Emily Alexander: It started in early July. I was sleeping. It was about two in the morning. I'm an 'early to bed, early to rise' kind of girl when I've got work to do. I woke up because my buzzer was going off. It took a few times until I finally gave up and went to the door just so I could shut whoever it was up. I don't even remember how she introduced herself, she said she was from the record company or something and there was an emergency. My heart was pounding in my chest. I let her up.
I didn't recognize her, of course. It wasn't a familiar face. But no way was she from the record company, she was just a kid. All skin and bones and unruly hair, dressed in military cast-offs. She stared at me out of these intense grey eyes and calmly told me who she was and what she was doing here. Her name was Rivka Fried, she said, and she felt the only way to deal with me was in person. I was frozen, I was completely certain she was going to try to kill me. She kept talking calmly, backing me into my apartment, her hand in her pocket like she had a weapon hidden there. I wasn't even paying attention to what she was saying.
I was crying. I said, if there's anything you want, please, take it. She said she just wanted me to remember my place. She looked at me sternly and took a straight razor out of her pocket. She said I should learn to face the consequences of my actions. She said no one makes it through without getting hurt, and that I should remember that, something like that. She rolled down her sleeve and cut open her own wrist, bled on my carpet. She kept slashing at herself until her forearms were a mess, and then she took her razor blade back and left my apartment.
It was like something out of a nightmare and I thought it was a nightmare at first. But I pinched myself until I knew I was awake, and then I called my brother Chris.
Christopher Alexander: It was a gruesome scene. Really bizarre. This girl had bled all over Emily's flat, down the hall, out the door. The police came round and tried to track her. They eventually found out she was at her home in the suburbs. Emily was really freaked out, naturally. At first she wanted to go into police custody, but she calmed down once the police assured that the girl was going into counseling and there'd be no way she'd ever get anywhere near Emily again.
Emily Alexander: At first I didn't want to tell the band. But it came out when they commented on how I looked like I hadn't slept, and that they'd never seen me like I was that day. I admitted what had happened, and Alan looked really upset, really angry for a moment, and then shrugged his shoulders and said "I just don't understand it." That was all.
Alan Léonin: I remember that I felt like I was responsible. I remember feeling like I wanted to stay by Emily's side, like I should be the one to take the brunt if anything else ever happened.
I couldn't concentrate on the music. I left early from the band rehearsal and went home.
I was steadily beginning to realize two things at once. The first was that no matter what I did to fight it, I was always going to blame myself for things that weren't my fault. That's really what the omen was. It wasn't just depression—not just apathy and self-hatred—it was something more than that, it was a feeling that I was born marked, that some horrible thing was circling above me like a vulture, and since no one else could see it I had to live with my guilt alone. When the world shook around me I imagined myself to be standing there shaking it, not even realizing as I shook. There was a demon inside me I didn't even have control of.
It's a stupid thing to think, and I have just come to understand that my own brain contains the seeds of an irrationality more powerful than all my intelligence and books can fight. So I did my best not to pay attention, not to blame myself, not to judge myself the way I did.
The second thing I realized was that I was falling in love with Emily Alexander.
Things made more sense when I thought about that. The way I had done whatever she asked on tour to make her happy. The way I just wanted her to be safe, to be okay. The way that ordeal she had to go through, it shook me to the core. It was certainly never something I'd experienced before, but the more I thought about it, the more obvious it seemed.
Emily was an amazing person. She'd had such a difficult childhood, and emerged from it with grace and pride. She made me laugh, she had a burning flame of eternal optimism even when she was terrified. She was practical, intelligent, (laugh) gorgeous of course, creative, a great musician...I sound like an advert for Emily, but it's...the way I feel. The way I'd been feeling.
It was good fodder for song lyrics, actually. I started writing almost immediately. I remember always wondering if I'd fall into the trap of, once I had actually found love if such a thing existed rather than just being a combination of brain chemistry and propaganda, writing really shit and trite lyrics. I think I did all right, though, actually. Yeah, I'd say I did all right.
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