Chapter 73: *preface*

HAPPY FAMOUX FRIDAY!!!!! WE'RE HERE!!!!!!

Before we begin, I want to go over a few things:

You might find a lot of this preface to be familiar. It's because I've taken bits and pieces of the old previous prefaces––bits and pieces that are still relevant to the story. There is a lot that's different in here too, so I can't wait for you to read it!

Even though this is an edited draft, this is still a draft. Meaning, even as I post this, it's not 100% what I'd publish in a printed novel. But of course, you get that. It's all a process!

And finally, PREVIOUSLY ON THE FAMOUX: As you might remember, Emilee Parvenu became Emeray Essence, the newest member of the Famoux. She replaced a girl named Bree Arch, who died on camera during a Darkening. Life in the Famoux has been a whirlwind for Emeray, but it hasn't been without its danger. DEFED, the scary anonymous group that killed Bree, threatened to kill the least popular member at the next Darkening, sending all the members into a panic of trying to be the most liked. Along the way, Emeray fell in love with Chapter, but the love was squashed by Norax, who promptly set Emeray up in a dating contract with Kaytee's ex-boyfriend Cartney Kirk. At the Darkening, the members were blindsided when Foster, who seemed pretty secure in his overall public likability, ended up being the one DEFED killed. But unbeknownst to our little Famoux members, one of DEFED member's is Finley... Foster's old lover from his past life before the Famoux.

SO WHAT'S GONNA HAPPEN NEXT, YOU ASK?

LET THE GAMES BEGIN. ONWARD.

emeray

When I was younger, and unaware of the world's cruel capabilities, I never thought I'd get used to being hated. Hate isn't exactly something you anticipate having to consistently face in your everyday life. It's not something vitally present in your thoughts when you're learning how to walk, to talk, to eat without someone there to hold the spoon to your lips. Hate isn't something you hope for when you're walking into class on your first ever day of school. It's not on your radar.

When you're young, really young, all you know is the color of your parents' eyes when they look at you, and the wallpaper in your room, and the glint of your spit on chewed-up train sets. You only see hate in unpleasant little glimpses. A few arguments. A couple disagreements. A scolding or two.

But sooner or later it hits. It always does. Hate is the most unwelcome gift on the birthday you never really wanted nor asked for. You don't always remember the first day you really knew somebody hated you. We, as humans, tend to block it out of our minds or let time take it away for us. But every year, that fatal day passes you by, as casual as the notions that slip from your memory when you fall asleep at night. It is a birthday nobody celebrates, the day you first were hated. It exists nonetheless.

Somewhere in my first or second year of attending school, I started believing that my real birthday and this awful one had likely both come on the same day, within the same establishing moment. The doctors and nurses must've hated me the moment I came into existence, the second they saw my eyes and realized they were supposed to be brown, not that unnatural, icy blue. My family, despite their best efforts to hide it, must've hated me too as I grew from an infant and my completely incorrect dark hair began to grow in with me. There I was: Something I shouldn't have been. Something they didn't want. Something to be hated.

I would've liked to have known hate before Carstan van Horne hated me. I always resented my family for keeping that from me. Carstan's hate came as a surprise. When he an his gang of littler boys took turns pushing me into the wood chips on the playground, I didn't know why I deserved it. When they chanted over and over that I was an abomination, I didn't know what the word meant.

Soon enough, however, I learned. I had to learn; get used to it. Soon enough I expected hatred from everyone I met, because they all showed ms that same shocked face, and vacs those same curt responses, and had that same pressing thing they needed to get to that made them have to walk away from me so quickly. I knew why they had to walk away. Over time, I grew to presume a person hated me by default, and if they were to tolerate me, I'd have to first win them over.

But had my mother let me know beforehand that the kids would hate me, maybe I wouldn't have been so miserable. Maybe then I would've been more like Cora Loress, my old friend who went out of her way to be different.

