Are never taken seriously.
“… should find a nice hobby.”
But we should be taken seriously. We can be amazing. And dangerous.
The cop was no longer paying attention to me, but that was okay, since I was no longer paying attention to him. “So you don’t believe what I just told you.”
“Four hours,” the cop said, getting up, shaking his head.
He left. I found my own way out.
So the cops didn’t believe me. Maybe I should’ve seen that coming. Or maybe not. Out loud, the story really did seem totally outrageous. But it still needs to be known, and that’s why I’m posting it here. I guess you can consider all of this one long-ass PostSecret. So now it’s out in the open, whether anyone chooses to believe it or not.
A short while after I left the hotel it was completely taken over by Strepurs. They infiltrated, just as Rupert L. feared they would. Running amok, with the police hopeless to catch all of them, Strepurs ransacked every floor of the place. No one is really sure what their mission was, but I think being packed so tightly together outside of the hotel, plus the trauma of a Rupert dying and the rest of the members being carted off to jail, set something off in those Strepurs. There was never any rhyme or reason to the things they did in their day-to-day fan lives; imagine how much less there was on the other side of a collective psychotic break. They managed to get into our room somehow and destroyed everything that may have once made it a crime scene. Michelle Hornsbury was swallowed up by Strepurs for the second time that day.
Things cooled down after that night.
Last I heard, Michelle Hornsbury was in Dubai and in a new relationship. John Mayer.
Rupert Xavier and Rupert Lemon were arrested and sentenced to twenty-five years in a maximum security prison for throwing a body off a roof and endangering the public, but with any luck they’ll be out in twenty for good behavior.
Rupert Kirke’s case was a little different. He’d told the prosecutor and the media that he’d been with a girl the whole time. A girl whose name he did not remember. For a while, the media had a field day basically calling him a skank for being with a girl and not even knowing her name.
Rupert K.’s team of lawyers interviewed a lot of the girls who had come forward to say they were the ones who had been with him when Rupert P. died and had been thrown off the roof. The press called it a modern-day Cinderella story. Thousands of girls came forward, from all over the world, hoping that crystal slipper fit on their foot. But Rupert K.’s lawyers couldn’t go through all the girls. It wasn’t feasible, they said. And then, miraculously, Rupert K. did remember her name. He said he’d been with a girl named Sloane Peterson. He said she liked red cars, museums, dance parties in town squares, and writing.
The media had a second field day, and every blog, news-paper, and entertainment news show made fun of him for spending that night with the female lead in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
His case looked pretty bleak for a while there. But a maintenance man at the hotel came forward and corroborated Rupert K.’s story, saying that he’d seen Rupert K. and a young woman running through the halls near the hotel’s indoor pool. Rupert X. and Rupert L. eventually admitted that Rupert K. wasn’t with them on the roof.
Rupert K. wasn’t charged with a crime. He’s currently working on a solo album. Folk dubstep. He posted a SoundCloud of his first single on Twitter. It’s called “Are You the Girl?” I can’t bring myself to listen to it yet.
As for what happened to us four girls, it’s a lot less interesting.
As you may have guessed, none of my friends came forward with any information about what happened that night at The Rondack. Once they left the hotel, they never looked back.
Apple took down all her Rupert P. posters and found a new band to obsess over. Six Stages of Grief was an American boy band trying to bring back the whole emo/pop/punk scene. They weren’t very big yet but they had a small following of devoted fans, Apple among them. She washed the auburn out of her hair, going back to her natural black. Her favorite member of 6SoG was Dashiell Bancroft. He was five feet one, showing a major case of premature male-pattern baldness, and had a chin that receded into his jaw.