Nick woke up the next day to a pounding headache. He prayed all last night was nothing but a horrible nightmare. It didn’t really happen…did it? He looked to his side of the bed and saw that it was empty; he looked around the room and saw it was torn apart. It was real…it really happened. Kimberly left him. He dropped his head back into the pillow and could feel his eyes burning. How could she have left him? He felt something wrinkled in his hand and when he opened his palm he saw a picture of her and that was when he felt more tears freshly flow down his cheeks. It was a picture from Disney Land. How the fuck could she do this?!? She loved him! He knew she did. How could she allow a fucking band to break them up? It just didn’t make sense. Did she think getting back with those bastards were going to make everything okay? It wasn’t…not by a long shot. How couldn’t she see that? Look what they caused…they made the only woman that he truly cared for leave him. He let out a loud sigh, maybe she just needed time to cool off. What AJ said must have clouded her judgment. She let it get in her head that she was the reason why he left the band. He could feel himself getting angry as he remembered what Angel told him.
He said that she was the reason why the Backstreet Boys broke up and it killed her Nick…I found her balling her eyes out in the bathroom. I really think it’s eating her up inside.
Why didn’t Kimberly ever come to him? Why didn’t she tell him how she truly felt? Why did she just let it slide when AJ was being so brutal to her outside of the pub? Nick just didn’t understand it, because it defiantly was NOT okay what he was doing to her. He looked over at the marble nightstand and saw that his phone was flashing. His heart went into his throat; he quickly grabbed it and saw that he had a text message and a voice mail. He swallowed hard, almost afraid to see what the text or the voice mail said. He clicked on his inbox and saw that he had a text from AJ saying:
And I don’t expect you to forgive me
But I’m sorry for being such a dick
Nick looked at the text message for a long period of time. AJ actually apologized? Did he even know the meaning of that concept? Kevin must have put him up to it. He then took a deep breath and braced himself for the voice mail. He hit the play button and listened. It wasn’t Kimberly…instead it was Angel. He groaned as he listened to his frantic sister go on and on about how terribly sorry she was. Her voice was broken and he could tell she was doing the best she could to hold back her tears. Yeah, he knew what he said to her was a bit harsh. But the fucking double date was a set up! How could she do that out of all people?!? It still irked him, but he knew he couldn’t stay mad at her. He’d possibly give her a call later…maybe. Right now she was the last person he wanted to see. He erased the message and glanced over to the marble table and that was when he saw a piece of paper that was folded. He was so hysterical when Kimberly broke up with him he drank himself to sleep. He opened it up and saw it was a letter.
Nick, I know how lame it is of me to be writing you this instead of telling you in person. But by the time you read this, I’ll be gone and I needed you to know that I love you so much and you must know that I’d never do anything to ever hurt you. I know you must hate me and you don’t understand why I did what I did. I’m no good for you, I don’t know how you don’t see that. With the boys is where you belong. I don’t fit in your lifestyle. You need a girl that won’t make you look bad, that won’t get your friends talking “Why the hell is he with her?” I know to you it sounds stupid, but it’s not. I was hurting you by staying with you. I was ruining your life. I mean I was the main reason why you left the Backstreet Boys in the first place and don’t tell me I’m not, because we know I am. I want you to go on with your life, I want you to be happy. You were with those boys for so long and they are your family. The only thing I want from you is to work things out with them. You love them and they love you and they don’t want to lose their baby brother. I learned if you love something you need to let them go and I’m letting you go, Nick. I’m always going to treasure the time we had together, you made me the happiest girl alive and I know you’re going to make others happy. Others that deserve your love. I know you’re going to have a wonderful and fulfilling life…a better one now that I’m out of it. You’ll see. I promise.
