[someone requested this a while ago (like a whole year oop). I was never comfortable writing a story that included someone's actual life, like being in the actual band and whatnot if that makes sense. But it was an idea that I had wanted to try for a while bc it's so common and they were kind enough to roughly detail out the general plot for me. I just changed a handful of things so I wouldn't feel weird while writing u feel.
I tend to write moderately quick burns so I wanted to make a slow burn but. But I don't like slow burn bc I lose interest quickly so I should've seen this coming. I had a list of scenes I wanted to play out too but I couldn't get to any of them without laying down the beginning of a foundation of a romantic relationship and lord knows I am terrible at that :) so I have like 1/4 a slow burn that is just a slow simmer that barely even reaches a steady boil
& The title was supposed to reference two people with something missing coming together and becoming ~whole~ how cheesy but I didn't get to explain or elaborate in the book so I felt the need to put. it. Here. Y'know.

Anyways enjoy thank u This whole draft is divided in 3 parts because I wrote ~28,000 words for this]

1 - The Unfortunate Aftermath of Unprecedented Fame and Adoration

Elvis died from drug overdose, but I don't think he would've if he wasn't famous.

Marilyn Monroe was also killed by drug overdose. She's a legend, but she's dead.

Avicii committed suicide. So did Kurt Cobain and Robin Williams.

Any Winehouse. Cory Monteith. Heath Ledger. Selena. That doesn't even begin to cover the other artists, or those killed by other people. Fame is danger.

It's weird to point out, and very few people have caught on, but when you're famous something usually happens to chop down your life span significantly. So rule one is to never get famous. I don't really have any other rules besides the obvious. Like don't trust the Nigerian princesses. Don't send nudes. Wear your seat belt. Don't eat straight chocolate powder. The usual.

However, at this exact moment in time, I have broken rule one. Rule one has been broken, broken is rule one, literally the only rule I ever trusted myself to follow.

Rule one being broken means either absolute destruction of normalcy, or the imminent death of either my personality or existence.

But I sit in the studio with me, myself, and my band mate, refreshing the page and watching the views on our music video skyrocket.

And I get the texts from our manager. And I get the voicemails from friends and family. And I get the social media notifications buzzing like a beehive. And I get the messages about the trending tags on YouTube and the iTunes Charts.

What a mistake. We never should've recorded that song and I never should've introduced it. What. A. Mistake.

That's all Taylor has ever wanted though. She plays the drums and does tends to give the backup vocals with the chorus or bridge, but she dreams of having crowds scream her name, and she's ecstatic when all the comments pour in about the gorgeous chick with the drumsticks, from men and women. It's a dream come true for her.

But she keeps her composure in front of me and contains a smile. "It's cool, I guess. Five million views. All in less than two days. We're kind of blowing up."

"Yeah," I glance over and she's biting her lip, cheeks flushed red, "it is. So go ahead."

"Go ahead and what?"

"Celebrate. Post about it. Don't let me spoil this for you. Isn't this what you've always wanted?"

She narrows her eyes. I don't think she can tell I'm being serious. "Huh?"

"Here," I grab her phone from her hands and while she climbs over me to try to snatch it back, I slide her lock-screen over and open her camera for a photo, "smile."

She defaults into a grin and I snap a couple pictures, only with half mr face in the frame. "Post them, don't tag me, take credit for everything. We are a one-man-band."

"Funny that you think people would believe I sang the whole song and played two different people in the video." As soon as I hand it back to her she opens social media and starts compiling photos together for a set. She doesn't bother to edit them. "One-man-band my ass."

I would like to stay out of the spotlight for as long as I can. Music is just a hobby, it's something I like but can't see myself pursuing it as a career in any way, shape, or form. As I said, fame is danger, and I'm far from a daredevil. "Let me live in peace for a while longer."

"Number one on the chart," she reads the caption aloud, "but he's number one in my heart. No escape from the fame for you today, Dallon."

