You're Beautiful to Me

I jolted awake to the sound of someone pounding on the hotel room door. I trashed when snapped from sleep, so Mikey was shaken awake next to me. (Gerard had seemingly vanished, as I noticed I’d rolled over onto a pillow with leftover body heat and not the real body heat of my brother, which was far more comforting.)
Everyone else was slowly coming to, looking around with groggy faces, still too dead to pinpoint the noise. Billie was the one sleeping closest to the door; he rose and stretched, reaching out for the knob.
There was a beep from a keycard being swiped through the lock and the door flew open. The force blew Billie back into the wall, and the knob hit him in the gut while the wood hit him in the face. His back hit the wall and the wind was knocked out of him, preventing him from calling out. Or in proper Billie style, swearing profusely.
Yoda stormed through the door, his face completely red. He spotted all of us spread around. He quickly searched for the most conscious people to scream at first: in this case, Mikey and me.
He stabbed his finger in the air in our direction as if he wanted to stab us in the heart. “Clayah,” he fumed, “what the hell were you thinking?!”
I was still shaking off drowsiness and wasn’t entirely sure at first what he was talking about.
“You mean—“ I yawned, “—you mean yesterday?”
“YES, Clayah, I mean yesterday!” Yoda screamed. “That fucking stupid stunt you pulled in Times Square that you dragged everyone else into, what was that?!”
Billie had gotten his air back and came up behind Yoda. “Hey man,” Billie gasped. “don’t pin all this all on Clayah.”
“Shut up, Billie,” Yoda snapped. “She’s the one who thought of it.”
I heard the patio door slide open and Gerard push himself through the curtains, a cigarette in the corner of his mouth. “What’s going on?”
“Ah HA!” Yoda stabbed his finger toward Gerard now, then flipping back and forth between him, and Mikey and me. “Actually I blame you two just as equally.”
“What?” Gerard was confused. “Blame us for what?”
Yoda ignored the question. “Ever since this whole ‘brother’ thing happened Clayah hasn’t been the same. And now look, as of yesterday? She’s over the edge.”
I jumped out of bed. “Yoda, what the hell? Where do you come off saying that?”
“Yeah, yeah, I know you weren’t totally all-gears before,” he said apathetically. “But this is just stupid. We know you’re going through a lot right now but that is NO reason to violate the laws in New York City.”
The entire room was quiet as I barreled my eyes into Yoda. He was the stubborn type, but I could see his face start to sink with guilt and realization of the venomous words he’d just spewed irresponsibly.
“I have been,” I said slowly and stiffly, “through hell in the last two months. I learned about Gerard and Mikey being family, yes. I also almost died if you don’t recall. But throughout all that SHIT, the hardest part was not being able to play.” I crossed my arms and for a brief moment reminded myself of Gerard. “So if you think,” I spat, “that I only did what I did yesterday because Gerard and Mikey told me they were my brothers… you are sorely fucking mistaken. And I thought you knew me better than that, Pete.”
Yoda flinched at my use of his real name. We never called him that. Everyone else in the room was shifty and uncomfortable, but also rather obviously on my side. Spare one.
“Brothers?”
My blood ran cold when I saw Gloria speaking quietly from the corner. We’d obviously all forgotten she was there, and now that would come back to get us. Her short black hair was a mess, her bangs awkwardly brushed to the side, her clothes ruffled with sleep and her eye makeup skewed through all the creases in her face. But her eyes were the size of soccer balls.
No one moved. Gloria looked between me and my brothers, realization slowly crossing her face. That’s what everyone else did when they found out; since we all looked so much alike it was pretty fucking stupid I had to be told. Our friends slinked back to the walls or snuggled within themselves on the floor as if our gazes were laser beams.
Gerard put it best when he said, “Oh, fuck.”
“Gloria?” I stepped around the bed and started to move toward her. “It’s not what you think.”
“Isn’t it?”
I stopped walking. On my part that was a really stupid way to pardon everything considering this was exactly what Gloria must think. I’d been holding my hands up in defense, but now I just let them fall.