Kim….your Baby Angel
Nick could feel his eyes stinging and he squeezed them shut tightly, but the tears were too much and they leaked from his closed lids. He tightly squeezed the paper in his hand. No, how could she think he’d be able to have a wonderful fulfilling life is she wasn’t in it? She made his life happy…she made him happy. He had a reason to smile. This was bullshit…fucking bullshit! He grabbed his phone and scrolled until it reached her name and he hit the call button. It rang a few good times until the voice mail picked up. He left her a long message…an angry message. He let her know exactly how he felt, he let her know that everything she wrote in the letter was nothing but horseshit. If he made her so fucking happy why did she have to leave? For the band? That’s bullshit! No band is worth breaking up over. There was more to it, there had to have been. It was another guy wasn’t it? She met someone else, she must have. But what could this creep give her that he couldn’t? He’d give her the world. The only thing he ever wanted was for her to be happy and for the most part she was happy. He always caught her smiling…and he could see it in her eyes when she ripped out his heart and ate it that she was miserable. He wasn’t going to let her go…he was going to fight for her. He was going to prove to her that he didn’t give a fuck about the Backstreet Boys. She was the only thing that he cared for and he was going to make her see it either she liked it or not. An hour later he called her phone again and got another voice mail and so he left her another message, but this time he sounded more pleading. He called her again and again. After it seemed like he called her over a dozen times it was hitting eight at night. It seemed hopeless. She was ignoring him. This was so childish! Why didn’t she just pick up the damn phone?!? Why didn’t she just tell him off if she didn’t want anything to do with him anymore? What was she so afraid of? When it was hitting nearly ten he called her one last night.
“Nick, you need to stop this,” said the female voice.
Hope filled inside him, but soon ended quickly as he recognized the voice and he sighed, “Ashley, please,” he begged. “Just let me talk to her.”
“She doesn’t want to talk to you,” she said in a hard voice.
“What the fuck did I do?”
Ashley could hear the pain in his voice and she let out a sigh, “Nick, I’ve tried to talk to her, I have but her mind is set. I like you, you know I do…but she’s made her choice. You gotta face it…its over.”
“I love her,” he wept in his broken voice.
“I know you do,” she said in a much kinder tone. “But leaving mean voice mails and calling constantly is not going to make her want you back. Just cool it and I’ll do what I can, okay?”
“What am I supposed to do? Just let her go? I can’t lose her.”
Ashley let out a loud sigh, “Listen Nick, I don’t know what to tell you…just that if you love something you gotta let it go.”
“That’s fucking bullshit!” He yelled, “If you let something go, it means you give up and I’m not giving up on her.”
“Goodbye, Nick.” And moments later, she hung up the phone.
Nick was so angry he flung his phone and tossed it across the room and ran his fingers through his hair. She really didn’t want him back and she was all the way in California…there was no way of working this out, not if she kept on ignoring him. And by the looks of it, Ashley wasn't going to to help. How the hell could she say he should just let her go? Maybe Kimberly told her to tell him that. It killed him to know that there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to make her change his mind. Nick needed to make this stop, he had to make this feeling go away or it was going to kill him. He walked down the stairs and opened his refrigerator and pulled out a beer. As he was chugging that down he heard a knock at his front door. What the fuck entered his mind. He walked over to it and opened the door only to see AJ standing there. Oh how he’d love nothing more than to just to rip his insides out from what he had done. He was pleased when he saw that his lip was pretty swollen from the swing he caused the night before and his nose wasn’t looking too great either.
“What do you want?” He hissed, “Don’t you think you’ve done enough?”
“Did you get my text?” He casually asked.
“Yeah, what of it?”
AJ let out a defeating sigh, “I’m really sorry, man. I-I don’t know what got into me…I don’t know why I did what I did or said what I said. I’d give anything to take it back…I guess…I thought that she was just another one of those girls. You know? The ones where we have to look out for? I mean remember your last ex? I warned you about her and you didn’t believe me and you didn’t believe me about this one either so I did what I thought I had to do.”
Nick glared at him with icy eyes, “I’m a big boy. I think I know how to fucking take care of myself. Now because of your stupid stunt she left me…so I hope you’re happy!”
“Not really,” he mumbled. He then looked up into Nick’s tinted eyes, “I hate how much this is killing you. I shouldn’t have given you the shit I did…I guess really what I was afraid of was losing you. You were my best friend.”
Nick looked at him annoyed, “You fucking told Kim she was the reason the Backstreet Boys broke up because you were afraid of losing me?!?” Anger flowed through his voice, “Are you fucking kidding me?!?” He aggressively ran his hands through his hair, “How the hell would you lose me? None of you were going to lose me, but it’s when you started pulling this kind of shit that made me think about leaving.”
