The hotel isn't happy about it. Mitch Simmons isn't happy about it. I'm not happy about it. But we have to leave the hotel. We're not even allowed to stand in the lobby which is rife with sparkling crystals and a chandelier that swings from the rafters. We're bunched into a room meant for business meetings, chairs stacked to the sides and only a round wooden table for us to lean on while people and adults discuss things for us.

I can hear them outside; the shit they're saying is so personal that it feels like they've prized open my brain and are revealing everything.

I'm perverted. I brainwash with my music, and they've found the hidden meanings. Apparently, if you play our songs backwards, I'm recruiting for the homosexual agenda. I want to crawl into a corner and never come out again.

I feel Oliver's hand press into my back and rub like I'm about to give birth. When Luke and Demitri finally join us, it's Luke who strides over and grips me so hard I feel he might crush me.

"Fuck, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry." He says it a few times, and I know he means it. But people like him, everyone else; they don't understand that everything is a secret. They don't have to constantly watch out for things like this. One false move and you're not safe. If I didn't have management, security, and fans, this would all be worse. I wouldn't just be feeling sad.

Luke presses his forehead against mine, his hands shaking. I'm upset, I know I am, but he shows it more than I do, guilt and cocaine running through his veins. I want to say it but I don't; you need help, Luke.

The hotel's manager explains to us what needs to happen, how to get us out without anyone seeing, how to not get hurt, how to not cause a scene. No one but the boys look me in the eye. Demitri slumps next to me, his eyes big round holes where he's rubbed them. He's probably only just woken up, only just said goodbye to the girl he took home last night. In his pocket is his medication, and I wonder if he's spoken to Candice at all recently.

Candice isn't anywhere to be found. Luke says she can stay, that it'll be safer for her. But she wishes she was here. I wish she was here.

When Mitch finally turns to us, acknowledges us, his sunglasses are off. By the looks of it, I'm the only one of us who's seen him without them. Luke, Demi, and Oliver all take in a breathe at once, staring at the scarred eye as Mitch rolls the other one.

"Scott, you're going to be leaving separately, with me. You lot, you'll go in another car in another direction. Alan'll drive the tour bus, and hopefully all the attention will be on that. Do not tweet anything."

"No way! Scott is staying with us!" I feel Luke wrap his arm around mine. It's oddly comforting. "You can't fucking split us up; if they have beef with Scottie, then they have beef with us."

Mitch stares at him, his teeth showing as he snarls. "If you don't do as you're told, I'll give all your dealers' information to the police." We're all stunned into silence, and Luke visibly recoils. How does he know shit like that? Unless it was Mitch who hooked him up in the first place?

He carries on with how we're going to do it, and when we've got so many body guards that you'd think we were presidents, we set off on our separate ways. I have to follow Mitch, as guards flank us and I look back and just see the other three stare at me, watching me go.

Oliver, who still looks half asleep since our breakfast, starts walking slowly towards me, but a body guard stops him.

"We need to go this way, sir." He says to him as I disappear around the corner.

.....

The noise is monstrous.

It seems Mitch's idea was fucking pointless because an angry mob still bangs on the windows of the blacked out car that we're in. It seems they've split off, some staying at the front of the hotel, and some who've sussed it and have come round the back. We drive off first, the driver minding the people that are shouting utter rubbish and downright lies at me. They can't see me, but I can see them.

And Mitch sees me, his elbows resting on his knees, sat opposite, and snarls at me like I've killed his whole family. He ignores all the noise, all the banging. One woman presses her face to the window, trying to see if I'm in here. Her face is bright red, her shirt says 'Protect Our Children'.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Is all Mitch says, ignoring her, ignoring everything.

"You wouldn't have hired me." I lean back and fold my arms. A scolded child. My phone is quiet, I've switched it off. I can't deal with any of this. My heart is so small, any hope for me is lost. I want to scream.

"You really think that? You think I'm just like one of them?" He taps on the window, where a mustached man holds a placard of a crude drawing of two stick men sucking each other off. Around his neck is a poorly made crucifix.

"You hesitated about me being in the band, you said."

"Not because you're gay. Because you looked like you didn't want it. We saw thousands of boys over a period of a week and there were plenty more who wanted it more than you did. But when you sang, when I saw you play, I had to agree that the band wouldn't be a band without you, you were the talent." He fishes for a cigarette, but when he realises we're in a car, he stops. "You signed a contract for me to manage you. That means you can't hide things from me if you think it'll affect your career and I'm sorry, but shit like this does. It shouldn't, but it does. It's up to you what happens now, it's out of my control. You've already gone behind my back and not realised the consequences, so now you have to fix it. You all do. All I can do is keep your music career going. I can't save you from your personal life now."

It's all harsh words, but it's the softest I've seen Mitch Simmons be since ever. I sniff hard, and the tears come flooding. Fuck sake, I'm crying in front of my manager.

I feel him sit next to me, but he doesn't put an arm around me, we've never had that relationship. Instead, he moves around me and presses the button that winds down the window. He's fucking mental; those protestors will probably climb in and maul me to death.

But instead, there's colour. Colour of pride flags that span across the path, lining it, intertwined with trees and fences as fans and fans and fans flock the streets and cheer and scream over the noise and the hatred of the protestors. I see that the protestors are on one side, held back by police and barriers, as are the other side, and we're driving in between them.

When the window is fully down and the fans see me, I see some girls cry and scream louder. I see young children, being held by their parents who wear tye-dyed t-shirts that match the rainbow colours of the pride flag that's fucking everywhere.

"I guess you gotta know where to look to find good in the world." Mitch says, but I'm already climbing out of my seat, opening up the sun roof like in those films when you've arrived in L.A and the palm trees are high above you.

But no, we're in Las Vegas.

I'm deaf; I'm really fucking deaf by the sounds coming from both sides. But love, love is always louder.

I wave, I make them scream louder so the noise of the hatred behind me drowns out. I never turn that way, and I think I unknowingly started my own pride parade. We're slow due to traffic, like I'm on a float, and behind me, Oliver, Luke, and Demi's car has joined us, and they're all popping out of their car's sunroof, all vying for a space where people can see them.

The hysterics get worse when Luke waves, because he's Luke fucking Cartwright and even though rehab might be on the horizon, he's still our lead singer.

"Maybe two of us should make out to make it even gayer?" I hear Demi say from the other car. I burst out laughing when Luke says, "Nah, you're alright mate. I prefer your sister."

I get my phone out to Snapchat, Tweet, and Instagram this shit. Everyone else does the same, I even see Mitch below me reach his phone out the back passenger window and do the same. People are shouting our band name, our own names, and I feel so unbelievably warm and it's not from the Nevada sun.

I receive about a billion texts and missed calls, all from friends and my brothers. I don't even turn on the notifications but I know that we're quite possibly trending on everything. I see news crews reporting everything. All of this didn't have to happen, but it did anyway.

I scroll down the trending tag and see that the protestors had broadcasted their plans on social media, and the fans had gone bat shit crazy over it. I'd missed it all, because I was drunk and sleeping and hadn't bothered to look at Twitter properly.

I get a Snapchat from Parker that's just his notifications going mental about me, calling me his boyfriend. I can hear him laughing in the background and I laugh with him. I laugh at all of this and cry, because they are too, and I can't help but join them.

And then I see something else; a missed call from my dad.