“Yes,” I sighed, “they’re my brothers.”
Gloria’s jaw dropped to match her eyes.
“I just found out, too,” I said to her. “It’s a really long story. In short… yeah, we’re siblings.”
Mikey walked up and put a hand on my shoulder. “Why did you just say that?” he hissed in my ear.
“You got a better way of handling it?” I hissed back. Mikey receded.
“Alright, fine,” Yoda grumbled. “What I said wasn’t fair. I’m sorry, Clayah. But you guys are in a SHIT load of trouble.”
“How much trouble?” Gerard reached his arm out the door and flicked his cigarette over the rail.
“Like New York Law is pretty pissed,” Yoda said. “We can’t leave for Europe until all this is cleared up.
“Oh fuck me.” Drew’s face fell into her pillow.
“Yeah,” Yoda nodded. “Your flight leaves at six, and its eight now. You can’t leave the country until all this bullshit is worked out.”
The room was silent for a moment before the lock beeped again and the door opened. In strolled Mollers, Mike, and Dan, armed with coffee trays and paper bags. They stared around in confusion.
“What’d we miss?” Dan asked.

My knees were bouncing up and down. I hated it when they did that. It meant I was scared. I hated being scared. I took another sip of coffee with the belief that my body was so fucked up mechanically that caffeine would calm me.
“Drew,” Mark said, holding a bagel out to her, “Eat.”
Drew pushed it away. “Chill out, Mark, I’m not hungry.”
“Drew, c’mon. You know you need to—“
Drew jumped up and slammed the couch pillow she’d been holding into Mark’s torso. “Goddammit, why does it always have to be some big production when I’M not hungry? Freak out when it’s Levi or Clayah or Monster for once, piss off when it comes to me.” Drew pushed past all of us to the bunk room.
Mollers shot her eyes between the door through which Drew had just gone to the disappointed remains of Mark, who fell back onto the couch. “The fuck was that about?” Mollers said. “Drew doesn’t do that!”
“We know.” Monster took a huge slug of coffee.
“When Drew gets upset,” I started to explain to Molly, “She doesn’t eat. When she gets REALLY upset, she doesn’t eat, and she gets bitchy.”
“Why?”
I looked at the rest of the guys, who were all just as shifty. No one really wanted to talk about it or explain it because it upset all of us. Especially poor Mark.
Levi finally cleared his throat and leaned forward. “When Drew started junior high,” he said softly, “the girls used to be really mean to her. They all thought she was too butchy and muscular compared to the other girls.”
“Skinny bitches.” I had to get that out.
Levi gave me a look. “So Drew started… messing… with her eating. It followed her for years, even up until we met her.”
“But Drew’s gorgeous!” Molly exclaimed.
“We know,” we all nodded.
“Drew just doesn’t register that sometimes,” Levi explained. “When she gets really worked up and starts feeling like things are out of her hands, she just… reverts to that mindset.”
“What do you mean ‘messing’? Like she just stops?”
“Stops, or ‘reverses’,” I said. “We don’t like using the actual term, but you know what we mean.”
Molly shook her head. “But why Drew? I’ve never seen her like that.”
“It doesn’t happen often,” Mark stepped in. “And she’s been so happy this whole tour it hasn’t been a problem. She hates to draw any sort of attention to it which is why she just flipped shit at me.” Mark looked sadly at the bagel in his hand.
“After one of our first gigs at the House of Blues,” Monster said, “we all found out just how serious it was with Drew.”
The rest of the band stared at him, stunned he would be the one to tell it. Mollers was nervous by osmosis.
“We were all set to go out afterward,” Monster went on, “out to some party. Drew didn’t want to go at first because she didn’t like the fact that it was a mock-prom style party but eventually agreed to it. We were all waiting and dressed but Drew was taking forever, so Mark went to find her.” Monster paused, unsure if he should go on, obviously worried he’d muck up the story. Mark sighed and took the cue.
