Part 7
~
Dreams last
for so long
Even after
you’re gone
I know you
love me
And soon
you will see
You were
meant for me
And I was
meant for you
~
One year
later
It had been a full year since Leighanne’s death, and slowly, I was
getting over it and trying to move on with the rest of my life. The past year, I had not done much with the
Backstreet Boys. The five of us had
taken hiatus for most of the year. We
had started getting together now though, trying to write music for the next
album we planned to release.
In between getting together with the guys and working on lyrics, I
talked to Grace all the time. We hadn’t
seen each other since the day of the funeral, but we always talked on the phone
several times a week for a few hours. I
usually called her because I had the money to pay for the long distance phone
calls, and I knew money was tight for her.
One night, though, she called me.
“Hi, Bri, it’s me,” she said.
I didn’t have to ask who “me” was, but I was surprised to hear from her,
since, like I said, I usually called her, not the other way around.
“Hey, Gracie, what’s up?” I asked cheerfully.
“Well… Brian, I have something to tell you,” she said, taking a
deep breath.
I listened carefully, trying to tell whether this something was
good or bad. She sounded sort of
excited, so I figured it must be good news.
“What is it?” I asked eagerly.
“I’ve met someone.”
Those three words felt like three blows to my stomach. For a moment, it was as if the wind had been
knocked out of me; I couldn’t breathe.
Taking a deep breath, I managed to say, “What?” Maybe I had heard her wrong.
I hadn’t, of course. “I’ve
met someone,” Grace repeated. “His name
is Doug. We’ve been seeing each other
for about six months, actually. And
guess what?”
I was too shocked and confused to guess. Six months?
Grace had been dating some other guy for six months and didn’t tell
me? I knew that we weren’t a couple
anymore; she had a right to date another guy.
But, as friends, I would have expected her to tell me. It hurt me that she hadn’t until now.
Without waiting for my guess, Grace went on excitedly, saying
three more words that were a hundred times worse than the first. “We’re getting married!”
My mouth dropped open, and I could not speak, could not even
breathe. I shook my head
furiously. I must have heard her
wrong. This wasn’t happening. My Grace couldn’t be getting married.
“Isn’t that wonderful, Bri?” Grace gushed. “I’m just so happy!”
She may have been happy, but I was miserable. I knew I couldn’t let her on to that
though. I was her friend, and I needed
to be supportive and happy for her.
“Wow, Grace,” I said, trying my best to fake enthusiasm. “That’s great.”
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“I thought you’d be happy for me.”
Darn. I never was a very
good actor. “I… I am, Grace,” I
insisted. “That’s wonderful news.”
“Good. I want you to be
happy. I can’t believe this is
happening. It’s like a dream,” she
continued. I rolled my eyes, but forced
myself to listen to her go on and on.
“When he proposed last night, I just couldn’t believe it. It was so magical.”
“So when’s the wedding gonna be?” I asked. I didn’t even want to hear about this Dan, or
Dave, or Doug, or whatever his name was proposing to my Grace. It was too painful.
“Sometime at the beginning of February,” she replied. “We wanna have it just before Valentine’s Day
so we can spend that day together on our honeymoon. It’ll be so romantic!”
My mouth dropped open.
“February? You don’t mean
February, 2002, do you?”
“Yup. I know it’s a little
short notice, but we want to get married soon.
It’s still almost four months away, so we’ll have plenty of time to get
it planned. We want to have a small
wedding anyway, so it won’t be too hard.
You’ll be invited of course, and…”
She rambled on and on, but I was barely listening. I couldn’t believe that in just four months,
Grace would be married. Leighanne and I
had taken over eight months to plan our wedding, and I knew people that took a
lot longer than that. I had heard of
some couples who had taken two years to plan the wedding. And Grace was doing it in less than four
months.
It was all so sudden. I
couldn’t believe it. So many emotions
were passing through me, and I couldn’t even sort them out to figure out what
exactly I was feeling. I was shocked
mostly. Shocked, and… well, okay, I was
a little jealous too. I mean, I didn’t
love Grace anymore, not like I had when she was my girlfriend. She was just a good friend, one of my best
friends. But why then would I be
jealous? We could still be friends,
even after she was married. But we could
never be… lovers.
And that’s when I realized the truth. I had probably known it deep down for a long
time, but had never admitted it to myself.
But now I knew it was true.
I was still in love with Grace.
***
“What am I gonna do?” I asked Nick over the phone that
afternoon. Nick might have not been the
best person to ask for relationship advice, but he was my best friend, and at
least I knew he would listen to me.