With a fan base growing on the horizon, that'll be sure to spark rumors that we're together. We aren't, and I definitely wouldn't mind if we were, but we're just friends and we both want it to stay like that. The post is just going to mean more media attention and one more question in the interviews I'll be forced to sit through. "Get ready for the dating rumors."

Her lips curls up just as she presses the button to post the photo set. "Damn it. I've screwed up already and I've been famous for approximately a day."

I stand and gently nudge my spinning chair under the desk. "It's fine, we'll just have to find you a man. It should be easy now that you're famous."

Her cheeks flush red. "We aren't that famous," she calls out as I'm halfway up the stairs out of the studio, "not yet, at least."

Not yet. "Three million." I point to the laptop screen and head down the hall before she can keep the conversation going.

The studio is stupidly connected to my house. It's my entire basement, because I wanted a place to play my instruments out of sight in a soundproof room that wouldn't disturb the neighbors. I'm pretty sure they think I'm dead. I've had the cops called on me a few times, just to make sure I'm still alive, and since I haven't left my house in a while, I'm suspecting another one soon.

Now, my house isn't that big. It's two floors above the studio basement but it's stacked like a couple of ice cubes. It's tall but there isn't much room. Above the studio is the living room that leads to the single car garage, kitchen, and a bathroom. One level higher is my bedroom, another bathroom, and a small loft that houses one Spider-Man lawn chair and one pink bean bag. I'm not broke, but I'm not exactly swimming in cash. Life insurance can only get you so much.

Taylor follows behind me and heads for the front door instead of following me to my kitchen. "I'll see you later. Expect a call from Sarah soon, she'll probably have set up some interviews or something by now."

I need to go grocery shopping. The fridge is pretty much barren, spare a couple of sodas and frozen pizza locked into plastic baggies. "Okay. See you later."

As soon as her old Honda Civic hybrid from sixteen years ago pulls out of the driveway, I think I start crying. I don't fully cry, but my head starts throbbing from the lack of tears streaming down my face, my nose starts running, my throat closes up, and I think I'm going to burst into a million pieces if I keep thinking about it. It's a good song, but I never wanted to be famous. I just wanted to make music in my basement and record them for my funeral. It's not that I don't want to be famous, it's more of the fact that I don't think I can handle the attention and pressure.

For gods sake, I live alone in a dumb house, I live off money I won from the lowest lottery a year ago and the money I collected from life insurance, and I have never kept a stable job that wasn't retail or restaurant service. I hate the attention, I hate leaving my house and having to take the time to care about people and interact with them. I just wanted to play instruments and make a tune about my dumb first world problems.

Oh, woe is me. Starbucks doesn't serve pumpkin spice lattes all year long. My fitted sheets won't stay on my bed. My laptop charger is finicky. The liquor store clerk doesn't believe I'm of the legal age so I had to bring her my passport and my social security.

Now the cameras will be all over my house waiting for me to do something interesting, like pouring the milk before the cereal. Now there's going to be articles about how much of an antisocial jerk I am, now I'm going to have to pose for pictures and look decent whenever I go to the grocery store. Now every secret I've ever had is going to be published as the cover to a magazine. I hope Vogue pays me for it.

The only reason I'm still friends with Taylor is because she can play the drums and I can't, and sometimes she's nice to me. She loves the attention, she loves people and the camera adores her. She's the one that insisted we upload to YouTube and publish on steaming platforms, not me. This onslaught of the media is all her fault.

Sarah does in fact call, at least a dozen times over the course of three hours that I spend curled up in my bed surrounded by chips and my laptop playing Netflix. The only time I even consider picking up the phone when she rings the house phone and leaves a message.

"Dallon, I know you're there," the static twists her voice, "and I'm going to congratulate you even though you're severely upset over this. I am in the process of lining up a couple interviews, and we might be able to get you in as an opening band for an international tour. The YouTube video has six million views, the single is already climbing up the charts somehow, and both you and Taylor have gained an obscene amount of followers, so..."

I don't care, but okay. She goes on for a few minutes. I don't really listen.

"...Call me back when you're ready to talk. If you don't respond in two days, I'm coming to visit you. Have a good night, I'll talk to you later. Congrats again."

