I Was Born for This

by Alice Oseman

  But it doesn’t matter, really. It’s all part of the job. And when the next interviewer asks me what musicians I’m enjoying at the moment and I get to ramble about how much I love Lorde I feel a bit better.

  ‘Not being funny,’ says Rowan to Cecily during the applause for one of the other artists performing tonight, ‘but are you going to raise your head away from your phone while we’re at one of the biggest and most important award shows in the world?’

  The four of us have had the absolute misfortune to be seated in the front row. Cameras always on us. I’ve been trying not to move my lips too much while I’m talking.

  ‘I mean, I could,’ says Cecily, raising her eyebrows but not looking away from her phone, ‘if you didn’t mind several large blogs running the Bliss story tomorrow morning.’

  Rowan groans. ‘They’re still threatening to do that?’

  ‘Yep. They want that Bliss story, babe. They’ve been pestering me with emails for days.’

  ‘Well, they’re not having it.’

  ‘I know.’

  Bliss is Rowan’s girlfriend. She’s a normal person, and a secret. Bliss doesn’t want to be famous. Several large blogs and magazines have a lot of information on Bliss, and have been threatening to run a story on it for several weeks, but our publicity team (headed up by Cecily) is one of the best around and have managed to keep them at bay. For now.

  The press don’t care what we want. They just want more clicks.

  Cecily looks up at Rowan. She pats him on the leg.

  ‘Don’t worry about it, babe,’ she says. ‘I’ll sort it.’

  She will. She always does.

  There’s another thunderous round of applause, and then the lights dim. Time for another performance. The giant LED screen at the back of the stage starts showing rain falling on a window, and the auditorium explodes into the sound of rainfall but at the same time, everything feels oddly quiet too. It surprises me for a second, makes me feel like I’ve been taken out of the room, not really here. I half expect to feel cold drops of fresh water on the back of my neck, instead of the stuffy air of a packed theatre and the hum and the glare of the stage lighting. Makes me think of England. I miss England. When was the last time I saw it rain? Two months? Three? When was I last in England again?

  I stop thinking when a tiny red light catches my attention and I realise a camera is pointing directly at me.

  Two a.m. comes and we sit and watch them walk the red carpet.

  Jimmy and Rowan and Lister. Our boys.

  As soon as they appear, I can’t stop smiling. They look so happy to be there. So excited. So proud of themselves and their achievements.

  They look like they were born to be together.

  I love them. God, I love them.

  Rowan is the serious one. The adult of the group. He seems a little more grown-up and composed and eloquent in interviews. He’s probably the quietest of the three.

  Lister is the most popular. The one on all the posters. Personality-wise? People call him the ‘bad boy’ but that phrase honestly makes me cringe. He’s extrovert and cheeky. And he wins all the ‘most beautiful’ magazine contests.

  But Jimmy’s my favourite because he feels so real. You can tell he gets a little nervous at events like this. His voice shakes a bit in interviews and when they accept awards. He tries his best to smile even when he’s not totally comfortable. He’s more complex than Rowan or Lister, or maybe I just understand him better, and I relate to him, the way he tries his best even when he feels awkward and smiles even when he’s not okay.

  I wonder if I’ll be able to tell him that when I meet him at the meet-and-greet on Thursday. I wonder what I’ll be able to say when faced with Jimmy Kaga-Ricci.

  ‘So which one is your favourite?’ Mac asks Juliet with a sly grin after the livestream cuts to the adverts.

  The three of us are now huddled under blankets, an array of demolished snack foods surrounding us. Juliet has hooked her laptop up to the TV so we can watch it on a big screen. I don’t even feel slightly tired yet.

  ‘Rowan,’ says Juliet without any hesitation whatsoever.

  ‘How come?’

  ‘He’s … so protective of the other two,’ says Juliet, and there, in the eyes, while she’s talking, I can see the Juliet that I have fangirled about The Ark with for the past two years on Facebook Messenger. ‘He’s like the dad of the group. Which is adorable.’

  Mac seems to think that she’s joking, or something. He nudges her in the side. ‘Not because you think he’s attractive …?’

  I resist the urge to roll my eyes. It’s obvious Mac has a thing for Juliet, sure, but does he have to be so gross about it?

