Chapter
1
By Julie
A soft voice filled
the room with song. “When I saw you
the first time… I knew I had to make you mine… Everything just seemed so right…
I guess it was love at first-“
The singing was
interrupted by another voice, which exclaimed rudely, “Brian, that’s so damn
cheesy!”
Brian Littrell
abruptly shut his mouth and glared across the room at Nick Carter, who was
slouching on a large couch with AJ McLean.
All three of them, along with Kevin Richardson and Howie Dorough, were
members of the music group the Backstreet Boys.
They had been on hiatus for over a year now and were currently
attempting to write songs together for their new album, which they planned on
releasing in the summer. Summer had
seemed so far away at first, but now it was already March, and from the way
things had been going so far, it seemed impossible that they could have twelve
songs written and recorded by then. They
had only been working two days, but in those two days, there had been so many
conflicts between the five of them that they had accomplished next to nothing.
“Nick, everything we
come up with is ‘so damn cheesy’ to you,” Kevin said, frowning in Nick’s
direction.
“That’s because it’s
all sappy love crap!” Nick retorted.
“Can’t we sing about anything else?”
“Nick, our fans like
‘sappy love crap’,” Howie pointed out. “’I’ll
Never Break Your Heart’, ‘All I Have to Give’, ‘As Long As You Love Me’… any of
those titles ring a bell?” His tone was
calm and non-confrontational, but Nick exploded at him all the same.
“Yeah, and we sang
those songs, what, like five years ago?
We need something new!”
“Like what? ‘I wanna ride a Harley, oh on the highway…’?” Brian mimicked, singing a line from “I Stand
for You”, a song off Nick’s solo album, Now or Never, which had been
released the previous October.
Nick saw red. “Shut up!” he spat at Brian. “Look, I know you were pissed about my album,
but I worked my ass off writing that song, and I don’t appreciate you
dissing it! Now why don’t you pull that
fucking monkey out of your ass and let it go?!
Oh, and by the way, it’s ‘I’m gonna ride a Harley…’,
not ‘I
wanna ride a Harley…’”
Brian’s nostrils
flared with anger, and he looked as though he wanted to say something extremely
rude to Nick, but he kept his mouth clamped shut and refused to rise to the
occasion.
“Nick, sit down,”
Kevin said, his voice low and calm.
Nick turned on
Kevin. “Don’t treat me like a child,
Kevin! I’m twenty-three, for God’s sake,
I don’t need you telling me what to do!”
“You sure don’t
sound twenty-three, Nick,” Brian said quietly, looking coolly up at Nick.
“Oh, and you’re Mr.
Maturity, huh?” Nick retorted. “You’re
the one who was dissing my album behind my back! That was real mature, Brian!”
“What? I never dissed your album,” Brian
replied. “All I said was that I was
disappointed you went behind our backs and recorded a solo album. I never dissed the album itself. I think it’s good.”
“Oh yeah, and that’s
why you were making fun of my lyrics a minute ago!”
“Nick-“
“Why can’t you just
let me do my own thing and be happy for me?!” Nick interrupted, his voice
rising. “We were on hiatus when I did
the album, so why did it matter?! It’s
not like I just up and quit on you guys!
It was just a side project! You
guys do your own thing when we’re not touring or recording, and it doesn’t
bother me! So what right do you have to
get upset when I decide to do my own thing too?!”
Brian, Kevin, AJ,
and Howie were silent. In fact, the
whole room was filled with uncomfortable silence, with the exception of Nick’s
heavy, enraged breathing.
Finally, Howie
spoke. “I think we could use a break
now, guys,” he said gently. “What do you
say?”
“Yeah,” said Nick,
through clenched teeth. “I agree.”
AJ jumped up
immediately and went into the kitchen. The Boys were staying in a large house
they had rented on Brookville Lake, which was located right outside the small
town of Brookville, Indiana. After much
debate, they had decided it would be best for them to go to somewhere private
and secluded to work on songs for the album, somewhere where they would not be
bothered, somewhere where they could be together and reconnect as a group, for
they had not been together for a long period of time since the end of their
last tour. So far, this reconnecting
plan had not seemed to be working, as they had spent much of their time
arguing.
The main reason they
were not on the best terms with each other was Nick’s solo album. Most of the other four guys felt somewhat
betrayed and hurt that Nick had decided to stay with their former management,
The Firm, and put out a solo album.
Nick, understandably, was just as hurt by their reactions. When the album came out, his four bandmates
had shown some support, but it just wasn’t what Nick had hoped for. He wanted them to be truly happy for him, and
he could tell that they were not. They
thought he was being selfish. He thought
they were being controlling. When he was
on his own, he could do whatever he wanted.
He could sing the kind of songs he wanted to sing, write the kind of
lyrics he wanted to write, and didn’t have to go along with what everyone else
wanted to do. He liked being a solo
act. On the other hand, he liked being a
Backstreet Boy too and had always been sure he would go back to being in the
group with no problem. But there were
problems, problems Nick had not expected.
And right now, being a Backstreet Boy wasn’t very enjoyable at all.
“There’s no good
food around this place!” AJ called from the kitchen. The others slowly dragged themselves off the
couches in the living room and went into the kitchen as well. AJ had his head in the refrigerator. He pulled it out when they came in and said,
“Somebody should go get some food.”
“There’s an IGA in
Brookville,” said Kevin. “Who wants to
go?”
“I’ll go,” Nick
immediately volunteered, jumping at the chance to escape the tension in the
house. “Anybody want to come with me?”
He was hoping AJ or
Howie would want to, since they had been the two who hadn’t argued with him
earlier. But AJ slumped down in a
kitchen chair, and Howie just shrugged in a non-committable way.
“Okay, fine,” Nick
said, rolling his eyes. “I’ll go
myself.”