Netflix asks if I'm still watching, but I can't find the energy to continue with the episode, so I let the screen turn to black and the computer power itself off.

2 - The Untimely But Deserved Downfall of Your Favorite High School Band

I wake up to a silent phone with a couple thousand notifications, and I pat myself on the back for turning on the do not disturb feature. I have twelve missed calls, forty-nine unread text messages, nineteen thousand Instagram notifications, seven thousand from Twitter, and not a single care in the world. I mean, there is a little bit of caring, but the urge to respond to every single message and comment is overturned by my desire to shut myself off from everyone and everything.

I roll over to come face to face with my laptop screen, set on Skype, with a lovely view of the quaint kitchen in Taylor's apartment across town. She aggressively stabs at a pan on the stove with a spatula, still dressed in pajama shorts and a tank top despite it being almost noon. I shouldn't be knocking her for waking up so late because I did it too, but I'm trying to avoid my problems and she's an early-riser so it's okay. We're close friends anyways. I am allowed to be mean.

She spares a couple quick glances to her screen. "Good morning, superstar. We've passed the eight hour mark on our video call again, congratulations."

"I don't remember calling you. At all."

"It was four in the morning, I didn't expect you to remember anything."

Now that I think about it, I vaguely recall furiously requesting a call in the middle of the night, but that's as far as the memory goes. "Sorry."

"Don't be," Taylor jerks the spatula upwards and scrambled egg yolks go flying, "I didn't actually go to sleep until five anyways."

I watch her grab for little bottles of spices and snack the glass with her palm until enough has tumbled through the plastic coverings. "Tragic."

She sighs. "Honestly. Sarah was up for hours, and she sent me every email and every message she got from all these label groups and festivals with openings, whatever. We blew the fuck up last night. We're already an entire Buzzfeed quiz."

My worst nightmare has come true. My fingers fumble through the YouTube app only to find fifteen million views and counting. I haven't even gotten out of bed for the day. Death approaches quicker and quicker with each tweet and follow. "Can we petition for it to be taken down?"

"What's the reason?"

"I don't like the attention."

She clicks her tongue just as she finishes loading the scrambled eggs on a plate, then picks up her laptop and sets me down in front of her at her kitchen table. "Request denied. Try harder."

"Invasion of privacy."

"The FBI agent spying on you through your cellphone camera denies the request. The Buzzfeed sphinx allows you one more attempt, but be wary of imminent death."

I fight the urge to drive down to her apartment and flip her plate of eggs off her table. Sometimes I'm ashamed to play a part in such ridiculous conversations. "I've passed away by stepping in front of a train and my family begs for privacy during this incredibly difficult time."

Her eye twitches and the fork pauses mid scoop. "That was specific."

"I need to satisfy Buzzfeed's reporting system. So the Buzzfeed sphinx says."

"The attempt was unsuccessful. However, you are allowed to live because that last answer was scary."

"Thanks."

My phone screen lights up with another notification from the news app. Three pop up all at once, and Taylor gets them too. I can see her phone screen beside her plate.

She frowns and brings the screen closer, like she doesn't understand what she's reading either.

"Take Two's golden boy Brendon puts a nasty spin on sex, drugs, and rock and roll as both fans and album sales drop like flies — click to read more about the singer's fall from stardom." I say it aloud before she can voice concern.

It's strange because I remember listening to his albums a couple years ago on repeat, and then he turned into an asshole with stacks of cash and so many friends with benefits from all ends of the gender spectrum. I had a massive crush until two albums ago, almost five years. He made the news by sending home thirteen people the day after a concert, all with goodie bags of assorted drugs. Rumor is he's stopped since then, but nothing was ever the same after that.

"I'm gonna click on it. I'm gonna give them the views." She grumbles before I can stop her, and I have to wait and listen to her nails hit the screen every time she swipes through the article.