“You gotta stop the wedding,” Nick replied, as if it were
obvious. I rolled my eyes.
“Sure, Nick. I can’t do
that! It’s not like this is ‘My Best
Friend’s Wedding’ or something. This is
the real world,” I replied.
“It is your best friend’s wedding though,” Nick cracked, laughing
at his “oh so clever” joke.
“Nick, stop! I’m completely
miserable here, and all you can do is make jokes about it. Not like it was funny anyway.”
“Aw, lighten up, Bri. Why
don’t you just tell Grace how you feel about her? I bet she has no idea you still love
her. After all, you’ve already been
married once. And you’ve been telling
her that you’re just friends. You need
to tell her you want to be more than friends again,” Nick suggested.
It sounded like a sensible idea, but I wasn’t sure. How could I confess that I loved Grace after
she had just gone on and on about how happy she was with this guy? That would be selfish. If I truly loved her, I should want her to
be happy, right? Well, I did, but I
thought she would be happier with me.
But then again, if I didn’t tell her how I felt, she would marry
this guy and have no idea. And then she
would be stuck with him, and I would be stuck alone. I had nothing to lose just by telling her
how I felt, did I? If she felt the same
way I did, she would tell me and break off the wedding, and my problems would
be solved. On the other hand, if she
didn’t feel the same way, which I figured was more probable, since she was
engaged to another guy, it could ruin our friendship. I had already lost Grace once; I wasn’t about
to do it again.
So, for the next few months, I kept my mouth shut.
***
Three months
later
I dropped my stack of mail onto the kitchen counter and shuffled
through it. “Junk mail, bill, bill, junk
mail, fan letter, bill,” I mumbled, sorting through the envelopes. And then I came to a fancy envelope with
elegant script on the front. I sighed
unhappily, knowing exactly what it was.
As I opened it up and glanced at the card inside, my suspicions
were confirmed. It was Grace’s wedding
invitation. The wedding had been set
for February 9, 2002, just three weeks away.
I read through the invitation, a lump rising in my throat. This was really happening. I only had three weeks left before my Grace
would be a married woman, and my chances with her would be gone.
As I glanced at the RSVP card included with the invitation, I felt
sick. How could I get through her wedding? How could I sit there in a pew and watch the
woman I loved marry another man?
I called up Nick again, hoping for some advice or comfort from
him. I got advice all right.
“Just don’t go,” he told me.
“Huh?”
“Don’t go. Call her up and
make up an excuse,” Nick elaborated.
“Nick, I can’t do that.
Grace has been one of my best friends since we were babies. I have to go to her wedding, whether I’m the
one marrying her or not,” I insisted.
“Look, I know she’ll be disappointed, but she’ll understand if you
make up a good excuse. I mean, come on,
you’re a celebrity. Just tell her we
have a photo shoot or interview or something, and she’ll buy it,” Nick said.
I sighed. “I dunno,
Nick. I’d probably end up regretting it
later.”
“Well, for now, tell her you can’t go, and if you change your mind
before the wedding, call back and tell her the photo shoot or whatever got
cancelled, and then you can go.”
I rubbed my temples wearily.
All of this scheming was giving me a headache. “I’ll have to think about it, Nick. I better go now. Talk to ya later.”
“Okay. But just don’t feel
like you have to go just because she’s your friend. She’ll understand. Besides, you can always see wedding pictures
later.” He was trying to cheer me up,
but it wasn’t working. I knew that
whether I went or not, Grace was still going to get married.
***
Three weeks
later
Before I knew it, it was the night before the wedding. I couldn’t sleep that night and found myself
sitting in the living room, staring blankly at the television and nibbling on
my nails without even realizing I was doing it. I was a wreck. Tomorrow my Grace would no longer be my
Grace. She would be Doug’s
Grace.
Doug Barker. That was his
name. And tomorrow, at two in the
afternoon, Grace Myers would become Grace Barker. I cringed at that. It didn’t sound right. Barker?
It sounded like a dog’s name.
And Grace was certainly not a dog.
I thought Grace Littrell would sound lots better.
“I screwed up,” I said aloud, glancing down at my chihuahua Tyke,
who was fast asleep on my lap. “Why
didn’t I just tell her? I should have
told her.” I sighed.
“I’m a horrible friend, Tyke,” I continued, pouring my heart out
to my dog. “I’m not even going to see
her get married.” Yes, I had taken
Nick’s advice and lied to Grace about my plans for the next day. I had told her there was an important photo
shoot we were supposed to go to and that it had been scheduled before I had
found out the date of the wedding and couldn’t be rescheduled because the
photographer was too busy. All a
lie. A selfish lie, to save me some
misery.