“I’ll go with you.”
Nick glanced at
Brian, who had spoken. He considered
saying he would rather not go with a person who dissed his music, but decided
to be mature instead and just nodded.
“Okay.”
“Great,” said
AJ. “Get some Slim Jims, would you?”
“Get chips and salsa
too,” Howie chimed in.
Brian chuckled. “Kevin?” he asked, looking at his
cousin. “Any requests?”
“Be-“ Kevin started to say “beer”, then glanced at
AJ, and said, “Soda. Get some soda.”
“Mountain Dew. Or something equally caffeinated,” AJ added.
“Sounds good,” Nick
said, thinking maybe they would all have more fun after tipping back a few
Dews. “Let’s go.”
“Hey, you might
wanna wear a coat, Nicky,” said Howie, as Nick grabbed his set of car keys and
started out the back door into the garage.
“It’s supposed to snow tonight.”
Nick groaned. A native Floridian, he was not used to snow
and despised cold weather. But he
obediently retrieved his coat from the front hall closet, forgetting to tell
Howie not to call him Nicky and not to tell him what to do.
Brian got his coat
as well, and the two went out into the cold garage. They climbed into their black, rented SUV,
backed out of the long driveway, and were on their way.
***
The first flakes of
snow began to fall as Ella Brisson climbed into her car. Shivering, she quickly turned on the ignition
and cranked the heat. She waited for a
moment until the car began to warm up, then backed out of her parking space,
hoping the snow wouldn’t get heavy until she was safely home.
She turned on the
radio and was greeted with a weather report.
“Yes, it’s snowing
in Wayne County, folks, and we’re expected to get at least a foot
overnight. If you have to drive
somewhere tonight, be careful – those roads will be slick. Now here’s a classic from the Fab Four…”
The Beatles’ “I
Wanna Hold Your Hand” began to play, and Ella sang along softly as she pulled
out of the parking lot of Saint Michael Medical Center, the largest hospital in
Richmond, Indiana. She had been working
there since September, since the start of her third year of medical school, and
she loved it. She had wanted to become a
doctor ever since she was a child, and now she was living out a dream. The life of a med student was stressful – she
worked long, hard hours and always had to be on her toes. But it was worth it, and most of the time,
she didn’t mind. Especially now. Working so much helped to take her mind off
her personal problems.
Ella had broken up
with her boyfriend of a year just over a week earlier. Actually, “broken up with” wasn’t really the
correct term. “Gotten dumped by” was
more fitting. Frowning, she replayed the
conversation for the umpteenth time in her head.
“El, I think we
should see other people.”
“See other
people? But… but why? I love you!”
“I-I love you
too. At least I think I do. But… but the thing is, I’m not exactly sure,
you know, and I just… want to make sure before we take our relationship any further.”
“So, what, you want
to date other women and see if you find one you love more than you love me?”
“Well… I don’t know…
I didn’t really want to put it that way, but I guess that’s basically it. Ella, I just… I just want to… explore my
other options, I guess. Just to see
what’s out there, you know. And I think
you should do the same. And if it turns
out neither one of us finds someone that makes us happier than each other did…
then we’ll know we really do love each other.”
Once he had explained
it, Ella had calmed down. She had been
disappointed, but she thought she understood.
She thought he meant what it was saying, and that after awhile, he would
come back to her, and they could be together again. But the problem was, he didn’t mean a word of
it. He had only been trying to let her
down easy, to get out of the relationship without breaking her heart. She had seen him kissing another woman in a
restaurant just the next day and realized automatically that this was not their
first date. He had obviously been seeing
her for awhile, behind Ella’s back. He
had been cheating on her.
She was very angry
for a few days after that. And then, the
anger faded, and she was left devastated and heartbroken. Deep down, she had always thought he was the
one, the one she would someday marry.
She hadn’t had many steady relationships in her lifetime. She had never been very comfortable talking
to guys – guys she liked, at least.
Ella was never
considered one of the “beautiful people”.
A former size thirteen, she had been self-conscious of her weight ever
since her freshman year of high school.
She knew she wasn’t fat, but she wasn’t skinny either, and in
high school, it seemed the popular, good-looking guys only wanted the thin
girls, the beautiful girls, the athletic girls.
She had been none of those things.
She was plain-looking – not ugly, not pretty, just plain. Her dark brown hair was long and straight and
uninteresting, and her eyes were your basic brown as well. Her skin was on the pale side and splotched
with the usual case of teenage acne, not tan and flawless like the “beautiful
people”.
Now, at twenty-four,
she had brought down her pants size to a nine – still not thin, but better than
before – she wore her hair in a layered, more flattering style, and her acne
had vanished, but she still did not feel pretty. Having a steady boyfriend for a year
definitely helped – he made her feel good about herself, made her feel worth
loving. But now that she knew he didn’t
love her anymore – maybe never loved her at all – she had regressed back into
her self-consciousness. It didn’t help
that she had gotten on the scale as she was getting ready for work that morning
and discovered she had gained three pounds that week. Emotional eating was definitely not a good
thing.
Thinking of eating
made Ella’s stomach growl, and she realized she had not eaten a thing since
breakfast that morning. It had been
hectic at the hospital that day, and she had not found time for lunch or
dinner. Most of the hospital staff just
grabbed food from the vending machines on their breaks, but Ella had tried her
best to avoid those, especially after finding out she was already three pounds
heavier than she had been before the break-up.
Now it was going on nine at night, and she was starving.
There’s nothing good
to eat at home either, she thought with a groan, mentally
going through the refrigerator in the kitchen of her apartment. She decided to stop and get a few groceries
once she reached Brookville, the small town outside Richmond where she had
lived since her first year of med school.
As she turned onto
the two-lane road leading to Brookville, the snowflakes continued to fall.
***