Part 26:

Nick

The day Nick was released from the hospital, A.J. had been the one to come and pick him up. Nick knew that a large crowd of reporters and fans had gathered out front to wish him well in his recovery, but he really didn’t care. In three short weeks, his once-insatiable appetite for attention seemed to have faded, overtaken by a strong desire for peace and anonymity.

A.J. pulled his car around the back of the hospital, which had been roped off by security to keep the celebrity stalkers and annoying paparazzi out. Two nurses helped Nick into the passenger seat, assisted by A.J., who fussed over Nick like an old lady, wanting to make sure the seat was comfortable and that the air conditioning wasn’t too high.

“Jesus, A.J., knock it off,” Nick whined, swatting A.J.’s hand away from the air conditioning vent.

“I just want to make sure you’re okay.” Nick knew that while A.J. made it sound like he was talking about the air conditioning, the words had far deeper meaning. “Are you okay, Nick?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged, as A.J. signaled for him to hand over one of the cigarettes from the crumpled pack on the dash.

“Well, if you don’t know if you are okay or not, what the hell do you know?”

“I know I don’t want to sing anymore,” he mumbled, checking to make sure the car door was locked, as A.J. pulled away from the curb.

“Why not?” A.J. snapped, glancing in his rearview mirror as they turned out onto the street.

“I dunno. I just don’t.”

“That’s not a good enough reason.” A.J. pulled out the cigarette lighter, pushing it onto the tip of his cigarette, as the car filled with twisting strands of smoke.

“Okay. Well, how about I don’t want to sing anymore because I don’t want to be ‘that guy’ anymore,” Nick replied in an irritated tone, as he waved the cigarette smoke out of his face.

“Nick, what the fuck are you talking about?”

“What I’m talking about, A.J., is that it’s fucked up that some people work their asses off their whole lives and don’t even have a quarter of what we have just for singing stupid songs and looking pretty,” Nick replied, coughing into his hand.

Catching the hint, A.J. rolled down the windows before continuing the conversation. “Yeah, okay, that’s fucked up, but it’s all about the choices you make.”

“You’re right, A.J., so I’m choosing not to be ‘that guy’ anymore.”

“Well, if you don’t want to be ‘that guy,’ Nick, then who the hell do you want to be? Abraham Lincoln? Michael Jordan? Me?” Laughing at his own joke, A.J. glanced over at Nick, realizing that he was serious.

“I don’t know, A.J. I guess that’s what I’ll have to figure out.”

***

The panic attacks began immediately after Nick returned to Florida.

He feared the dark, feared the light, feared being alone, and dreaded having company. All of the things that once gave him peace now filled him with anxiety.

Even the calming effect of the ocean had given away to recurring nightmares about being plunged into the depths of the dark blue water, where he struggled for his life against the howling wind and ominous waves.

He would awake screaming, drenched in sweat as he fumbled over his nightstand for the Valium that never seemed to make him feel any better. He desperately wanted someone to talk to, anybody who could tell him that what he was feeling was normal and that eventually it would all go away, but his family had slowly drifted back into their own lives, fanning the flames of the great Carter Money Making Machine.

And his friends, the ones who had watched the images of the grisly “Backstreet Murders” play out on the television over the weeks following the shootings, would call him or show up on his front step, laughing and talking to Nick about his “crazy adventures in Los Angeles” as if he’d been on an episode of Fear Factor and lost.

When he showed up at his doctor’s office, without an appointment, for a prescription for more Valium to calm his nerves, the nurse led Nick back to the corner office, shutting the door behind him.

“You look tired, Nick.” His Doctor motioned for Nick to sit down.

“I am tired. I was shot and almost died. That can make a person tired.” Nick’s eyes dragged slowly over the room, fatigue and stress weighing down his once youthful, handsome features, making him appear like an old man.

“I think you should see a therapist. Someone to talk to about what you have gone through.”

Nick shook his head, the corners of his mouth curling up in a half smile. “I’m doing just fine on my own,” he lied.

“If I give you the number of someone, will you consider giving her a call?” His doctor reached for a cross pen and began to jot down a phone number, as well as another prescription for Valium, on a pad of paper. “At least tell me that you’ll think about it,” the doctor asked, sliding the two pieces of paper across the desk to Nick.

“Okay, I’ll think about it,” Nick answered, taking the paper and tucking it in the front pocket of his shirt before walking to the door.

“I’m not writing you another prescription until you see someone, Nick,” his doctor said, sitting back in his chair as Nick opened the door, slamming it loudly behind him.