Suddenly, my phone rang, startling me. I quickly grabbed the phone on the table
beside the couch, my heart pounding. It
was after midnight, not a time when most people called me. I was afraid something bad had happened to
someone in my family or one of the guys.
“Hello?” I answered, my voice sounding shrill.
“Brian?”
“Grace!” I cried. “What
happened?”
“What happened? Well,
nothing happened… I’m sorry, shouldn’t be calling this late. I just… never mind,” she said hesitantly.
“No, that’s okay,” I said quickly.
“I just usually don’t get called this late. I thought something bad had happened.”
“Oh no, everything’s fine,” she replied. “Well, actually, it’s not fine…”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I’m just so nervous,” she admitted. “I can’t sleep. I have butterflies already about tomorrow.”
I smiled sadly. “I know how
you feel. I’ve been there,” I replied, remembering
the butterflies before my own wedding with Leighanne. As I thought of my late wife, my eyes started
to fill with tears. I loved her still,
and I knew I always would, just as I always would love Grace.
Sadly, I realized I couldn’t have either one. I had had Leigh once, but she had been taken
away from me. I had had Grace once too,
but now she was marrying someone else.
Life was hard. So was love.
“I know,” she said softly.
“That’s why I called you. Well,
that and the fact that you’re my best friend, and I didn’t know who else to
call. If you need to get to bed though,
just say it. I know you have to get on a
plane to be at that photo shoot tomorrow and all, so I don’t want to keep you
up.”
Photo shoot? Oh that’s
right, I had lied and told her I had a photo shoot. I felt lower than ever. “Yeah, but it’s okay. I can’t really sleep either,” I replied,
feeling guilty.
“Thanks for being there for me, Bri,” Grace said. “You’re such a great friend. You’ve always been a great friend.”
Was she intentionally saying these things, just to make me feel
even worse than I already did? If she
was, it was certainly working. “Thanks,
Grace.”
“I just wish you could be there tomorrow,” she went on. “I’m gonna be so nervous. You know, if I could have, I would have asked
you to be my maid of honor.”
I chuckled. “Yeah, I sure
would look pretty in a poofy pink gown, wouldn’t I?”
“Hey! They’re not poofy and
pink. They’re black,” she said
indignantly. “I’m not having a Barbie
wedding here.”
I laughed again. “You
remember when you used to try to get me to help you dress your Barbie dolls?” I
asked, flashbacks of our childhood coming back to me.
She giggled. “Yeah,” she
said. “You were too macho to do it
though.”
“Of course I was. Do you
have any idea how much the boys would have teased me if they found out?” I
laughed.
“Yup. David Lawson would
have never let you live it down,” she replied.
We both laughed at that, remembering the bully I had fought on the
baseball diamond when I was nine, the same bully who had dumped Grace the night
of the dance four years later.
Grace and I laughed and talked into the early hours of the
morning. I had a good time talking to
her, reminiscing on our childhood memories.
But as we hung up, I felt more depressed than ever. I loved her so much. She was my best friend, and much, much
more. If only she knew that.
Suddenly, I felt desperate.
I wanted to tell Grace my true feelings.
I had to tell her.
I’m not sure if I was lovesick or just too tired to think
straight, but at that moment, I made a decision that would affect the rest of
my life. I ran to my room, threw on
some clothes, threw some more clothes and things into a suitcase and ran back
downstairs. I left some extra food and
water out for Tyke and Litty, grabbed my keys, locked all the doors, and headed
into the garage to get in my car.
Seconds later, I was pulling out of my driveway in the middle of
the night, on a mission to get back my love.
***
I didn’t sleep that entire night, or morning, rather. Instead, I drove, straight through the early
morning hours and into the noon hour.
As I crossed the Texas border, I glanced at the clock in my
car. It was just after one in the
afternoon. I was exhausted, but I
pressed down the accelerator further. I
had to make it to Houston, and I had to do it in less than an hour.
For that next hour, I sped along the interstate, my mind focused
on one thing: stopping that wedding and
getting my Grace back. At exactly 2:04,
I entered the city of Houston, Texas.
My mind raced, as did my car. It
was after two; the wedding had already started.
I grabbed the map that had
been included in the wedding invitation, which, luckily, I had not thrown
away. It was a map that gave directions
to the church once you were in Houston.
I followed it, and at 2:16,
I pulled into the parking lot of the church.