Taylor loved Take Two. When I met her at one of his shows seven years ago, she was short, loud, and in love with Brendon Urie. Now she's tall, even louder than before, and is currently on the cusp of staying a fan. If he were to release a genuinely good song, she could be swayed. I don't see that happening in the near future.

"Is he still going off the rails?"

She nods faintly. "He did an interview last week and showed up higher than heaven, and also cursed out his managers on tape and threw up in a potted plant before he got kicked off the set. Not to mention he's barely managed to sell a couple hundred thousand of his last album."

He's just another example of what fame can do to a person. However, he is also just a shitty guy with no regard or feelings about anyone but himself. There isn't an option for pity when you hear about his downfall, because it's deserved. The only thing he cares about is his dog, and maybe his guitar. Maybe.

"I'm telling you, the first three albums were complete masterpieces. The last two have been a continuous hot garbage fire. It Takes One to Know One was the peak, you can't top something like that."

Taylor scoffs but keeps scrolling. "Absolutely not! Scene of the Crime was peak, and that's the second to last one. I'll admit the last one really sucked, but only the last one."

"Name one redeeming song on Scene of the Crime that wasn't a single."

Her lips curl into a grimace. "It's Now or Never."

"That was the final single." I know she can't name any good song. No beats, no baseline, just singing nonsensical lyrics to electronic buzzing. He lost the personal flair and forgot to add any emotion as the fame grew like a wildfire in the middle of a dry desert.

"Lost It."

"No. Absolutely not."

"The Next Time I'm Opening Up to Someone is During My Autopsy." She says.

"That was One to Know One. Good try, I'll spare your dignity and end it now."

She rolls her eyes and an infectious smile spreads over her face. "Is it bad to say the lead single of the last one was okay?"

"Yes. It was so bad," I say and she starts laughing and then I'm laughing too, "I thought we reached a consensus! All of it was bad, no exceptions."

Her phone camera takes a dip into the viewfinder for a split second before the shutter sound goes off and it darts out of the frame. "I'm going to post that on the story feature on Instagram."

A little pang of fear thumps in my chest like a drum. "Please don't."

The phone clatters out of her hand as she rubs her temples with her knuckles and squeezes her eyes shut. It doesn't take a genius to tell she's pretty fucking tired of me trying to stay out of the spotlight. "Oh my god, you're so sad."

"I'm not sad," I prop myself up on my elbow so she gets the full effect of my glare, "I hate social media and I hate the attention. That is not a consensual post. You will be hearing from my lawyer."

She smiles for a split second but it quickly pulls back into a disproving frown. "You're a legal adult with a lovely singing voice and real talent. I know you don't want to be famous, but you are. It sucks for you and only you, but try to make the best out of it."

The best of it will not be a candid photo of me in an ugly shirt promoting a college I didn't even attend, let alone apply for when I graduated high school. "At least retake it so it looks like I'm rolled over and sleeping."

"No."

"Retake it."

"No."

"Retake it. I don't want the thirst tweets so early on. Stan-Twitter is going to zoom into my eyes and match them with photos of some blue ass water or something."

She finally gives in with an excruciatingly long sigh. "It's too late for that but sure. Go to sleep for five seconds."

I roll over, the shutter clicks, and I get to listen to her grumble on about how mean I am for a few minutes until the photo is up and we can keep our thing going. She doesn't tag me, but the fans screenshot the photo and tag me on their own accounts, the knowledge of it courteously presented by my notifications. I see them, but I would much rather not. I don't even know how people made fan accounts. There is a grand total of five photos of me on the Internet, six now.

Taylor heads out of sight for a minute and comes back with her hand stuffed in a box of Cheerios. "Have you heard from Sarah yet?"

Only twelve times. "Nope. Not yet."

I think that will veer her off into another train of thought but it only leads to her narrowing her eyes and pulling up emails. "Huh. That's funny. She said she called you a dozen times, but you never picked up."

"Ah. My phone must have been on airplane mode or something. I'll call her back when the call ends."

She catches my drift, and by drift I mean she knows I won't call Sarah back. "I'll ring her up now and we can have a nice chat."

