Wait, what?”
Michelle Hornsbury shrugged. “I was invited to stay in this room,” she explained slowly. “I wasn’t just going to leave because Orange unceremoniously kicked me out.”
“Apple.”
“No, thank you, I’m not hungry.”
Could this night honestly get any more bizarre? It was never going to end. So long as I was in this hotel it seemed I was destined to spend my days in some weird Twilight Zone dimension where friends turned against you, boy bands were dumb, and beards came alive. Total mindfuck. And I obviously didn’t do well with mindfucks. I didn’t even know why I’d come back. To see the room one last time? To punish myself? All I really wanted to do was go home and forget about all of this. But seeing Michelle Hornsbury, I knew why I couldn’t leave. All the times I’d said I’d go to the police, and even the one time I actually did, nothing changed. I was still responsible for what happened to Rupert P. Whether I only helped to kidnap him, or whether I actually did black out, go stark raving mad, and kill him. The more time that passed with that hypothesis in my mind, the more I believed it.
And nothing would change—everything would continue to not change—until I actually did something to change it.
I had to tell someone what I’d done. Even if no one would believe me.
I cleared my throat. I didn’t normally clear my throat before confessions, but people on TV did and the moment seemed to call for it. “Michelle,” I said. “I think I killed Rupert P.”
She turned to me, her face screwed up in cloudy confusion. “What?”
“I think I might be going crazy.” I just let it all out at that point. No holds barred. Confession was a go. “Last year I got really depressed—my mom calls it my ‘bad way.’ My dad died and after that I kind of had a breakdown. But what if it really was more serious than that? I mean, I’ve always imagined Rupert K. as if he was standing right next to me, but I always thought that was just because I have a really good imagination—I write a lot, it’s my thing—and don’t most Rupert K. fans fantasize about him sometimes? But then when Isabel told me he never tweeted that ‘Bright Lights’ thing I really got to thinking. He could’ve just deleted it before any of the girls saw it, but what if he didn’t, you know? What if I imagined I was with him when really I was here, in this room, strangling Rupert P.? He was a douchefuck—mayherestinpeace—but he didn’t deserve to die. I went from a crazy fangirl to literally a crazy fangirl, I think.” I took a breath. I needed one. “And if it wasn’t me then it was definitely Isabel, who I think may actually be bloodthirsty. I wouldn’t put it past her.”
“Oh, you poor thing,” Michelle said.
That was not the reaction I had been expecting from the fake girlfriend of the dead boy bander. I expected backing away slowly and threats to call the police. Maybe even screams. Maybe even Michelle Hornsbury beating me up. But not this.
“You didn’t kill Rupert P.,” she said. “I did.”
I swear this was what she said. Honestly, I’m not trying to place the blame on someone else. By now I hope you’ve seen how much I was willing to sacrifice by telling her all this—just to make it right.
“What?”
“Whew, you don’t know how good it feels to get that off my chest,” she said, heaving a big breath. “Thank you.”
“What do you mean you killed Rupert P.? How? You couldn’t have.”
“Rupie and I had a complicated relationship.”
The mother of all understatements.
“It’s true, what Griffin Holmes said on that video. Rupie was gay. I knew it all along. But I didn’t care. Rupie needed a girlfriend, and I got to do a lot of things from my place on his arm.