  Juliet laughs, as if what he has said is a very cute and cheeky joke. ‘No! Oh my God, shut up.’ She playfully slaps him on the arm. Literally what the fuck? The Juliet I know would have probably made a throwing-up noise and then asked Mac which one he found attractive.

  Juliet continues. ‘Jimmy and Rowan are together anyway. There’s no hope for anyone wanting to get into those pants.’

  ‘Jimmy … and Rowan?’ Mac gives her a clueless look.

  Juliet and I both stare at him.

  ‘Yeah, Jimmy and Rowan,’ Juliet says. ‘Jowan. You know. Jowan.’

  ‘Oh! Oh, yeah. Of course. You meant “together” together.’

  It’s impossible to be in The Ark fandom without knowing about Jowan – the infamous shipping of Jimmy and Rowan. It originated back in their YouTube days, as soon as Jimmy and Rowan revealed the barest of details about their childhood friendship.

  Is it real? Are Jimmy and Rowan really in love with each other and concealing a secret relationship? No one knows, to be honest. There’ve been signs. Convincing signs. A lot of them simply being the way they look at each other, the way they hug each other and look out for each other and stay by each other’s side.

  I do ship Jowan. I’ll admit it. I ship it a lot.

  Whether it’s real or not, I think they love each other very much.

  I look at Mac and wonder how much he really knows about that side of the fandom. How much is he in the fandom, anyway? Does he check @ArkUpdates? Does he take part in discourse and theory discussion? What’s his take on the ‘Joan of Arc’ video, the suitcase conspiracy from two years ago, the bonus-track theory?

  I could force his opinions out of him now, but I don’t feel like it because The Ark will be performing in a minute and I don’t want to be in a bad mood.

  ‘Angel?’ asks Mac, his voice a little more forced. ‘Who’s your favourite?’

  ‘Definitely Jimmy.’

  ‘Why Jimmy?’

  I smile sweetly and rest my chin on my hand.

  ‘It’s such an interesting concept to think about,’ I say. ‘People think boy-band fangirls all just want to kiss the boy-band boys and marry them and live happily ever after. Whereas if you actually asked a lot of fangirls, they probably wouldn’t even say that they had a crush on the boy-band boys. It’s a different sort of love, to be honest. It’s an I’d probably take a bullet for you but I’d probably feel a bit weird if we just started kissing sort of love. Add that to the fact that there’s an extremely high percentage of LGBT+ people in fandom, particularly queer girls, usually because it’s a much more diverse and accepting space than real life, then the percentage of fangirls who are just in it because Lister’s soooo hot is actually quite small. And that’s just one of the many things that outsiders don’t get about fandom.’

  Mac’s sly smile drops gradually as I speak. Juliet seems to have momentarily snapped out of her weird flirty persona and is looking between the two of us, intrigued.

  ‘So … wait … you’re gay, or …?’ he asks.

  I laugh. He couldn’t even keep up with what I was saying.

  ‘Well, no,’ I say, even though I probably would go out with a girl, but I don’t really ever get crushes on anyone, so I just don’t know what I am right now, to be honest. ‘I’m just saying there’s more to fandom th
an I want to kiss a famous boy.’

  He fidgets on the sofa. ‘Oh, yeah. Yeah, I guess so.’

  ‘So who’s your favourite, Mac? Who would you want to marry and live happily ever after with?’

  Juliet finally laughs, and grins at Mac, who clearly looks uncomfortable. Mac then forces out a laugh and just says, ‘Would you really take a bullet for them?’

  The adverts end and an announcer comes on stage. When he reads the name of the next act, The Ark, I feel a spike of joy in my heart, a stabbing burst of love and happiness that makes me feel like everything’s going to be okay, as long as our boys are in the world.

  ‘Yeah, I think so,’ I say.

  Someone’s given me the wrong guitar, but I can’t try to find the right one because one of our stage crew is fixing my angel wings onto the back of my jacket while we stand backstage during an ad break. Someone is combing Lister’s hair for him. Rowan’s changing into something black so we’re all matching.

  The Ark likes theatricality.