"Oh god, please don't—"

"Hey Sarah," she hollers over me, "Dallon is awake and he's ignoring you so I think you should either call him until he picks up or just show up at his house at this point."

Taylor falls quiet and murmurs agreements and nods her head before holding the speaker up to the laptop. "She wants to talk to you."

"Tell her to make the decisions for me."

Her eye twitches and her lips slide into a sly smirk. "Are you sure?"

God, I want nothing more than to make a blanket fort and never leave from under it. Buzzfeed quizzes are a forever type of commitment, I can't imagine what kind of impression any communication with the outside world would cause. Memories? Lasting impressions? Photos? "Don't patronize me."

"You heard him yourself," she leans in uncomfortably close, "he's giving up his say in the matters."

"Great!" Sarah's voice blares enthusiastically over the phone. It physically pains me. "We need to meet in two days, we'll do it at my apartment. I feel like I haven't seen you guys in so long."

She lives downtown in a fancy studio apartment with big windows and a baby blue refrigerator stocked with kombucha or some healthy shit like that. Every time I'm there I end up shitfaced and angry, or hungry and sad. "Fine. No margaritas."

"I want margaritas." Taylor glares at me. "You surrendered your say in these things. Margaritas."

Sarah hums in favor. "Margaritas," she says.

3 - The Real Treasure is the Alcohol We Had Along the Way

On a personal level, fuck margaritas.

Taylor is across the room, lounging in some dumbass wiry chair next to a coffee table made out of a slab of stupid petrified wood. She has had one frozen margarita, and I have had six, and she can still have intelligent conversations. I cannot. At least, I don't think so.

I don't even know what they're talking about. I'm not included. I used to be involved three margaritas ago.

Sarah's place is weird. She's into the minimalistic style but everything she owns also fits this hardcore black and white aesthetic. Her bean bag chairs are white, the bungee cord chairs are black, her shapeless blob of a kitchen table is swirled with both colors in the same style as her marble countertops. The chandelier hanging from the ridiculously high ceiling is just a tangle of wires with a lightbulb in the center. There's so many pieces of abstract art, I could impale myself with a couple of them.

She says she wants to adopt a kid. She does not live in a safe place for a kid to live. I'm an adult, and I fear death every time I spend time on her white leather couch.

"—Dallon, what do you think of festivals?" Sarah starts recording me from a few seats over. Probably so I can't back out of something tomorrow, but I've had six margaritas so I don't care. They come delivered in semi-transparent zebra stripe glasses and I have no more fucks to give.

"Cool."

"Cool to perform at one?" Taylor joins in.

"As long as we don't have a meet 'n' greet." I don't think I would mind playing live, just as long as people didn't talk to me afterwards. No interaction. I appreciate the fans very much but I don't like people or cameras.

Sarah nods. "I can make that work."

"Woah, wait, what if I want to do meet and greets? Five bucks per head, that's not too ridiculous, right? Like, you shouldn't have to pay to meet a human being, but I am in desperate need of money. Rent doesn't pay itself." Taylor likes people. I don't know how. I would also recommend charging extra, because you need to pay for a lawyer if somebody's hands start wandering.

I would maybe try to advise against posing for photos with strangers that obsessively love you, but I don't have a say in the matter, I only have margaritas.

"I think we could do that, and we might be able to get both of you in there for a bit. How do you feel about that, Dallon?"

"I do not."

"...Do not like the idea of a meet and greet?" 

"Yeah."

Taylor jumps to her feet and the ground shakes for a second. "He doesn't have a say! He forfeited it!"

They argue and I drown out the noise with the salt stabbing my tongue when I down the rest of my drink. They keep arguing so I lick the rest of the salt from the rim of the glass until they stop. My tongue starts burning but it's okay.

I think they came to an agreement, but I'm not sure. It doesn't look like they're mad but it doesn't seem like they're happy with each other. Margarita number seven floats from the blender to my hand like magic. I don't even know if I get up and make it myself, all I know is that it tastes fantastic and the salt burns my tongue.