“I walked into the bathroom of our dressing room,” Mark said, “and Drewsky was choking. She looked up at me and her face was just… RED. Totally red. And her eyes were bloodshot. I didn’t get what was going on until I saw the sink.” I reached out and put a hand on Mark’s knee so he could go on.
“It was filled with vomit and blood,” Mark said quietly, “and Drew’s fingers were covered in it. She was just in her show jeans and a bra—she told us later she’d done it because she hated the sight of herself with her shirt off—and I saw just how bony she was. I could fucking count her ribs. But we’d never noticed ‘cause Drew dressed in layers and layers; I could tell by all the clothes on the floor.
“Drew’d pushed herself to far and enough stomach acid had scraped her throat at that point that it made a hole, which is why she was vomiting blood. I yelled for everyone else and they came and…. I mean, she’s fine now obviously, but…”
“But it’s been really different since,” I took over. Mark sighed with exhaustion as the memory of the ordeal really scared him. “Drew hates to talk about it. She hates that we saw her like that. We brought her back and got her on her feet and she’s been fine since, but she’s had a couple times like this where we’ve gotten scared. This? This is just us being careful.”
Molly was amazed. “I had no idea.”
“I’m sure she’d love to hear that,” Monster said.
Mollers made strange faces at each of us in turn. “Do you guys always do things in extremes like this?”
I looked at the guys and we couldn’t hold in our laughter at how true that statement was.

The office of the New York City Chief of Police is just as scary as it sounds. It’s frightening in that sense that it’s meant to be comforting—chairs that look like they should be soft but aren’t, and the desk and chair just a little higher than all the other furniture in the room. The pencils were set in the holder in a way that seemed as constructed as Good Housekeeping while as casual as a college student’s dorm—I couldn’t stop analyzing them it fazed me so much. Whoever ran this dude through military school should be pretty fucking proud.
Ray kicked my foot to bring me around when the door opened and everyone stood. A burly man in a starched black suit started to walk through the mass of us. He didn’t need to push, he strolled right through. His very manner plowed us out of his way.
He walked around his dark maple desk and sat in the swivel leather chair. We let ourselves fall back to our original resting places. The intimidation effect of the height worked exactly like it was meant to.
The chief said nothing. He took his dear sweet time to look each and every one of us deep in the face, making it clear that he would peel each and every one of our skins off separately and specifically, not as a group, if he was displeased by the end of our meeting.
He spun slowly in his chair and grabbed a remote, flipping on a large flat screen TV along the right wall. We all turned as he did and watched.
It was us. A mash up of CNN, New York 1, even goddamn BBC, and all the footage from the day before. Kids amuck in Times Square and plowing after our buses. No blood, no mess, no extreme violence. Just a lot of cheering and running and noise.
The chief let this run for about a minute before clicking the screen dead. We turned to look at him, his hands folded on his desk.
“That is what you all did to my city yesterday.” His voice had that sort of fantastic power to it that Alan Rickman’s would if it could be Americanized. “There was no major destructive property damage and no one calling into hospitals. My dispatch department was flooded with complaints from those over the age of fifty five who can actually still hear, but you have caused no harm to my city or its citizens.”
“WE’RE SORRY.” I turned to see Levi clap a hand over his mouth.
The chief gave him a sideways glance. “Son, I just said you didn’t do anything.”
“He just does that.” Holy shit, was I actually speaking? “It’s kind of procedure for him and awkward situations. A stressed Tourette’s type-thing.” As a last resort I shot a fake grin at the chief.
When his eyes landed on me they lit up. The chief leaned in my direction with fascination. I of course slunk back and nearly knocked over Bert in fear that the chief would eat me.
“You’re Clayah Shier.” The way he said my name triggered my brain to flash every minute of my life.
I nodded and gulped. “Yes, sir.”
He positioned his elbow on the desk so he was pointing at me. “This entire thing was your idea.”
I nodded again. “Yes, sir, it was.”
The chief sat back a little but I didn’t let myself get comfortable again. “How old are you, Ms. Shier?”
“Fourteen, sir.”
“Fourteen. Have you ever been to New York City before, Ms. Shier?”