  ‘Hey, where’s my guitar? This is Rowan’s spare,’ I ask the air around me. Someone swaps the one I’m holding for my actual guitar and I hang it round my neck. It’s not even really ‘my guitar’, anyway. My guitar, a lower-end Les Paul that my grandad snagged for £50 from a boot fair for my birthday when I was eleven, is safely locked away in my apartment. The guitar I’m holding right now is probably worth over five grand.

  Rowan, changed now into a black bomber jacket with embroidered doves on the front, comes up to me, and grabs me by the arms.

  ‘How you doing, Jimjam?’

  ‘What?’ I ask, not understanding the question.

  He squeezes my arms, then rubs them soothingly. ‘Are you calm?’

  ‘Am I calm?’

  No. I am never calm.

  ‘I’m calm,’ I say.

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Rowan pats me on the head, just to be sure. I brush my fingers over my cross necklace again.

  Lister joins us. He’s swapped his burgundy jacket and white T-shirt for a black button-up. He looks the most excited out of the three of us, which is no surprise.

  ‘Remind me, what are we doing?’ he asks, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet. ‘“Joan of Arc” or “Lie Day”?’

  Rowan laughs and I groan.

  ‘Do you ever pay attention to anything?’ I say. ‘Were you high during sound check?’

  Lister shoots me an offended look. ‘God, sorry, Dad!’ This kind of makes me chuckle, and then Lister smiles, a real old rare Lister smile, and continues, ‘Okay, for real … which is it?’

  We are used to this now. Maybe a little too used to it. We won Best Newcomer earlier. Of course we did – everyone on the internet said we were going to. When we step up to perform, everyone cheers, even though we’re newcomers, even though we’re only just starting to get known in America. None of that phases me, though. Overexposure, I guess.

  But when we step out onto the stage, shrouded in darkness, I get a rush of adrenalin and I can’t stop smiling because finally we get to play our music.

  Like I said, The Ark likes theatricality. We don’t just stand there and play – which is fine, but it’s not us. Lister is centre on drums and Rowan and I stand behind him on a raised platform, playing various instruments depending on the song – keys, guitar, Launchpad (me), cello (Rowan). We always wear black.

  I am always wearing angel wings. It’s a tradition.

  When we started out, we’d play with shoddy instruments in the back of pubs and post videos of our garage recordings to YouTube. But tonight, we stand on a stage wider than three houses, and when Rowan gives us a nod and starts to strum the screechy opening bars of ‘Joan of Arc’, the LED screens behind us light up a bright, blinding orange, and we’re lost in the dry ice mist.

  Then begins our intro – a low, distorted robot voice that we play at the beginning of every tour show. It was my idea at the start of our last tour.

  I am not afraid, said Noah

  I was born for this

  I mouth along. It always makes me smile, reminding me of all the Bible stories Grandad used to read to me when I was little. It’s a slight variation of a Joan of Arc quote too. I love tying all the parts of ourselves together.

  I find myself shouting ‘West Coast!’ just because I’m so excited, and the audience cheer right back at me. Weird how it never seems to hit me until the music starts. Until the music starts, I’m just floating through it all. Waiting to get to the next song so I can breathe again.

  Born to survive the storm

  Born to survive the flood

  Our platform starts to rise into the air. The light changes and I glance around to look at the LED screen. It’s a giant Renaissance painting of an armoured woman wielding a sword. Joan.

  Then lights are on me, just as the voice speaks its final words.

  Believe in me

  Said Noah to the animals

  And two-by-two, they ascended

  Onto the ark

  ‘the voice had promised me that, as soon as i came to the king, he would receive me.’

  – Joan of Arc

  I am jump-scared awake at 11.14 a.m. by Juliet making a sound resembling that of a goose passing into the afterlife.

  I sit up. Juliet and I slept in one of her nan’s spare rooms. Mac slept in another. Weirdly, Juliet seems to have brought most of her possessions with her – the wardrobe is overflowing with potential outfits for Thursday and the floor is littered with assorted Ark merchandise.

  ‘Did I just dream that,’ I say, ‘or did you just shriek very loudly?’

  ‘I think I am dreaming,’ says Juliet.

  Juliet is staring at her phone like it’s a solid bar of gold.

  ‘What’s happened?’ I ask.

