Strained

Chapter 21

When they finished touring in the UK, they crossed the sea to reach Europe. They travelled from cities to cities, from countries to countries. They did not see much of the outside world. All the time they arrived in a city they had to go to the arena to do sound check, performed the night and then right after, catching a flight or a bus to the next destination. The impersonal hotels rooms became their home and studio booth and they wished that one day they will be able to properly record another album in a real recording studio like the first time and have actually the time to make it even better and not taking quick decisions.

Sometimes when they had some free time, they could not even go out. The fans knew which hotels they had checked in and a wave of girls were screaming their name outside. They often found themselves locked inside their hotels and it made them feel claustrophobic.

Their level of stress reached its highest point in the middle of the Europe tour. They did not have the time to think, to breathe and the idea to keep working at this relentless pace until the end of the year made them panicked. It was becoming too much.

At the same time, the psychological repercussions of growing up behind the spotlight were progressively catching them. They were not living in a 'normal' world and were sequestered in an ivory tower. They were losing slowly their roots and personality and started to believe that their life actually began when they first auditioned for 'Rising Star', their childhood belonging to a dream. They were brutally missing their families and friends, phone calls were not enough and the feeling of homesickness engulfed them.

They had no privacy left anymore, everyone knew them or at least their faces even among the adults. They were sometimes insulted in the streets, airports, bars, restaurants, shops by strangers who simply did not like them, by paparazzi's to provoke them and snap great pictures of them angry or even by stalker fans who could not understand why they did not stop to take selfies with them. They forced themselves to keep a straight face even if the words they heard were hurtful.

The public thought that they were entitled to them and the level of intense analysis on their moves made them paranoid. They were afraid to make a mistake again and if they did, the shame they felt was overwhelming. They were getting aggressively mobbed by the fans or the paparazzi's when they landed to airports and it was hard after long hours of flight to not yell at one of them. They could barely walk, they were pushed, the loud noises of screaming were buzzing in their ears, the flashes were blinding them. They were terrified than someone or them could be crushed. Their hearts started wildly to race all the time they stepped outside the arrival gates. Of course they could have sneaked to the back entrance of the airports but for commercial reasons, management thought it was better to throw them into the jungle to prove to the world how the boys were popular.

As they were older the tabloids did not have an ounce of guilt by creating fake rumours and stories about them on a daily basis and management did not do a thing to shut them down. Even if it was bad publicity, it was still publicity. The boys were on the papers and were being talk about. It was management's aim to keep their names in the media. But the boys could not bear to see that their wholesome image that they were trying hard to maintain, being destroyed so easily. And to add things worse, the problem extended also to the fans and some of them made up stories by claiming that they had been raped or drugged by the boys. It hurt them to see how far people could go just to get their attention. Thankfully for them, no one ever took those allegations seriously.

The general media became more hostile towards them and the boys feared to be mocked if their success fades and become 'has been' at only 19, 20 and 21 years. For now, they were realising all their goals without difficulty and sometimes it did not feel as fulfilling as they thought, it was like there was nothing else to strive for. Only the writing of their songs was still giving them a challenge.

But at the end, they came to the point where they could not cope with all of this anymore. They shut down the issues by internalized them, trying to be numb, untouchable. It worked for a while until they started to suffer from social anxiety and with their level of fame, they could not avoid the situations that automatically triggered it. And their behaviours drastically changed. Alex and Louis became quieter, avoiding speaking in public whenever they could, Oliver and William were losing their self-control more than usual and Gabriel could not get rid of the tightness in his chest all the time he was confronted to the crowd. 

The exhaustion was also making them irritable and occasionally they snapped at each other for no reasons. It was of course easily forgot and forgiven but Gabriel and Louis started to have huge fights on a daily basis. They used to have arguments but not at this scale. The frustration of not spending enough time just the two of them, the lie of hiding their relationship, their true nature was slowly eating them, the jealousy with Grace who was there or Gabriel who invited on the tour, two of his gorgeous gay male friends from his clique, Louis and his habit of smoking joints like cigarettes. All those things were getting on their nerves. And Charles picked the worst time to send Gabriel to Los Angeles during a more than welcome two weeks break in April to pull a stunt with a daughter of a famous actor. It was a good publicity for them before kicking the US and Canada tour.

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