I’ll give you one thing—even when we stopped being mates and became competitors, you always had the upper hand. You got the better lass, and the better album, and the more prestigious Grammy. You got the Rolling Stone and NME covers, while I got the Billboard crap. You were still cool to the hipsters even when you broke into the mainstream, while I got invited to the Country Music Awards.

And you got our mates. All of them. Yours.

I want you to know how the idea of Indigo Bellamy started, and, more than that, that I am not your enemy. Never was. Never will be.

I think I owe you an explanation. You think I stole Fallon from you, when, in practice, all I wanted was to save you both. Do I love her? Yes. Will I ever have her, all the way, the way you did, the way you own everything? No.

The night Fallon was involved in that accident, she came back from my party in Calabasas. You were sick at home. She was doing drugs and going behind the wheel.

I knew that.

I let it happen.

I take full responsibility.

There were so many people, I didn’t really care who came and who went. But the day after the accident, she contacted me. Sought me out.

She panicked, and she knew you would leave her if she didn’t go straight to the police.

From that point on, Fallon and I started nurturing a toxic relationship. We became closer, and I fell more and more into her, while she fell more and more into drugs.

We cheated on you, and then the whole thing exploded. I don’t blame you for cutting me from your life. If anything, it’s probably best we stay far away from each other.

But I always knew about Indigo Bellamy’s parents.

And I know it might come and bite me in the arse, but it’s true. I did. I’m partly accountable. I’m a shameful, shameful man.

After everything with Fallon went down, Alfie, Lucas, and Blake said they’d never talk to me again. But they did. Sometime after you kicked your eighth babysitter to the curb, I contacted Jenna Holden, who ordered a meeting with Alfie, Blake, and Lucas. We all agreed that you were spiraling again, and I was the stupid idiot who’d followed Indigo and Craig around, feeling guilty and disheartened about what Fallon did and got away with, and their lives were shitty, too.

I said the plan would be perfect, and they agreed.

I wanted you to fall in love and to get better.

I wanted you to rival me in the Grammys, not in my nightmares.

I knew it would better your life, and Indigo’s life, and if everything went according to plan, maybe Craig’s, too.

Indigo didn’t know who circled that Wanted ad she ended up calling. She thought it was her brother or sister-in-law. It was Hudson who slipped that paper into her bike’s basket while she was shopping.

Not for one second did I think Fallon was still so into you. So fiercely in love with you. What kind of person confesses a crime like she committed? A desperately drugged one. That’s who.

You might look at this and see betrayal, but your mates only wanted the best for you. I did, too. I’m sorry it didn’t work out, and I’m somewhat relieved—although mostly terrified—for coming clean. Do with it as you wish. I’m done hiding. I’m done playing kismet. I’m done fucking up my life and others’.

But don’t take it out on your team. They love you. They chose you.

You win.

P.S.

I still pretend to spit every time someone mentions Alex Winslow’s name.

Faithfully,

William George Bushell

Here’s the thing about addiction: that arsehole friend who comes sneaking into your life when you’re down and low? That’s it. My addiction crawled in, because I could no longer purge it out. I had no reason to behave, because she wasn’t there, and everything felt hopeless, and wrong, and final.

So. Fucking. Final.

I found out a lot in the three weeks that marked the end of the tour. The first thing was that when you want to get your hands on narcotics, you do, even when the entire world and its sister are watching you. I snuck groupies into my room with coke stashed in their bras. I didn’t touch them, but I definitely touched the drugs. I downed a bottle of vodka in the bathroom in Canada and popped some Xanax in New York. When we landed in Tennessee, I dropped in to say hi to a country singer I mentored on a reality TV show and drank a bottle of whiskey in his bedroom. It was pathetically easy, almost to my dismay. I’d had my chances all along. I’d simply chosen not to use them for, I don’t know, whatever reason. Actually, the reason was crystal clear to me now. Her. Stardust. She kept me high on something much stronger than coke. Even before I’d gotten my hands on her little body, she was there to taunt, and fight back, and keep me entertained.

Once an addict, always an addict.

The worst part is that you don’t quite understand the severity of your addiction until it’s already five steps ahead of you, running toward the finish line, ready to ruin your life. I had my gaps between lines and bottles of alcohol, so I tried to convince myself I was still relatively sober, and when I was relatively sober, I called her. All the time. She never picked up. I got her email address from Blake and sent her messages. Stupid messages. Creepy messages. Messages that could have landed my arse in a lot of trouble.

To: Indiebell1996gmail

Subject: I need you

I met Jesus at Times Square after a gig and he told me we were all going to die and that I should count my blessings, and I could only count one thing, and it was you.

Are you mad at me, still? Actually, don’t answer that. We’ll talk about it when I get there. I shouldn’t be contacting you. Blake thinks it’s an apology email, and I guess it is, but I’m not going to stop at that. He and Jenna are going to kill me if they know, but you and I, we are bigger than them. Bigger than this.

Jenna is pregnant with Blake’s baby, btw. She said not to tell anyone, so I’m telling you. Because you’re my someone. I think I’m going to circle back and delete this paragraph later. Too cliché. Did you know the album I had produced by that boy-band fuckboy was my best-selling one?

Huh.

Maybe I’ll keep this line in after all.

Alfie is on a pussy bender. Says he’s worried about me and that it’s his outlet. Blake is sleeping with his mobile pressed to his ear. Lucas rarely even talks anymore, and I…I drink.