Who Wrote I'M A Believer: My Life Of Monkees, Music, And Madness?

After my adopted sister, Bella, borrowed my phone, she forgot to log out of our family's secure channel. I was about to log her out when an encrypted group chat message popped up at the top of the screen. "To celebrate Enzo, the Moretti heir, handling his first piece of business for the family, we're having dinner at the private club tonight." I tapped on it without a second thought. The member list in the channel was painfully clear, showing only four avatars: my father, my mother, my brother, and Bella. My brother, Enzo, replied a moment later, "Just the four of us. Don't call Aurora." "If she comes, she'll just find another excuse to bully Bella." I stared at the words, frozen. It dawned on me then. In this family, I had been the outsider all along.

It was raining very heavily on the day my parents got divorced. There are two copies of the agreements on the table. One declares that the signee will stay with Dad, who's a gambling addict and has already racked up a huge debt, in the old town. The other declares that the signee will follow Mom, who will marry a rich businessman, and move to a coastal town. In the previous life, my younger sister, Tamara Browning, kicked up a fuss because she wanted to stay with Mom. So, I packed up my luggage quietly and went with Dad. Soon after, Dad quit gambling and received the compensation due to our house being demolished in a governmental project. Since then, he showered me with love and affection. Meanwhile, Tamara wasn't allowed to even leave the house. On top of that, she was neglected by everyone, so she died from depression. Now that we're given a second chance in life, Tamara snatches the cigarette out of Dad's fingers before hugging him, refusing to let him go at all. "Tiana, my heart aches for Dad's situation. You should live a good life with Mom. I'll give that chance to you." I deign to say anything at all. Instead, I just pick up the train ticket that'll take me to the coastal town. But what Tamara doesn't know is the reason behind Dad's decision to quit gambling in the previous life. At that time, I had overexhausted myself from paying off his debt, and I began vomiting blood due to my brain cancer. I practically had to risk my life just to get him to quit gambling once and for all.

Andy Williams is a nineteen year old Senior struggling to balance her school life, after hours job and moonlighting as a rock star. When her band is booked to do the end of term concert her cover is blown and she struggles to cope with the groupie, who just happened to be her Mathematics teacher, Miss Gweneviere Sheldon.Her English teacher, Miss Preston, offers to tutor her during the holidays and they start to get really close, perhaps too close? Uncomfortable with the situation Miss Preston calls everything off and sends Andy spiralling into a world of alcohol and drugs.Andys band tries to help Andy get over Miss Preston but ends up making the situation worse. Andy rethinks her actions during a couple of days in the hospital, she quits the band, changed her school schedule and starts extra Mathematics lessons to make up for lost time.She makes new friends, finds a new job. Her life seems to be back on track when a tragic accident happens on a school trip that leaves Andy temporarily paralyzed.She makes it through with the help of family and friends and reconnects with the band. With a little hard work Andy graduates and is free to pursue Miss Carol Preston.

Vice and Victor have a plan. Five years in the spotlight to make their fortune, then move into the background, with their own record label. Fast and smart is their motto. Romance will have to wait, especially since their idea of an ideal romance, involves both of them and one woman. When their manager, Aaron, asks them to collaborate with a chart-topping popstar who wants to gravitate into rock, they are dubious. A frequent flyer in the gossip columns over the last twelve months with a history of drug and alcohol problems, they fear she will be difficult and volatile to work with. After being roofied by her music producer, Mirage has learnt the hard way that it is not an equal world. Without proof, she cannot pursue legal recourse, and she is locked into completing another album with her rapist. Meanwhile, Mr Rich has been feeding the industry lies about her having dependency on alcohol and drugs, and the gossip mags have seized upon the stories, slowly tearing her professional reputation into pieces. But Mirage is not a fragile damsel in distress, she is a pop-rock chick, and she is fighting back.

After losing a bet to her adopted younger brother, Peter Conroy, my wife, Ruth Davis, divorced me for the ninth time. I had told her then that if we remarried for a tenth time and divorced again, I would marry someone else. She only laughed and said, “Will, you even donated part of your liver to me. How could you possibly marry anyone else? Besides, apart from me, who would want to marry a broke loser like you?” On the day of our tenth remarriage press conference, Peter left her a key to a beach house and made a bet with her. If she could find him in three hours, he would stay and wish us a lifetime of happiness. The moment Ruth saw the key, her expression turned hesitant. She tore up the remarriage statement and ran off without hesitation. Three hours later, Peter posted a photo on social media. They were lying on a bed in the beach house and admiring the ocean view. I read the caption. [If someone really cares about you, they will cross mountains and seas just to find you.] Without telling Ruth, I withdrew the remarriage application and made a call I had not made in a very long time. “Julienne, is your proposal from back then still valid?” Her voice trembled with barely restrained excitement. “For you, it’ll always be valid.”

The doctors said it was over—stage four, nothing left to fight. I had three days, max. I signed the organ donor papers myself. If I was gonna die, at least someone else could get a second shot. Told my family I was sick. But my so-called sister—the doctor—shrugged it off like I was making it up. She convinced them I was losing it, not dying. My parents and fiancé fell for it. Handed me over like she was some hero. She wasn't. She pushed me closer to the end. And when I finally died, the same people who wouldn't listen cried like they hadn't let it happen.