"Anyways, did you see the news about Take Two?" Sarah's lips purse and her eyebrows raise. "Shit's going under pretty quick. Ever since he did that feature on drugs..."

Taylor sighs and reaches for her own zebra cup. "Yeah. It's pretty sad that he became so out of touch with his music and so in-touch with hardcore shit so quickly."

"Well he said in an interview that he's been lonely, and relationships are the main factor behind his songs and lyrics, so I guess he just hasn't been able to connect to anything."

We're pulling apart a person that isn't even here. Gossip is weird. "Yeah, but he also does drugs, and he could hire people to do the writing part for him and all he has to do is the sing-y bits." I am involved.

"You're drunk as hell."

"But am I wrong? I don't think so. Just b'cause I don't like to be social doesn't mean I'm an idiot."

I am very thankful they kick me out of the conversation instead of slamming me for being unable to sit back down in my chair three times, producing a hit song with millions of streams and downloads, and almost getting a black eye twenty minutes ago. Or was it thirty?

🎼

I wake up in Sarah's bedroom, swaddled in so tightly in a thick blanket I can't even move my arms. Taylor is curled up in one of the bungee cord chairs hugging a blanket to her chest, and I can hear Sarah blending together a bunch of fruit and shit in her kitchen.

It's really loud. I think my skull is splitting into twelve sections so my brain can pour out of it and catch the hangover train to rural Alaska, where it's quiet and people don't live.

"Can we let you loose now?" Taylor mumbles. Her eyes are barely open.

"Why am I here in the first place? I'm a safe person to be around. I'm responsible when I'm tipsy."

Sarah's bedroom is also weird. She sleeps on a water bed,!there's a chandelier that just looks like a bunch of tree branches wired together, a portrait of paint splatter on the wall, and a huge wardrobe painted half white and half black.

"You are not. You tried to drink Windex last night b'cause it was blue like your favorite Gatorade, you absolute fucking animal."

"Par-tay animal."

She glares at me and gets to her feet, then grabs the edge of the blanket and begins to unroll me like I'm takeout from Chipotle. "Do you remember anything we talked about last night?"

I don't. I remember getting the first margarita, the second, and half of the third. I think the whole point of bringing me was to say I was present while the decisions were made so I couldn't shut them down because I didn't object to anything. I think it's a legal thing, but I also think it's as useful as a pile of shit if I'm tipsy. "No."

"Good. We'll discuss further in the kitchen." She says and pats my shoulder before leaving me in the room to change into the emergency clothes Sarah keeps for me. They're kept in the drawers underneath the bed, just a pair of blue pajama pants and a pink Taco Bell shirt, but I don't care.

When I shut the door behind me, I'm hit with a smelly brick of eggs and healthy shakes. Sure enough, there's a plate of scrambled eggs and a green glass of goop sitting at the only empty chair at the dumb marble table. If anything spilled on it, she would kill whoever did it.

"Have you reached your social interaction limit yet?" Sarah waves to me and I take the seat. The legs of it scream against the tile floor and shake my brain like a toddler shakes a fish in a plastic bag.

"It resets after I've had enough to drink." The smell of the food makes my head ache even more but I know I have to eat it, unless I want it to be shoved down my throat because I apparently don't eat enough. I do, but it's junk food, and I only munch on absolute garbage when nobody is around to judge me for it.

"Good idea," Taylor wiggles her fork around in the air, "we'll take you out two nights before the festival, and then you will stay isolated for the entire next day. And then we play the venue, and then we do meet and greet, and then we go out again."

Ah, that's what they did while I was living in a different universe. "Uh, I'm sorry, what? A festival?"

"We asked you about it last night, you agreed to do it, no take-backs."

She has new curtains for the windows that reach from the floor to the ceiling. They're pitch black, spare a single white stripe sitting a few inches beside a thicker red one. They look too clunky paired with the white walls. "You can't force me to do shit."

"You signed a contract. It's your fault your music blew up so quick." Sarah pulls out her phone, furiously punches in her passcode, and slides me the page to the video of our song. "Thirteen million."