***

It took three weeks and an empty bottle of Valium before he finally dragged himself to the therapist his doctor had recommended.

The woman’s name was Charlotte, and to her credit, she seemed to know what she was talking about, as she sat beside Nick on the burgundy leather sofa, looking him in the eyes as she spoke, something not a lot of people did anymore. It was if they were afraid if they looked him in the eye, they would see the truth, and no one wanted to deal with the truth.

“So what do you think about when you think about Mo?”

Nick blinked at the sound of the man’s name, as he sunk further into the sofa. “I don’t think about him,” he lied.

“You don’t think about the man who killed your friend? The man who almost killed you?”

Nick wondered what Charlotte would say if he told her he thought of Mo every day… every hour… almost every minute of every single day. He wondered what she would say if he told her that he had cut Mo’s picture from an article in the newspaper and that he kept it folded in the billfold of his wallet. He wondered what she would say if he told her that he saw Mo all around him, heard his voice ringing in his ears…

“Nope.”

“I don’t believe you.” Her voice was flat, and he could see her staring at him out of the corner of his eye as he stared straight ahead at the picture of wildflowers hanging on her office wall. “We’ve sat here, three days a week, for almost two months, and we talk about trivial things. We talk about the weather, your favorite vacation places, and what you used to do for fun. We talk about your life before this monumental event rocked your world, and you answer my questions like I’m a reporter at a press conference for your next album release.”

Charlotte stood up and walked to her desk, dragging back the leather wingback chair, which she placed in front of Nick before sitting down to face him.

“Do you think about death, Nick?” She had asked him this same question before, and always he gave the same response.

Nick shook his head no.

But the truth was that he’d slowly cut off contact with the outside world, pulled all of the phones out of the wall sockets and refused to answer the doorbells or furious knocks at his front door from friends who were growing concerned.

He was fucked up, and he knew it, finding himself spending the better part of his days lying on his back on his pool table, thinking about death. When he closed his eyes, he could see the bullet tearing into Brian’s heart, draining him of life. He could see the bullets emptying, one by one, into Mo’s body as Kevin pulled the trigger over and over, rage etched in every line of his tired face.

And if he held very still and waited long enough, he could see himself sitting in the hospital bed with the gun to his own head, pulling the trigger.

A pop of white light.

Then fade to black

And it felt so good.

“You don’t think about death? Okay, well, do you think about life?”

Nick paused and looked up at her, his blue eyes glistening with tears, before shaking his head no.

“Okay.” Charlotte placed a hand on Nick’s knee, aware that he was trembling, as tears spilled down his face. “It’s okay, Nick.”

“I need help, Charlotte.” He dragged a shaking hand across his forehead. “If I don’t get help, I can’t guarantee what I’m going to do to myself.”

“Look at me, Nick.” Charlotte’s soothing voice brought Nick’s eyes back to her own. “Let’s start over. Let’s start with the day you and Brian went out shopping on Rodeo Drive.”

***

“I want to go away. I think I’m ready to be someone new.” Nick sat in the windowsill in Charlotte’s office, watching a family strap a white flocked Christmas tree to the hood of their car.

“Where do you want to go, Nick?”

“Anywhere but here.” He wanted away from the ocean and the prying eyes of the media, who still roamed the grounds of his home like big, lumbering rats, looking for garbage to feed on. He wanted away from memories of who he used to be, and who he would never become.

“Then I think you should go.” Charlotte sat on the sofa, her legs curled beneath her, as she twisted a strand of long, dark hair around her index finger. “I think you’re ready.”

Nick turned to her, raising his eyebrows in question. Did she really think he was ready, or was it one of her therapist statements she used to try and squeeze more feelings out of him?

“I think I’m ready, too?” He said it more as a question than a statement, hoping for Charlotte to tell him if he was right or wrong. but all she did was smile.

And so he disappeared.

Disappeared from everybody but his closest friends and family members, whom he provided with his new cell phone number before vanishing.

“Where are you?” A.J. was the first person to call him.

Walking the streets of Park City, Utah, wrapped in a long wool coat with a scarf wound around his face to ward off the chilling sting of winter, Nick felt peace, as snowflakes danced around his face, each one different but, to the naked eye, the same.

“Does it really matter?” he asked, a smile in his voice, as he peered into a funky-looking bookshop with a fat, striped cat on the counter.

“Are you happy?” A.J. asked

“No, but I’m getting there,” Nick replied, opening the door to the bookshop and ducking inside to get out of the cold. “What about you, A.J.? Are you happy?”

Sitting in the window seat of his Port Townsend home, A.J. watched his bulldog Amy digging in the snowdrifts around the base of the towering pine trees and laughed.