It was not crowded, but I hadn’t expected a crowd; Grace had wanted a
small, intimate wedding. That was good
because I found a parking spot right away and practically leaped out of the
car.
As I ran towards the entrance of the church, my heart felt like it
was going to pound right out of my chest.
I silently prayed that I wasn’t too late. I burst through the double doors of the
church and entered the sanctuary, just as the priest asked, “If there is anyone
who feels Douglas and Grace should not be wed, speak now, or forever hold your
peace?”
In the next few moments, I wasn’t thinking clearly at all. I know my actions did not come from my
brain. They came straight from my
heart.
“Wait!” I cried.
A hush came over the guests, as they all turned around in their
pews to look at me, their faces a mix of shock and horror.
At the alter stood Grace, looking beautiful in a simple, but
elegant white bridal dress. Next to her
stood a man, tall and handsome in his tuxedo.
They both turned around in shock.
Grace gasped aloud, her hands coming to her mouth.
“Brian!” she cried, her voice shrill and trembling.
Now, like I said, I was thinking with my heart here, not my
brain. I know that if I had been using
my head, this wouldn’t have happened.
But I wasn’t, and it did.
“Grace!” I called, treading up the aisle, ignoring the astounded faces
of the guests that stared at me.
Grace came down from the alter, walking up to me, her eyes wide
with panic. “Brian, what are you doing?”
she hissed.
“Grace, I love you,” I said, taking her hands. “There, I said it. I love you, okay? I love you!” My voice rose so that the whole congregation
could hear me.
“Wha-“ she started, but I continued on.
“I’ve always loved you, and I’ve never stopped. I want us to be together again. You can’t marry this guy, Grace. You just can’t. I love you!”
“Grace!” Now this Doug guy,
who was seconds away from marrying Grace, came storming down from the
alter. “Who is this guy?”
Grace didn’t reply, never took her wide brown eyes off my
face.
“What are you doing here?!
You’re ruining my wedding!” Doug cried, shoving me. “Get outta here now!”
Grace snapped out of it then.
“Doug, stop it!” she cried, pulling her fiancée away from me. “Don’t do this.”
Doug stared at her as if she were crazy. “Grace, what the hell are you talking
about? This dude’s a psycho!”
“No, he’s not!” she yelled.
“This is Brian, and he’s my best friend!
And I love him!”
Doug looked like he’d just been slapped. “What are you saying?” he asked, staring at
her in dismay.
Grace’s eyes filled with tears.
“I don’t know,” she said, beginning to cry. “I’m so confused. I can’t do this!” Sobbing, she pushed past us both and ran down
the aisle, shoving open the sanctuary doors and disappearing, as they closed
again behind her.
Doug was frozen in place with shock. But I ran after Grace without even looking
back.
***
I found Grace sitting on a bench in the back of the church, under
a tree, her face buried in her hands. I
suddenly felt guilty; I had made her cry.
I had ruined her wedding. Of
course, that had been what I wanted, but I didn’t want to make her cry like
this.
“Grace?” I asked, gently touching her shoulder.
She looked with tear-filled eyes.
“Do you really mean it?” she asked softly.
“Mean what? That I love
you?” She nodded. “Of course I mean it. Why else would I say it to you, in the middle
of your wedding?”
“I can’t believe you did
that.”
I looked down, humiliated.
Grace probably thought I was an obsessive freak now for doing what I
did. What right did I have to try to
ruin her happiness?
I glanced up at her, ready to apologize. But when I saw her face, the words fell from
my lips. She was smiling. I looked at her in confusion.
“I think you just saved me from making the biggest mistake of my
life,” she said.
“Huh?”
“Brian, I just now realized it.
Well, I’ve probably known it all along, but it’s all so clear to me
now…”
“What is?” I interrupted.
“I love you too,” she said simply.
My eyes widened. “You’re
serious? You really do?”
“Yes, I do,” she replied, nodding. “I thought I loved Doug. I thought he was the one I wanted to be with
for the rest of my life. But then when
you came into those doors, I knew the truth.
He’s not the one. You are. I love you, Brian.”
My hands were sweating, and my heart was beating rapidly. I felt like I was floating all of a sudden,
my head in the clouds. Grace loved
me? Grace loved me!
I realized then that what I had done had not been a mistake at
all. It might have been the best thing
I had ever done. I had saved Grace from
marrying the wrong guy, and I had saved our relationship. I knew that from then on, things would be
getting a lot better.
***
Lyrics
taken from Jewel’s “You Were Meant for Me”