Taylor squints at her phone screen. "Mine says fourteen."

"Mine says I want to fake my own death and live off the grid until I pass away in my sleep in fifty years, unseasonably young in my early seventies. They release my autopsy report to the public. I was poisoned. The public is in outrage. They discover the hundreds of cups in my cabinet, and three times as many, broken and buried outside. My fingerprints are found on the bottle of poison in the cupboard. I poisoned one cup and drank out of a different one each day until I died. It is the case of the century. I am immortalized in history without having to speak to anybody."

Taylor's fork clatters to the plate. Her eye twitches, and Sarah pinches the bridge of her nose. "What the fuck?"

"I've been daydreaming."

"Is that what you think about when we're in the studio together and you go quiet? You're not thinking about how the song fits together, you're thinking about your perfect murder?" Taylor's voice gets louder and louder, but everything is so muted past some point, it just blurs together.

"No," I lie, "that's ridiculous. It's easy to come up with something like that. I think... I think we should direct our attention back to the matter at hand. I don't want to play a festival. Shit is crazy over there."

Sarah refuses to make eye contact with anyone but Taylor and her plate. "You agreed to it. You can't just live your life inside all the time, the world is at your fingertips right now."

"I don't want it to be. I don't want to be famous."

"Well, you are!" Sarah snaps, but she still doesn't look at me. "You have talent, people love your talent, people love you, people love Taylor."

I know she's right, but I don't want her to be. I hate interactions with people. It's such a burden to act nice and make conversation. It's impossible to meet new people and really get to know them. Don't even get me started on distinguishing good people from bad and then dealing with the bad people when you accidentally befriend them. "I can't do meet and greets."

"Why not?" Sarah frowns.

"I suffer from an antisocial personality disorder."

Yeah. That should work.

Taylor nearly chokes on her food. It sounded like she was scared at first, but after a few seconds it was deduced into laughing. "So you're a sociopath? You manipulate people? You're irresponsible and aggressive?"

"...Yes."

"No, you're not. You just don't like to make conversation and be around people." Sarah scrapes at the last bits of eggs on her plate and takes Taylor's empty dish to the sink with her own. "I know how you work, idiot. We've been friends for years. Step out of your comfort zone a bit, you aren't going to die."

I think I'm the only person that will ever acknowledge how dangerous the music industry is, especially on stage. "I'll do ten total groups for meet and greets. Tell me what festival and who's performing."

"Kent and Bend's. Southern California."

My stomach lurches. Kent and Bend's usually hosts over a hundred thousand people across two weekends. Of course they have multiple stages and sets, but the numbers are there. People go. People watch.

I don't need a mirror to know my cheeks flush red and all the color quickly drains from my face. That's a lot of people, and not just from an antisocial standpoint. That's a lot of people.

Taylor's lips spit into a grin. "We have a good shot at getting close to headlining if we sic Sarah on some people. The sets have been released for a while now, but we could play big if we go big."

"But that's in three months — we missed the deadline by, oh let's see, a year?"

"I pulled a couple strings," Sarah winks at me, "I know a few people, I know one of the major band dropped out just last week, and I know they were looking for a replacement."

She has too much power.

"Okay, but who's playing backing instruments? Do we get a tour bus? How do we transport everything? Do we need plane tickets? We aren't even a big group, I doubt people will come to see us."

"Leave it up to me, babe," Sarah's smile hangs on the thin line of comforting and intimidating, "I said know a few people."

I am afraid. Deathly afraid.

4 - There is No Concrete Reason Why Social Distancing is Unacceptable

A few weeks later, we hit fifty million. I haven't spoken to Taylor or Sarah since she got me wasted and convinced me to agree to a festival. If I went around them again, who knows what I'd commit to next; probably homicide.

Since then, nothing much happened. I gained a bunch of followers, almost deleted my social medias, recorded another song by myself, I cried a bit. A couple million people is a lot to be keeping a watchful eye on me at all hours of the day, and there isn't a way out of it. I've been thinking about it for over a month, Kent and Bend's is about five weeks out, and I'm still freaking out.