“No, but I’m getting there too, buddy.”

***

“Hey Nick.” Howie snapped his fingers in the air, making Kevin and A.J. laugh. “Earth to Nick.”

Blinking, Nick smiled, as Howie slung out a hand to help Nick to his feet. “So I guess it’s me, then?” he said, aware that all three sets of eyes were on him. “Would you guys be pissed if I asked if I could have a minute alone with him?” Nick jammed his hands in the pockets of his shorts as he nodded in the direction of Brian’s headstone.

“Sure, buddy, we’ll wait over there. Let us know when you’re done.” Kevin slugged Nick playfully in the shoulder, as A.J. leaned in for a quick hug, followed by Howie, before the three of them walked halfway down the hill.

***

Nick walked around the bookstore, basking in the brightly-painted walls and wind chimes hanging from the ceiling. Such a contrast to the bleak winter outside.

Walking along the back wall, he ran his fingertips over the covers of the books on display, smiling as the striped cat wound its way around his ankles, purring loudly.

“Sorry about that; he usually doesn’t wander the store and bug the customers.”

“Oh, he’s okay.” Looking up, Nick paused. “Do I know you?”

The girl stooped down to retrieve the cat, pushing her long, dark hair from her shoulder with a smile as she stood. “I don’t think so?” Her smile was wide and her eyes dancing.

The girl with the long, dark hair.

“I-I-I’m sorry. You just look so familiar,” he stammered, searching her face with curious eyes, as the cat jumped down from her arms to the floor below.

“You wouldn’t believe how many people tell me that,” she said with a giggle, a giggle that reminded Nick of the sound of wind chimes, and suddenly, it was as if everybody around them disappeared, and it was just the two of them, standing toe to toe, with the striped cat winding in and out of their legs, as she took Nick’s face into her hands, narrowing her eyes as she spoke.

“You’re going to be okay,” she said, conviction strong in her voice. “I promised Brian I would take care of you… and I never break a promise.”

Standing back, she glanced over her shoulder as a customer rang the service bell at the counter. “So can I help you find anything?”

“What… what did you just say to me?” Nick’s hands trembled at his sides, her comforting words hanging in the air.

“…I never break a promise.”

“I asked if I could help you find anything?” As the bell rang out again, she turned, holding a finger up to Nick on her way to the counter. “Hold that thought; I’ll be right back.”

Smiling, Nick watched the dark-haired girl make her way to the front of the store, where she shared some friendly banter with the customer at the counter. Looking down, Nick smiled at the cat, before sighing.

“I’m going to be okay.”

***

Park City suited Nick’s moods, with its ever-changing weather and scenery. He found himself becoming social again, making frequent trips to the bookstore on Main Street to browse the shelves and spend time with his dark-haired girl.

Charlotte called him weekly for phone sessions, where he could clear his head and see if he was truly on the right track. The Valium found its way into the drawer in his bedroom, where it rarely came out anymore.

As spring enveloped the mountainside behind his home, the pine trees darkened and the greenery sprung with yellows, lavenders, and pale peaches that calmed his nerves. He even began calling Kevin again, the two sharing laughs as Kevin spun tales about impending fatherhood, which made Nick shake his head with amazement. And he was pleased when Howie called and asked him to serve as a best man at his wedding.

The trip to Maui had been his first outing in nine months. Stepping off of the plane, he spotted his three friends standing on the concourse, draped in leis and baggy-fitting, crisp linen ensembles, reminding him of their early days of singing together in matching outfits. “You look like a fucking boy band!” he shouted.

Howie was the first to step forward, wrapping his arms around Nick’s waist, as A.J. and Kevin walked up, slapping Nick on the back in unison.

“God, we look old,” A.J. said with a laugh, finding it hard to believe that so much time had passed since they had been in one another’s company.

“We are old!” Kevin laughed, fiddling with the magenta and white lei around his neck.

“Don’t remind me.” Howie rolled his eyes, slicking a hand through his wild curls.

“Being old isn’t so bad.” Nick slung an arm around Howie’s shoulder, messing up his hair, much to Howie’s chagrin. “I’d rather be old than dead.”

Stopping, Kevin slapped Nick on the back, as Howie and A.J. both smiled. “You got one hell of a point there, Nick.”

Making a fist, Kevin dropped it in front of Nick, as Nick did the same, followed by Howie and A.J., until all four of their hands were balled up, knuckles touching, an old ritual they used to do before hitting the stage in the old days.

“So, what do you guys say we go and get Howie married before the little shit changes his mind?”

***

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