Maybe then I wouldn't have bat an eye when Carstan van Horne let me have it. Maybe I would've shrugged. An abomination? Not news to me, I'd tell them. I've been waiting for your hatred.

But as it turns out, being calloused would have been to my detriment––to my downfall. When I joined the Famoux, the battle to not be hated became a battle for my life. Lucky for me, I had a lifetime of living to please under my belt. I knew how to nod, smile, and concur. I knew how to mold my interests to fit anyone around me in desperate hopes of them looking past my appearance and wishing to be my friend. Growing up, malleability was a defense mechanism––I mean, how could I possibly afford to be anything other than agreeable? How could a glitch like me have my own opinion?

Norax probably saw these tendencies in me before she approached. She knew I wasn't like Cora Loress. No, I didn't want to be different at all. If Emilee Parvenu had it her way, she would've fallen right in line like the rest of them. And Norax knew this––that all I needed was the right hair, the right eyes, the right shape, the right skin, and I'd be unstoppable. A blank canvas. A perfect storm.

As of today, actin I am one of the most loved Famoux members, if not the most. Why? Because I am everything anyone could ever want me to be. I am a singer. I am an actress. I am a model. I am dating the most popular nonFamoux member in the world. I am the right amount of relatable while also remaining untouchable. I have all the right friends and all the right clothes and all the right opinions. I have never had an overwhelming scandal like Kaytee, have never spoken out of turn like Till has been known to do in interviews, have never dared walk past a fan on the street without stopping for a photo like Race, no matter how big the crowds get.

If there is a reason to hate a different Famoux member, I negate it. Norax has made sure of this. I am her protégée. I am her lumerpa.

I am the light that swallows every other light around me.

Sure, I'm not universally liked––nearly no celebrity could be––but no one in their right minds would show their hatred to my face. Even the distinct voices I hear critiquing my outfits via the Analytix have nothing but lavish declarations of love when meeting me in person. Even my toughest critics blush when I say their names back to them in interviews or compliment their sense of style. It's as if no one has the guts to act as Carstan van Horne once did, no, anywhere I go, I am met with a frenzied smile and a long, earnest hug.

And to think, Emilee Parvenu had it so easy, knowing exactly where she stood.

The more liked I am, the more I feel Emilee start to creep up on me. She's like a virus––dormant until the proper conditions are met. Now that I'm in near perfect good graces, she wants to come in and foul things up.

The main problem is that I'm no longer sleeping, just like after my mom left. In my life, I have always lost people I never expected to. It makes me sick to admit it, but when we went into the Fishbowl I'd already briefed myself with ways to deal with Kaytee or Race. It seemed so evident that it'd be either of them––after everything that happened with Cartney, and how the people reacted to it. I am a hundred percent positive that DEFED wasn't looking at the Volx's results when they killed Foster Farrand. For reasons that escape me, they did it on purpose, and I ended up losing someone I thought was secure. Just like when I lost my mom.

So now, I can't sleep. How can I, when every time I close my eyes, I see him slumped over the table all over again, blood everywhere?

The blood, the bullets, the pieces of glass in his ruffled blonde hair.

It's unbearable.

The other members have had trouble with Foster's death too. Even after three months, the scabs haven't healed yet; the scars haven't surfaced. We keep picking at our wounds day by day until they start bleeding again and become scabs once more. Over these months I've watched them as they go, one by one, wrapping the gauze around their arms and legs and brains like everything is fine. We try our best to stay positive, but like I said, no one expected it to be Foster. No one knows how to rationalize DEFED's choice, much less move on from it.

But of course, Norax doesn't seem to notice our turmoil. As far as she's concerned, everything for the past three months has been perfect. In fact, more than perfect. The Famoux's ratings are better than they've ever been. Even Kaytee and Race, who couldn't have been in a worse place going into the Fishbowl, are at incredibly decent approval rates despite some lingering bitterness. Foster's death was a clean slate for everyone. A refreshing reminder to not take the Famoux for granted.