I tried to blame someone for getting me famous but that someone was me, so that didn't work out very well.

I also tried to execute my idea about the poison cups, but I didn't own enough cups to make the game last for a long time, and god knows I can't leave my house anymore in case I run into fans. The poison cup idea will have to wait until after I slowly gather enough through Amazon and after I fake my own death.

I finished so many Netflix shows I lost count, and I watched a shit ton of movies. Taylor didn't even call, she just assumed I was okay with my inconsistent posts on Instagram.

Speaking of Instagram, it's such a weird platform. I uploaded a photo of a blank Netflix loading screen without a caption, and someone graphically confessed their undying love for me and asked if I would marry them while another account dropped a detailed script to the first scene of the Bee Movie.

That is why I don't talk to people. Because they do weird shit like that.

Taylor is the one doing the interviews. She tells each person she meets that I have strep throat and I'll be better before Kent and Bend's. I don't have strep throat, but I roll with it and play it up on the Internet. It's the perfect excuse to eat garbage and stay in bed day, so I do and nobody cares but Sarah and Taylor.

From: Sarah
Hey. Hope you're doing well. Just wanted to let you know that we need to meet up tomorrow :)

Speak of the devil.

To: Sarah
No.

To: Sarah
Okay. Swing by my place tomorrow.

From: Sarah
We're meeting the people you're sharing a bus with for the festival. You have to go. We let you bunker down for almost a month, you can do this one thing for us

I see what she did there. She let me hole myself into my house for a month and then gave me one thing to go out and do so I'll look like an asshole if I don't roll out and get it done. It's pure evil.

To: Sarah
Where.

From: Sarah
I just told you. My place at around five

To: Sarah
Five? Like dinner time five?

From: Sarah
No five am.

From: Sarah
Yes, dinner time five. Be there.

To: Sarah
No margaritas please.

From: Sarah
I'll withhold them, but only if you're nice

God, being an asshole was my plan to leave early. She knows I can't resist the margaritas. I just got played.

To: Sarah
I'll be there for an hour and then I'm leaving.

From: Sarah
Fine. You have to be nice for the whole hour though. Nice like my niece when she wants something.

I don't respond after that even though she keeps texting me the details for the plan tomorrow. I'll read it five minutes before I leave and if I'm not on time, then I'm not on time.

The news tab on my laptop refreshes itself and slaps me in the face with a portrait of Brendon from Take Two under the dumbest title I've ever seen. He released a new song and is going to perform it live for the first time next month. I just have to read the name of the song to know it sucks. Who in their right mind would call it "Another's Arms"? It sounds stupid, and it probably is.

I don't even listen to it. The tab flicks itself out of existence and I go back to scrolling through buzzfeed and taking quizzes. On the note of buzzfeed, I discovered how to block my face from popping up on my newsfeed. Everything I see that mentions me, I dislike it and report it. Maybe it'll get taken down, but my hopes aren't too high. I'm in the process of drafting a letter to the company to seriously inquire how to completely remove myself from my view.

I've also been searching through animal rescues. I think if I have to get a new puppy assimilated to my home life, it would take a long time, and I should definitely skip out on the festival. So far the only ones I've found are either too big, too small, too fluffy, not fluffy enough, too yippy, or too quiet. I need one that will keep the side of the bed warm but not too warm so I still feel like I'm alone, but not really. I want to be alone but still feel something.

Cats are too moody. Not all cats, but they act too much like children for my taste. Besides, the climb on everything and are more likely to rip my belongings to shreds. I've seen enough photos on Buzzfeed to know what's up.

Maybe I should actually get strep throat, or maybe laryngitis. Actually laryngitis won't work, plenty of people perform with it. I know it would be a dick move to legally drop out of the festival, and I don't think I hate performing, but it's everything leading up to it and everything that happens after that I don't like.

I'll cut out my vocal cords entirely, problem solved forever.

From: Sarah
Wait do you know what band it is

To: Sarah
No

From: Sarah
Haha nice