AJ
He had panicked.
Not when he had first
walked into the room. Brian was a good actor, but AJ had known immediately that
he wasn’t sleeping. He had wanted to tell Brian the great news. He wanted
to tell everyone the great news. It had been the happiest day of his life, by
far. Everyone had to know that she looked exactly like him. In fact, he had told everyone he came across on his way
to the ICU that she looked exactly like him. AJ McLean was being the proud
father of a healthy baby girl for exactly three hours. He had never seen a more
beautiful creature in the world than the one he had seen lying in the arms of
his wife just a little while ago. It was his. His treasure, his new family. It was
when he came into Brian’s room that he realised he
was about to make a big mistake. You
freaking idiot! He couldn’t tell Brian he’d just had a baby girl! He
couldn’t tell Brian he had just started his new family when Brian had lost his
entirely.
He was still thinking
about what the hell he was doing in Brian’s room when he saw his friend open
his eyes. A painful expression appeared on his face and his eyes immediately
rolled back. AJ hadn’t panicked then, okay, so maybe a little, but he was AJ so
he wouldn’t admit that. He could see Brian was in a great deal of pain by the
way he was gasping, shaking and writhing in the bed. AJ had called for help and
tried to keep Brian down. It hadn’t been easy. He had tried to scream in
Brian’s face to calm down, but he guessed screaming in someone’s face didn’t do
the job correctly.
“Why do you yell, you can whisper as well, walk
away
These teardrops of rain, they’re masking your
shame, you walk away.”
Brian had slipped away
into a deep sleep when the nurse injected him with a strong sedative. She had
said it was relatively normal for him to freak out because of the pain. Maybe, but it was scary as hell. He
had stayed in Brian’s room for a while, watching him sleep as he had done for
four long, long days. There hadn’t been any hope then. Only Nick’s. Nick had
been naïve, or so AJ had thought. Naïve to keep believing in something that
wasn’t going to happen. AJ had given up on Brian. Accepting Brian’s death would
be easier than figuring out how to go on like this. He had known the man for
almost twenty years, thought he would know exactly how Brian would react on the
tragedy. God, this wasn’t fair. Leaving Brian suffering like this. AJ was sure
he would go absolutely mad and spent the rest of his life in and out of rehab
if something like this would happen to him. Kevin had warned them that if Brian
did wake up, that he was to be kept an eye on all the time. AJ doubted it would
work. Of course they couldn’t leave Brian alone, he couldn’t even get dressed
on his own in this state. Couldn’t do much of anything. But AJ wasn’t sure if
he would be able to look Brian in the eye without feeling guilty for what he
had gained and what Brian had lost. Everytime he
looked at Brian he wondered what Brian was thinking, if he was missing his
family, if he could ever be happy again. At the same time, he didn’t want to
know. AJ’s life was perfect now, he had a good job, a wife, a child, everything
that Brian had had for so many years. Everything Brian had lost not even a week
ago. How can you lose so much in
just a few seconds?
“There’s a midsummer storm, you see a midsummer
fight,
Put your head in the sand if you can’t make it
right, walk away”
There was a difference
between Brian and the rest of the group. The Kentuckian had been the only
member who hadn’t been out for fame. He had told AJ time after time that he
wished he could just sing in a band without all the tumult that came with it.
