Chapter 2

Pop.

Another day, another little yellow pill tumbling out of the blister pack.

Falling into my outstretched hand, and then into me.

Sunshine yellow, like a tiny sunbeam cutting through somber grey clouds.

Helping me to forget and to flow, drifting like a leaf on a lazy stream. Pulled along this way and that, offering no resistance as I float through the Autumn haze.

Wrapped up in a soft warm blanket of forgetfulness, I have folded into myself.

The leaves on the maple tree outside my window have turned to brilliant crimson and coppery tangerine veined with gold, driving back the last dying whispers of summer’s green fire deep into the trees.

Nature is drawing into itself as the cold approaches, preparing to hide in slumber over the long winter.

I’m doing the same.

Deep and safe beneath the surface, dreaming away the hollow days since the Fable Boys left.

It’s been almost three months, but it feels more like three years.

In fact, the whole crazy experience feels like it was a lifetime ago, or part of someone else’s life entirely.

I’m grateful for the comforting meds, and for Dr. Martel prescribing them, and for my mom whisking me off to the psychiatrist’s office when I started losing weight again and suffering night terrors in the weeks following the boys’ sudden departure.

And when I say terrors, I mean deep, horrifying terrors.

Some nights as I was on the cusp of sleep, I would see a ghostly white dream face floating in the darkness above my bed. The face of a woman, unnervingly familiar and yet forgotten, buried deep in a distant memory. Hovering so close and yet at the same time so far away, like the full moon, her deathly pale face creased in concern as she whispered to me in a strange language like the rustling of wind through dry leaves.

Other nights, I would dream that my bed was a rickety boat tossed about on the waves of a pitch-black ocean, while a vast silvery serpent thrashed under the raging water, racing up towards me. I would wake up tangled in my bed-sheets, screaming, clawing at the air.

And the days weren’t much better than the nights.

Getting through every single day after the boys left felt like an impossible task - like swimming upstream through the heavy hours with my hands tied behind my back.

More drowning than swimming, really. Drowning in my own sadness, sucked beneath the cold dark churning waters.

The problem was within, but also without - which is where the bright yellow pills come in. They are my invisible armour, my shield and my shroud, hiding me from a world determined to expose me.

In fact, I couldn’t have imagined just how exposed and vulnerable I’d be after my involvement with the band came to light.

Less than a week after they left, a forgettable middle-aged man in a sad grey suit showed up at my front door, explaining that I’d need to sign a “Non-disclosure Agreement”, or an NDA as he called it - meaning that I couldn’t tell anyone anything about what had happened over that summer with the band. I didn’t think twice about signing. The last thing I need right now is BYG Records and their lawyers making my life hell, or going after my parents.

If BYG thought that was all it would take to sweep the episode under the rug however, they were sorely mistaken, and even more naive than I had been.

I’d hoped to fly under the radar in my Junior year of highschool. I thought if I kept my head down and my mouth shut, I could stay hidden, just long enough to get my feet back on solid ground after the exhilarating, bewildering rollercoaster ride of summer break.

I needed time to collect my thoughts, and to figure out what to do next.

What to do about Fable, and fairytales coming to life before my eyes, and Felix.

Especially Felix.

Instead, I was hurled headlong into a new nightmare.

Cellphone footage of Felix and Alastaire’s fist-fight at the July Jubilee, and their dramatic escape from the gridlocked highway into a waiting helicopter, went viral - first on Twitter and TikTok, and then on the TV News, in the papers, everywhere.

BYG Records tried to put their own spin on it, and announced on Fable’s official website that the whole incident was part of a publicity stunt for the band’s upcoming single, behind the scenes filming for a “big surprise”. It was all explained away - even the video of Felix picking up a huge bodyguard and swinging him into the air with impossible, inhuman strength, sending him flying into the side of a white minivan. Apparently, the bodyguard was just a paid “actor”.

Actor. Yeah, right.

The media were happy with this explanation, but the fans still wanted answers about Fable’s mysterious summer sojourn in Portland, and the local girl they’d been spotted with on more than one occasion.

The “twitter detectives” started digging, and it wasn’t long before a handful of accounts sprung up that were dedicated solely to finding out who I was, this “nobody” that Felix and Alastaire had apparently been filmed fighting over.

Eventually someone linked me to the bus crash, and the fandom speculated that I was some sort of manipulative psycho with a dark past who’d somehow sunk her talons into the band. Enfalbler’s Den, the biggest and most popular Fable fansite, even published a series of blog posts about it, including photos of the friends I lost - Mia, Evan - and screenshots from my social media accounts.

They posted screenshots of news stories about the crash, the police report, even the photos of the candlelight vigil for the dead, which has been posted to my old school’s Facebook page.

They were ruthless.

My deepest secrets had been dug up and laid bare, like a banquet of deliciously painful memories to be devoured by the hungry stans.

Maybe that’s why I switched off my phone the day after the boys left, and haven’t turned it on since. No calls, no messages, no emails. Nothing.

The longer I’ve left it turned off, the more terrifying the prospect of turning it on again seems to be. I don’t know what I’m more afraid of. Seeing a flurry of messages and missed calls from the Fable boys and Kitty - or worse, seeing nothing from them.

And they aren’t the only people I’m blocking out.

I’m still haunted by the phone call from Eagla McAuley, the Irish mythology Professor who I contacted online in hopes of learning more about the Silver Circle.

Her insane suggestion that I come to meet her in Ireland - and her warning to stay away from Fable - were the last straw.

I’m taking her advice about the boys - she was right about one thing at least - but no way am I jumping on a plane to Ireland. I’m done with all of this.

It’s over, and it’s better this way.

Going back to school in August was the worst, although I gradually got used to the persistent trickle of hushed voices that ebbed and flowed around me wherever I went: conversations whispered as I walked past; the words “slut” and “groupie” hissed behind my back more than once.

Girls can be so cruel.

At the very least, their attention was easier to handle than the scrutiny of the paparazzi, who blew up my phone for weeks and followed me around until my (usually gentle) dad shoved one of them into the sidewalk and almost destroyed a five thousand dollar camera.

Compared to a pack of gossip-starved journos on the hunt, the girls at school are nothing.

This is my new normal.

The media frenzy has died down a bit, but I’ve resigned myself to the probability that I’ll be known as “the Fable girl” for the next two years, until I can graduate and escape the excruciating daily suffocation that is high school.

And after that? I honestly don’t know.

Everyone else knows what they want to do with their lives, but I can no longer visualise the future. Jamie has a whole 5-year gameplan for making it big in Hollywood (she says she’s still on Stage 1 at the moment: “Being a popular Instagram influencer”, which will naturally lead to reality TV work, then to movie roles). Grace's dream (although I suspect it might be more Grace’s mom’s dream for her) is to be a doctor. And Zee changes her mind all the time about what she’s going to do - one day it’s sports coaching, the next it’s photojournalism or marine biology - but at least she’s excited about what the future holds.

For me, it was always singing, but now I just don’t know. Music is, or I should say, was, my life, but it’s like something has broken in me and now I find it impossible to imagine tomorrow.

My body’s alive, but my spirit is dead.

In some ways, I’m right back where I was in those dark days after the bus crash, almost two years ago. A listless, unanchored shell of a person drifting along in my chemically-induced sunshine bubble, not quite happy, and not quite sad either.

I’m just numb.

Numb, and alone, and without a song.