“I don’t know how you do it,” Seth tells me as he drowns his cornflakes in milk. “It’s too early.”
Summoning composure from my well of calm, I open an eye. “It’s nine-thirty. And quit disturbing my meditative flow.”
“Then quit doing your meditative flow in the kitchen.”
He’s got a point. As if to tick me off even more, he crunches his cereal as loudly as possible. “Do you mind?”
With a grin, he tells me, “Not in the slightest, Buddha.”
Stupid youngsters. At nineteen, Seth and Conor are the youngest members of the band — Conor is the youngest and acts like it. Seth has his moments, like right now, the irritating dickhead, but he’s usually all right. Then it’s Tarek and Adam, who are both twenty and think they know it all. I’m the eldest by far, coming in at the ripe old age of twenty-two. You’d reckon the difference would be minute. But more and more, lately, I’ve been feeling beyond everything. Beyond this.
I don’t know.
I’ve been with these guys for nearly three years now. In that time, we’ve changed a lot.
But somehow, being twenty-two, it feels different.
Okay, so granted my birthday was only a few months ago. That night went as well as expected, with an unplanned foursome courtesy of Tarek, a boatload of negative publicity off the back of it, and a lifetime ban by MCM on cavorting with women.
But beyond that... It’s like the enthusiasm is depleting every day.
I don’t know if that’s entirely accurate, because when you’re out there performing... it’s a whole different realm of experience. You can be raging at MCM and swear to God you’re going to quit this stupid band, or Tarek and I could be backstage punching each other’s lights out, and then—
And then we go on stage and there it is: the reason why we do this. The magic.
Fuck the money, fuck the fame; it’s about the ability to perform and put smiles on people’s faces.
Man, maybe I am growing into a sentimental sap in my old age.
I hoist myself to the upper deck of the tour bus and lay out my yoga mat.
The guys laughed at me when I took up yoga two years ago. Still do at times. But once they watched me progress from basic toe-touching to headstands, they quit the daily ribbing and looked on with jealousy.
Coveting others’ jealousy technically isn’t true to the spirit of yoga, but I think I’ve earned a right to some jealousability — and I don’t care if that isn’t a word.
Everyone in the world has heard of Royal Element. And if I’m not blowing that out of proportion, it certainly feels like everyone in the world knows us.
They might not be intimately aware of us on a member-by-member basis, but they know of us.
And if they do know us individually, it’ll likely be as a couple of personality traits. We’re uniquely branded, like dolls.
I laugh but it’s true. We even have dolls of ourselves — many, many versions. It’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately: how we’ve been chosen specifically to fulfill a purpose, to balance the dynamics of the group.
Start with Seth. He’s sweet. He’s the one MCM brings out to events and schools because the kids and their parents go nuts for him. He looks so innocent. He isn’t, of course — but that’s PR, right? As long as you look like you fit the bill. With his dark hair and large blue eyes, he looks more like one of those damn anime characters than a real person. Oddly, people who don’t care that much about Royal Element get Seth and I mixed up all the time. I still don’t understand how.
Conor is funny. When being interviewed, he’ll give answers that are sincere yet absurd. He’ll start off promoting our new single then drift off on a tangent to talk about electromagnetism in goldfish or something crazy. There have been times when Seth has had to translate Conor’s words into normal-people-speak for many a baffled chat show host. His fans love it, though — they think he’s a genius.
For all his shit, Tarek is the hot one. I mean, as much as I fight with him, I have eyes and there’s no denying he’s sickeningly attractive. Looking good is how he gets away with his crap. And he’s the badboy of the group, the one you wouldn’t want your daughter to date (but your daughter damn well fantasizes she does every night). He’s a double-whammy, wet dream of marketability for MCM — and a headache of libel suits every other time.
Adam... I sigh.
Adam pulls off a rare move. Objectively, he’s not the hottest, nor the funniest, or even all that sweet. He gets away with being himself, because his self is charismatic as fuck. Everyone knows Adam. I guess he’s the popular one, the good all-American all-rounder, the one with the most social media followers. Though, if you pay attention to the internet, he’s recently acquired the tag of the hipster.
I wish I could be Adam.
What am I, though? Old? Cynical, jaded?
The one adults are free to crush on because I’m not as young as the rest?
Fuck knows.
They’ve never known what to do with me.
I’ve never had a thing. Serious? Who wants to be the serious member of the group? The one who gets how all this shit works? No one likes a self-aware know-it-all, especially one in the public eye.
Funnily enough, to the general public, the most interesting thing about me is being part of that damn foursome. They called me a dark horse after that, which seems kinda condescending. Yet the general public already mixes me up with Seth, so it’s not like I’ve ever had my own identity, anyway.
My sigh is long and deep. This stuff has been at the forefront of my mind for ages, just thinking it all over, reeling at the serendipity of our success. Trying to reverse-engineer it, figure out the steps for myself. I wish I could bottle it, do it again to someone else, then use them they way that MCM have used us...
No, no, no.
I clamp my mind shut to shut out negativity.
That’s sure worked a treat so far.
I stand on my mat and do a couple of sun salutations to get me warmed up. My muscles shift, easing into today’s practice like reuniting with an old friend.
When I’m in downward-facing dog, something strikes me as off. Anchoring my heels to the mat, I glance between my calves. I’ve got this weird sensation creeping along my spine that I am not alone.
Lowering myself to the floor, I scan the gym. There’s no one here.
What’s making me feel so off-kilter?
And then I notice it. It’s inconspicuous — almost. But the red dot blinks back at me like CCTV glaring at a thief.
A camera.
Are you kidding me?
A camera? In the gym?
You know, I doubted the whole story that Kat was working for MCM. Tarek gets like that, where he thinks the whole world is out for him.
But this? This is a step too far.
I go over to it. It’s beside a length of thick rope on a high shelf, away from most people’s line of sight. Unluckily for Kat, I’m the tallest one here.
I laugh to myself. Maybe being tall can be my “thing.”
Reaching up, I remove it from its cozy corner. The camera is heavy and doubtlessly expensive. A red light still beams at me, sending an irrational stab of panic through me. Instantly, I turn the dial and kill it dead.
What the hell is she playing at?
With her camera in hand, I head down the stairs. Everyone’s awake and in the kitchen, apart from Kat.