Brian hated press conferences. He hated press in general, but he had
accepted the fact that he wouldn’t be able to sing in a band without all the
press. It was like a hate-love kind of thing. The only thing Brian hadn’t
accepted was the way the media always seemed to dig their way into their
private lives. AJ never really minded it, it was part of the job, but Brian
seemed to think differently. AJ had first noticed by the way Brian acted
whenever he was asked about his surgery back in the day. He would turn around
the questions or would refuse to answer altogether. AJ hadn’t been that surprised,
Brian would barely speak about it with the group, so he made sure to keep his
mouth shut in front of the media. Brian loved to sing. He loved to get
attention while he sang. He
just didn’t like to get attention while he wasn’t singing. Somewhere deep
inside, Brian was still the shy, quiet kid that AJ had seen the first day he
came down to audition, he had never been in a big city and was scared to death
by the magnitude of everything around him. Brian hadn’t been preparing to be a
popstar. He had prepared to be something else. He had prepared for being a
husband, a father. If it hadn’t been for Kevin thinking of his cousin to be
their final addition, the kid probably still would have lived in Kentucky,
doing whatever normal persons would be doing all day (AJ wasn’t really sure
what that was) and being entirely happy with his little family in his little
world. AJ was sure he couldn’t live like that, he had always been a sucker for
attention, had always known how to turn that attention on him. It had earned
him the stereotype of bad-boy in the band. Brian got stuck with the ‘good
Christian boy next door’ character. It suited him, more or less, if you didn’t
count the numerous pranks he and Nick seemed to be able to pull on the other
members (and eachother) all the time and how they
kept annoying the crap out of everyone with their hyperactivity bouncing all
over the place, all the time. Of course, that had been happier times.
The main difference
between Brian and the group was that for Brian, being a popstar wasn’t his
number one job choice. Being a husband, a father was the one thing Brian loved
most in the world. And now it was gone, over. His world had been destroyed in
just a few seconds. AJ could only imagine what that must feel like.
He had actually been
sitting in Brian’s room, lost in thought, for such a long time that he didn’t
notice the man in the bed began to toss and turn. Must be having a bad dream. He tried to calm Brian down by
shaking him gently, but gentleness had never been his strongest point, so the
only result was Brian waking up.
“Hey Bri, didn’t mean to
wake you up.”
“I’m glad you did.” came
Brian’s vague reply.
“That bad, huh?”
“Worse.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
AJ wasn’t sure how much
longer he could continue having this senseless conversation. It was all he
seemed to have with anyone lately. They wouldn’t talk about real important
things anymore, because the real important thing were things that weren’t easy
to talk about. They hadn’t talked about music in what seemed like forever. AJ
wondered for the millionth time that week what would become of the group. It
seemed like a unimportant thing to think about, but all AJ had ever known was
music. All he had ever known were the Backstreet Boys. It couldn’t be just over like this, right? It was
important to AJ. He was sure Brian couldn’t care less about the group, or
music, for that matter, right now. Somewhere a part, a very selfish part in AJ
hoped that Brian wouldn’t give up on the group. They had proven they were able
to go on without Kevin, but AJ knew they couldn’t go on without B-Rok. He had
too much of a major role in the band.
“He wanted me to sing to
him.”
Huh? AJ
wasn’t sure he heard him right.
“Baylee.”
He looked at Brian, who
seemed half-asleep already again.
“What do you mean, Brian?”
Brian looked at him as if
he hailed from another world.
“He wanted me to sing for
him in the car…”
“In your dream?”
“No. I don’t know. Maybe.
I’m not sure anymore. God, there was a tree in
my car!”
AJ hadn’t panicked then
either. The weird thing was that Brian seemed elated, ecstatic almost.
“AH! I thought they were
dead! Can you believe that? Can you believe that, Bone? God, I had the
strangest dream ever! I dreamed my family died! Can you believe that? They
can’t be dead! They’re my family! My family doesn’t die! THEY CAN’T BE DEAD!
THERE WAS A GODDAMN TREE IN MY CAR! THAT’S RIDICULOUS, ISN’T IT?”
AJ didn’t know what to do.
Brian was screaming now, on the top of his lungs, yelling over and over again
that it had been just a dream, that none of it could be real. AJ didn’t have
the heart to tell him otherwise. Brian was in denial. It wouldn’t matter what
AJ or anybody else would tell him, he’d deny it. AJ knew, because he had seen
everyone do it that lost someone. He himself had done it too. It was just part
of the natural grieving process, he supposed. Brian would get over it, he was
sure of it.
“Brian, I’m a father…”
“Congratulations man!”
Brian had slapped him happily on his shoulder and that was it, nothing else.
No, AJ hadn’t really
panicked that day. How could he have? Nothing could have destroyed his mood
anyways. He was a father! And he was determined to make a great father. He
wouldn’t panic, that wasn’t him, not on a day like today.
The day that AJ did panic
was weeks away.
***