“No, sir.”
“No. So you’re fourteen years old and you’ve never been to New York City before, and this is the way you decide to make your impression upon my city. Is that correct?”
“…That’s correct, sir.”
My entire world exploded when the New York City Chief of Police started to laugh.
“Well I’ll be damned, Clayah Shier,” he chuckled. “You’re one aggressive little shit, aren’t you?”
My mouth flapped open and shut. My friends stared at me in awe. “I’m not entirely sure how to respond to that, sir.”
“Answer me this, Clayah Shier.” I really wished he’d stop calling me by my full name or I’d shit myself. “What exactly propelled you to want to get you and your little friends here on top of your tour buses and roll through New York City streets blasting your music, hmm?”
I had no way to answer but the truth. “Because… because I love to play, sir. We couldn’t get into Central Park to do a scheduled gig.”
“Since the streets were blocked off with people.”
“Yes, sir. And I hate not to play and this was the safest way to do it.”
“Safest?”
“Yes, sir. If we tried to get into the park someone—either a fan or one of us—would get hurt and then the whole thing would explode on your force. But we pulled up the ladders on our buses and moved slow… and no one was hurt.”
I disgusted myself when I felt a drop of sweat rolling down my upper arm beneath my sweatshirt as the chief stared at me again.
“In all my years,” the chief said, “as an officer and in the U.S. military, I have never seen anything so huge as this. More so, I have never seen something this grandiose go down and no one be hurt. Furthermore I have never seen ANYTHING in this likeness driven by a fourteen year old girl!” He leaned forward again in my direction. “Clayah Shier, I’m impressed.” He reached a hand across his desk.
I felt every muscle in my friend’s bodies go lax as I shook the chief’s hand.
“So we’re not in trouble?” Quinn said in amazement.
“Hell no, son!”” the chief bellowed. “Not with us, anyways. The television stations maybe, for some profanity, but even then that’s not you’re fault, since you had no idea you were being filmed. Except a shot I have of Ms. Shier flashing a very un-lady-like gesture to one of the cameras.” I looked at my feet and he laughed again.
“I like you, Clayah Shier,” the chief said. “I’ve never come across a girl like you before. And I am giving you a direct order to never stop being the peppy little badass I can see you are. Are we clear?”
I couldn’t help but smile as I saluted him back. “Yes, sir.”
“I would actually like to thank you all,” the chief went on. “You were the biggest attraction in my city yesterday that almost no other disturbances called in. Never in a day have I had such little crime. You’re welcome back to New York City anytime you like. I don’t suggest you do the same thing you just did ever again, though, or I will have to give you more than a lecture.”
The chief stood and thumped his hands on his desk. “Now,” he said. “I hear you kids need to get your asses to Europe. So I suggest you get on that—JFK’s pretty goddamn crowded on Fridays.” The chief buttoned his jacket and made to move to the door, so we all stood. “I assume you know how to let yourselves out.”
The chief stopped and clapped me on the back. “Privilege to meet you, Clayah Shier.”
“Same to you, sir,” I smiled.
When the door shut behind the New York City Chief of Police I collapsed into my chair.
“Did we just…” Billie shook his head. “Did we just get a slap on the back of the hand by the Chief of Police for causing a riot in Times Square because of Clayah?”
Gerard came up to me and pulled me from my chair, spinning me around. “THAT’S MY LITTLE SISTER!!” he cheered.
They all bought me coffee for months afterward.

Yoda was amazed when we explained everything to him in the hotel room as we packed and cleaned up.
“Shit like that just does not happen,” Yoda said.
“Like we don’t fucking know that. Ugh, I LOVE this girl!” Gerard kissed my face yet again. I laughed and pushed him off.
“So you’re not getting a major fine?” Yoda persisted. “Or a ban from the state for the rest of your lives?”
“Nope,” I said, shuffling to grab the last bunk cot and throw it to Tre and Frank’s pile. “But we do have a flight to catch, so if you could grab that box of cigarettes Bert is about to leave behind, that’d be great.”