The Classix

(OLD) Chapter 35

Note: I'm here! I'm here! It's Friday! SUCCESS!!!

The edit of Chapter attached is the most fantastic Chapter dream cast of all time. TEN OUT OF TEN. (Come to think of it, Lin Manuel Miranda truly does resemble Chapter in the fact that they are both fathers and Chapter was supposed to have a similar hair and complexion preFissarex.)

EXPECT A SUPER [PROBABLY NOT] SPOOKY HALLOWEEN POST THIS MONDAY. So in addition to this chapter today, you'll be getting something extra at the start of next week! YESSSSS.

PREVIOUSLY ON THE CLASSIX: We switched it up and heard a little from Chapter. It was exactly the breath of fresh air we needed. Man, all those foggy Emeray thoughts were getting to be too much, am I right? I was getting so bored while writing it that I realized how bored you probably were while reading it.

So let's begin.

chapter

    She ambles into the foyer, ever escorted by her guard Angad. I watch as she glances over her shoulder, up the stairs, down to the floor, unable to settle on one thing at a time. Given the expression on her face as she does this, she looks unnecessarily uneasy for a girl who's just made it back to a place that's supposed to be home. It's as if she hopes nobody's noticed her enter. Instinctively, I lean back into my chair, bringing the book close to my face like it does any job in hiding me.

    Looking at her now, I remember a night months and months ago at Ace. She'd been looking around the room, taking it all in, being present and existent after a lifetime of hiding away. Back then, she'd unavoidable simply in the way she moved. I had wondered that night if she was looking for something in specific, but it turned out she was simply looking for everything.

    She used to walk curiously, but purposefully––the destination always a mystery to be solved. Here and now, she carries herself gingerly, tiptoeing about like one might take offense at any given step she takes.

    That's the main issue: She cares so deeply, so suffocatingly, about what other people think of her now. Not one month ago she'd been bent on making she and Cartney the most hated couple in Delicatum, on being as annoying and over the top as possible, and now she's flipped a switch. The magazines are showing pictures of her outside Wes Tegg's everyday like she's just joined the Famoux again––shaking hands with fans and taking pictures as Cartney waits inside angrily. Sometimes she goes out to meet fans completely by herself, no boyfriend in sight.

    A few days ago, Cartney and I met up at the label's office to talk about it. We've actually been having meetings every so often for a couple months now. Random and inexplicable as it seems, it's been beneficial for the both of us.

    The meetings started around the time when Cartney bought his new black clothes to wear around with Emeray. He'd approached me one random day back in the Metropolix, and while Cartney Kirk's presence in the apartment he never visits should've been surprising enough, it was the leather jacket that really threw me off.

    "What's with the––"

    "You are the withstanding most popular celebrity in the world," he interrupted. "You're still aware of that, right?"

    I blinked. This, coming from Cartney Kirk?

    "What are you getting at?" I asked.

    He put a hand on his chest. "This might come as a surprise to you, but I'm on my way to becoming the most hated celebrity in the world."

    "Wait, what?"

    "Can I talk to you?"

    Cartney has been keeping secrets for a long, long time now. In our first little conference that afternoon, he revealed to me everything. What DEFED told him, what he did about it, what knows he has to do now.