“I’m really sorry, man,” he grumbled. He sighed, “I’ll apologize to Kim, I’ll fix everything.”
Nick shook his head, “It’s too late…we’re over. It’s done.” Pain overflowed in his words and it felt as though a dark literally was puncturing his heart. He looked at AJ with his moist eyes and shook his head, “I need to get out of here.”
AJ looked at him dumbfounded, “What?”
Nick quickly chugged down the rest of his beer before saying, “Let’s go out somewhere. Beer just isn’t doing it for me. Are you in or am I going alone?”
He looked at Nick surprised, but nodded and said, “Yeah…yeah, I’m in.” Although he suddenly felt unsure…was this really a good idea?
“Good, let’s go.” He didn’t wait for AJ to follow and he grabbed his car keys and left the house. AJ sighed, not liking the way he felt, but he followed Nick anyway.
“What did he want?” Sniffled Kimberly, as she was curled up on the couch with her knees to her chin and her arms wrapped around her legs.
Ashley sat down next to her and softly sighed, “He’s really torn about this, Kim. Are you sure you want to do this? I mean, this is killing him. Hell, look at you, you’re miserable. You love him and he’s in love with you. Why don’t you talk to him?”
She shook her head, “I can’t,” she whispered. “He’ll get over me. I’m doing this for his own good.”
“How?” She demanded, “The guy is a fucking wreck. He was begging me to talk to you. It was killing me to say no. So how is this helping him?”
Kimberly looked at her with her torn green eyes, “You should have seen the despair in his eyes, Ash. When the guys were fighting…you could see how much he missed them and the fact that they didn’t approve of me…” she shook her head. “I’m the reason he was feeling like that. If they approved of him dating me, then he’d be fine and dandy, but if I never came into the picture at all, they’d still be together. Sure they had problems, but I think I was the fuel that caused the explosion. Trust me, I know what I’m doing.”
Ashley shook her head, “I don’t think you do. He’s made it clear that you’re not the reason. I mean last time you guys were apart for not even two weeks and it nearly killed you! How do you expect to get over this? The worst part of it is, you’re the one that’s causing the damage. I don’t think you’re thinking clearly…and I’m worried about you.”
“Sometimes you need to hurt someone when you love them. I've never thought about anything more clear...I love him, Ash and I guess love makes people do crazy things. And don’t be. I’ll be fine,” she reassured. Although deep down she wasn’t too sure. She felt like someone was taking her heart and squeezing it tightly in their grasp. Would this pain never end? She prayed Nick didn’t feel like this…but if he did, she knew he’d get over her quickly. He’d be fine and once he was fine, maybe she’d be able to cope with this…she knew it wasn’t likely, but she could try. She knew she’d never love another man like how she loved him. But his happiness had to become hers; she was so in love with him she was willing to do anything for him. Even self-sacrifice.
Nick and AJ walked into some club down in Tampa. Nick went straight to the bar, he ordered a few shots. He looked terrible and AJ could feel the guilt eating at him alive. He watched as girls swarmed him like moths to a light. He even bought a few girls some shots as well. AJ caved in and had a few himself and soon enough, girls were crowding him as well.
“So man, I wanna ask you something?” Said AJ as he stood by the urinal, as the liquor he had devoured left his body.
“Whas that?” Slurred Nick, as he did the same.
“What’s with Backstreet? Are you done or what?”
Nick zipped up his pants and walked over to the sink to wash his hands and he shrugged, “I dons know…” it seemed no matter how much alcohol he consumed the ache in his heart was still there. Would this pain never decrease? He thought about Kimberly, the whole purpose of her leaving him….for the fucking band! He looked at AJ whom was standing beside him and he shrugged, “I guess I might as well,” he murmured. He would do it for her…only her. He loved her and he’d grant her that one request.
AJ half smiled, “It’s great to have ya back, buddy!”
“It’s great to be back,” he said with everything, but enthusiasm. “Come on, let’s go…there’s this one chick I had my eye on.” He then stumbled out of the bathroom. AJ walked with him and that was when he saw some girl wrapping her arms around Nick. He drunkenly kissed her as his hands moved down her body. Things were back to how they used to be. He had Nick as his whore magnet and drinking buddy again and the band was back together. The only expense? Nick’s happiness...