  ‘Jowan,’ she says, and then turns her head and stares at me. ‘Jowan.’

  I take a moment to process.

  Because saying Jowan like that, like it’s a magic spell, like it’s the name of an entire country – there is only one thing that she could mean.

  ‘You’re joking,’ I say.

  She simply thrusts the phone at me.

  On screen is a news article.

  THE ARK’S JIMMY KAGA-RICCI AND ROWAN OMONDI CAUGHT SLEEPING TOGETHER AT LONDON APARTMENT

  My heart starts to hammer. My palms start sweating.

  I scroll down.

  While their fandom’s theories concerning a relationship between The Ark’s Jimmy Kaga-Ricci and Rowan Omondi have previously been considered nought but the sexual fantasies of fourteen-year-old girls, a new piece of interesting evidence has emerged from the depths of the internet.

  We’ve acquired a photograph appearing to show Jimmy and Rowan sleeping next to each other in a bed. They appear to be inside their SW3 apartment (in which Jimmy, Rowan and Lister live), as a London skyline can be clearly seen through the large window next to them.

  Is this fandom conspiracy real? You decide! Jimmy and Rowan look pretty cosy to us!

  The photo does indeed show Jimmy and Rowan sleeping next to each other on a bed. Rowan is on his front, one arm slung over Jimmy’s chest. Jimmy’s head is tilted ever so slightly towards Rowan.

  It’s adorable.

  It’s like it’s been Photoshopped.

  It’s better than any piece of fan art I have ever seen.

  ‘I have died and gone to heaven,’ I say. I put the phone down on the bed and turn to Juliet. ‘What is happening right now?’

  Juliet has both of her hands on her face. ‘I’m dying,’ she says.

  ‘You don’t think – I mean – the title of the article was kind of misleading, but—’

  ‘Look at them. Look at them. They’re cuddling.’

  I look at the photo again. They are sort of almost nearly cuddling.

  ‘They’re cuddling,’ I say.

  Juliet flops down onto the bed.

  ‘This is the beginning,’ she says, ‘isn’t it?’

  Of co
urse it’s the beginning. It’s the beginning of everything we ever dreamed of. Jimmy and Rowan standing up and showing everyone that love is real. That even amidst all the shit, there is some pure goodness in the world.

  Juliet suddenly flings herself out of bed. ‘I need to tell Mac.’

  Having forgotten that Mac exists for the past few minutes, I am suddenly sprung back to reality.

  ‘Oh yeah. Don’t bring him in here, though.’

  Juliet gives me a confused look until I point at my scarf-less head, and then she gives me a thumbs-up and leaves the room.

  Once she’s gone, I load up the image on my own phone. When did this happen? There was nothing about this when I checked Twitter after I got up to pray earlier this morning. Amazing how everything can change within the space of a few hours.

  I stare at it. It’s beautiful. God. It’s so beautiful. Jimmy is so beautiful. Rowan is so beautiful. They love each other so much. I want to cry. Nobody will ever love me like that. Doesn’t matter. Jowan exists. There’s something good in the world. There’s a point to being alive.

  Every single day I wish I knew the full story. I wish I knew how they met. I wish I knew the things they say to each other. Who’s louder. Who’s the joker. I wish someone had recorded their every interaction and I could sit down and watch them all from start to finish.

  I’ll never know, though. But at least we have this.

  Enough to make me believe.

  When Juliet calls ‘Angel, do you want breakfast?’ through the door, I realise I have been sitting in bed looking at the photo for over ten minutes.

  Please don’t let me die in a plane crash. Please. I mean, I’m on a plane every other day so if it’s going to be anyone, it’s going to be me. Can you imagine dying in a plane crash? All those people screaming in an oversized tin can. Knowing they’re gonna die. Can’t even call your grandad on the phone. Sounds like something that would happen to me.

  I’m curled up in my first-class seat, clutching my cross necklace, counting down the minutes until we land safely back in London and the chance of me dying a fiery metallic death is back to ‘relatively low’. I know the chance is low anyway. I know that. But I can’t stop thinking about it, and the more I do, the faster my heart beats and the harder I find it to take a full breath. At this rate, I’ll flood the plane with my own sweat. Create a self-fulfilling prophecy.