Nick
He had been jealous.
It seemed irrelevant now, stupid, shameful even. It
hadn’t been her fault. She loved the guy just as much as he did, he supposed.
Maybe not in the same way, not in the way two guys could love each other. In a brotherly way he may add. No. Those two
had been in love, and he hadn’t liked
it one bit. Suddenly his best friend would rather go shopping with his girlfriend then play basketball with his
buddy. He had thought that it wasn’t fair. He had felt a unexplainable feeling
of possession. He had known him longer!
They had been Frick and Frack way before she had come bashing through! But she did come and Frick was gone. The
carefree, fun-loving Southerner with the
thick accent had been replaced by a soft, absentminded fool, who was constantly
trotting on cloud number nine and seemed to continuously stare straight ahead
with a goofy smile on his face. Finally that one had cooled down somewhat and
was traded for the responsible caring husband and father, who no longer looked
at his job as an ambition, as a lifestyle, but just as a job.
Surely it couldn’t have been her fault. She probably
hadn’t meant to steal his Frick away and keep him all to herself. But it had
felt that way for him. He knew the very moment that Brian Littrell had declared
his love for LeighanneWallace that Frick and Frack were slowly dying and they
would be dead long before their bodies had been identified as such. It couldn’t
have been her fault, but who else was there to blame? He wouldn’t put it on
Brian. Brian was, in his eyes, the bone that they had been fighting over, like
dogs. She must have suspected it. He had never been really friendly towards
her. But she had been. Obnoxiously so. She probably didn’t want Brian to
suspect they didn’t like each other. So they pretended to care, to like, to
pretend.
In the end there was always his irrational jealousy
that stood in the way. Nick Carter knew that now. He felt the shame and the
guilt as he sat here numb in this chair. He knew whatever happened wasn’t his
fault. But still he couldn’t help but feel responsible for all those times he
had silently wished for some storm to rage in the Littrell family.
“Nick, how are you holding up, man?”
He looked up, startled, and stared into Howie Doroughs
pale face. He guessed they all must be looking that way. The people in the room
were few. Thank God the news hadn’t spread like he had initially thought it
would. Not yet anyway. There was just him, Kevin, AJ, Howie, their manager Jen
and of course Brian’s family. They all had the same look on their face. One of
disbelief and shock, but above all one of sorrow and sadness.
Nick looked back at Howie and shrugged, not able to
reply in another way. He didn’t trust his voice enough to say something. He
desperately fought for control he knew he didn’t have. He had tried to stay
strong, to keep calm. But he had never been the strong, calm type. That role
had always been Kevin’s. But even the great Kevin Richardson looked as though
he wouldn’t be able to get a word past his lips. That’s why Nick kept staring
at Howie, unbelieving. How could he be so calm and sober about this? Certainly
nobody else in this room was. AJ McLean was in one corner smoking his 34th
cigarette frantically. Kevin sat across the room just staring into the
distance. Then there was of course Brian’s family. Jackie, Harold and Harry
Littrell all held the same shocked expression like Kevin as they sat numbly in
their chairs. Must be something in the
family, Nick thought irrationally. Jen was, surprisingly, the only one that
was crying. Nobody else was sobbing like she was. Nick suspected they were all
in shock. Except for Jen and Howie. Howie seemed to have snapped out of it in
an earlier stage and he did his best to try and comfort everyone, while the
rest just stared ahead (or cursed every little thing in the entire universe and
smoke cigarettes like they were the only thing that could help him survive,
like AJ).
Nick couldn’t blame them. They hadn’t been prepared
for something like this to happen. He could remember the phone call from hell
from Howie and wished for the hundredth time that he hadn’t answered it. What
he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. He would have just continued his day, doing
his thing, without having to sit in this cramped up room, hoping against hope
that things were going to be alright, that it was just some stupid nightmare.
He would wake up in the morning and tell Brian about it and they would have a
great laugh out of it and that was it. But that wasn’t going to happen. And it
was made perfectly clear when he did
answer the phone.
“Hello?”
“Nick? That you?”
“Howie! Wassup
man? How are you doing?”
He had been happy
to hear from his friend. They had taken a break from touring. One week,
everybody for himself. Everybody always loved that except for Nick. He never
had somewhere to go. He had never been a family man (even less since his sister
had died) and his girlfriend was off in Japan doing her own business. So even
after two days he was lonely. He felt a bolt of relief when he found out who
was calling him, knowing that he wasn’t forgotten after all. But nothing could
have prepared him for the message Howie was about to give him.
“Nick, I need to
tell you something.”
“You sound so
serious, dawg.’’ He had giggled, still not catching on to Howie’s quivering,
serious tone.
“Nick, listen to
me, this is serious. It’s important that you sit down, okay?”
That had been the
moment that the seriousness of the situation had dawned upon him. He had no
idea whatsoever about what Howie was going to tell him, he also knew that Howie
was the biggest drama queen alive, well that was after AJ of course, but there
was something in the sound of Howie’s voice that Nick had only heard once, the
day that Caroline Dorough had died.
“I already am
sitting down.”
“Okay.”
He could hear
voices in the background. Crying? He couldn’t be sure. He could hear the phone
being put down and he guessed he could hear Howie comfort somebody.
“Howie?”
“Yes?”
“What is so
important that I need to sit down?”
“Ah, yes.” Howie
seemed to remember that he had been talking on the phone, which was a weird
thing by itself because Howie was always on the phone. “Nick, there’s been an
accident.”
And then he knew.
That moment he knew that this was one of those phone calls he wished he would
never have to go through in his life again. The first time had been the call
about Leslie’s death. Only that had not been an accident.
Suddenly he was
glad he was sitting down. He could feel his stomach cramping together and felt
the bile rise in his throat. He didn’t even know anything about the accident or
who were involved, but he did know that it wasn’t going to be okay.
“What happened?”
“Nick, it’s
Brian. His car got smashed by a truck when he, Leighanne and Baylee were going
out for lunch. Me and Kevin are at the hospital right now.”
Truck? A truck
was bad news. You didn’t just get hit by a truck and walked away without a
scratch. Still he couldn’t help but asking.
“Are they okay?”
“They won’t tell
us much. They brought him down for surgery just when we arrived. They only said
that he was in bad shape and that it was a wonder that he was still breathing.”
Ah, so he was still alive, Nick thought. But he seemed to be missing something.
“Wait! What about
Leighanne and Baylee?”
He could hear a
long sigh and more crying over the phone. When Howie stayed silent for several
more seconds, Nick could fill in the gap himself. But he still had to hear it,
or it wasn’t real.
“Howie?”
“They both died
on the scene, Nick, supposedly immediately after the crash. Brian is the only
survivor…”
There was only one thought that plagued his mind ten
hours later: how could he have been so jealous?
***