With our likability up, our schedules have never been busier. Race has booked a role in an upcoming film. Kaytee is back in the studio, recording. Till's been doing nonstop press for her new Riot film. Chapter is making appearances at anything and everything Norax deems an important event. And I've been doing a bit of everything––some acting, some performances with Cartney, some modeling. We're all so busy, I barely see any of them anymore. The people I see most frequently nowadays are Norax, Gerald, and Cartney.

No matter how available we make ourselves, the public just can't seem to get enough of us. The hoard of paparazzi and fans constantly stationed outside the Metropolix is now double, sometimes triple the size we used to get.

On early mornings, when Gerald's on the night shift, I go over to Chapter's wing of the Metropolix for a quick coffee, and we watch the crowds form. There can be as many as forty people already there before sunrise, waiting patiently for our doors to open. Chapter thinks they're morbidly curious––that they want to be in the optimal place for a picture on the off-chance that any of us are attacked on our way out. I tell him he's being too cynical. That they're just trying to show they care by showing up for us. But to be honest, I can't quite tell which one of us is right. Perhaps I've gotten a little cynical as well.

All I know is that hatred is something I used to expect, and the more Emilee that creeps into me, the more I can't fight my paranoia. I lie awake at night, staring at the ceiling, envisioning a million ways the world could start to hate me. It doesn't have to be anything big like with Kaytee and Race––no, it could be the simplest thing. The thing I'd least expect.

Because hate is like a trainwreck. It doesn't take much to start it. All the car has to do is teeter off course by a fraction of an inch, and the whole thing is ruined. There is no amount of words that can stop a moving train on its way to crashing and burning. Words, I've found, don't always have that kind of healing power.

Nowadays, all I'm trying to do is keep from teetering. I presume that the longer I can postpone the evident crash ending of my celebrity life, the better for me. The longer I can maintain my patience and shut my mouth, the better for everybody. It shouldn't be too hard. Emilee Parvenu fought to please for far lower stakes. This time, I have things that are worth it. I have people to be concerned over. I have people concerned about me.

For the past three months, Cartney's is the hand I've had to hold, and patience is the action I've had to practice. Every day is a new opportunity to crash completely, yet every day I manage escape the inescapable fate. I wouldn't exactly call it a win, but it's the best prize I've been given.

For a while, we dissolve this way. Slip right into the routine. Get up, take a deep breath, brace the turbulence.

And then, abrupt like a train crash––

Everything changes.

xxx

THAT WAS THE PREFACE!! Tell me your thoughts.

I'm sorry for how similar this preface was to the others. In all honesty, there will be plenty similarities between this draft and the others, especially in the beginning. But fear not, chapter 1 already has a few new tricks up its sleeve. AHHH I'M SO EXCITED FOR YOU TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS!!!

Thank you for being so engaged in the story. I know I *just* posted the preface, but I've honestly been in awe of the amount of people who have shown up in these last two days back from my hiatus. You have no idea how much that means to me. I was SO nervous about coming back and everyone going, "Ugh. Who cares??" and ignoring me. But my gosh, you've been so wonderful, I could cry. I'll never stop thanking you for giving my story your time. That is the greatest honor you could ever give me. Thank you.

I want to make you a character in this story. Please comment your name here so I can make you a mysterious flame of Chapter's or something dramatic. (Kidding. Or am I???) Also, go over to the SO YOU WANT TO BE A CHARACTER part in this book and fill out your info so I can really get the feel for your character.

I'm so excited to post chapter 1 for you next week. AHH! I wish Friday would come sooner!

In the meantime, do you have any plans for the weekend? I'm preparing for my internships, which start next week. I'm nervous about them, but also super excited.

Okay. Now I'm rambling.  Let's wrap up. Thank you for being here. I love you so much, and I can't wait to start getting into the drama of The Classix with you.

This time next week? Sounds good. Okayloveyoubye.

Remember: Sticks and Stones may break your bones, but haters make you famoux. Stay classy, stay classix.