Point of View: Narrator
The door burst open, startling Nick out of a dream. He'd been tossing and turning all night, unable to fall asleep, staring out at the window, and just as he'd finally managed to fall into a bit of sleep, it was morning and his opportunity to rest had come to an end.
He sat up in bed, panting from the surprise of the door banging open like that, and stared over at the warden, who stood in the jamb, holding the key. Behind him stood two large, blue-uniformed officers and a nervous looking guy in a brown tweed suit that looked sorta familiar to Nick, though he didn't know why.
"Good morning, Nick," said the warden. "Ready to go?"
Nick rubbed the sleep from his eyes, "Yeah. Sure."
He rolled off the bed on the opposite side of the guys and grabbed the shopping bag that contained the suit that Zoe had dropped off. In it, he'd packed the pictures he'd drawn of his friends, which he'd ruefully collected from the various places around the room he'd put them in.
"You'll have time to change when we arrive at the courthouse," promised the guy in the tweed. He held out his hand. "Dirk Bentley," he said, "I'm the lawyer Kevin hired."
"What happened to Lowell?" Nick asked, confused.
"Uh.. Some stuff came up," Dirk replied.
Nick blinked back his surprise. He didn't really have much time to process the change of lawyer anyways. The warden pulled a pair of handcuffs out of his belt and apologized as he connected one end to each of Nick's wrists. Nick was still reacting to the cold touch of the metal as the two uniformed guards started guiding him down the hall, each with a hand on his arm firmly. Dirk walked directly behind him, talking a mile a minute... but Nick understood none of it. Everything was a crazy blur.
As they passed the common room down the hall, Tattoo was sitting in a chair and looked up. He saw the uniformed guards guiding Nick down the hall. "See ya when you get back, killer," called Tattoo, "I'll have a nice welcome home present waiting for ya..."
Nick ignored him. Dirk glanced over his shoulder at Tattoo as they continued along, though, making a mental note that - should they lose the case - he'd at the very least ask for a transfer.
It was still dark outside when they loaded Nick into the cruiser that would carry him to the courthouse. Dirk sat beside him in the back as the two officers climbed into the front and radioed ahead. Nick noticed it was 6:30 in the morning.
"We've done a lot of work really fast," Dirk was saying, "So we need to cover this. I need your half of the story, Nick. What happened that night with Krystal?"
"Apparently both our lives ended," he answered.
"We're gonna change that, Nick," Dirk said. "Let's hear it. Tell me exactly what you're gonna tell the judge when she asks you what happened."
Nick took a deep breath. "Okay."
"Should I wear the blue top or the red one?" Leslie asked, holding up two different shirts.
AJ groaned. "I really don't give a fuck," he muttered. He was in a horrible mood. He moved into the kitchen, leaving Leslie standing on the stairs, and poured himself some more coffee. Human. I need to be human, he thought as he gulped the mugful of caffeine down.
Five minutes passed, and Leslie came into the room wearing a green top.
"What happened to red and blue?" AJ asked.
She shrugged, "They were ugly." She grabbed orange juice from his fridge and lowered herself into a chair at the kitchen table. She flung her legs up on the table. Her skirt rode up just a little bit.
"Dude." AJ shoved her ankles off the table.
"What?" she laughed.
"Your underwear was showing," he complained.
Leslie rolled her eyes.
"Are you ready?" he asked, "I wanna get to Brian's."
Leslie screwed the cap onto the orange juice bottle and stood up. "Yeah," she answered, smoothing her skirt, "Let's go."
Howie made kissie noises into the phone. "I'll call you and let you know right after they make the decision," he promised Leigh.
"You better," came Leigh's voice over the phone. "James and I are going to be on the edge of our seats until we hear something."
"You and every fan we've ever had..." Howie muttered. He was staring at the Backstreet Boys official Twitter account, which was littered with thousands of well-wishes for Nick.
When Howie had hung up with Leigh, he grabbed the disc of the phone message that Kevin had insisted he hold onto a copy of in case something happened to Dirk's copy, and shrugged on his jacket. He started toward the door and was just about to go outside when his phone rang again. He went back to the phone and picked it up, "Hello?"
"Howie? It's Kevin."
"I was just about to leave," Howie replied.
"Just checking," Kevin replied, "You're already off schedule if you haven't left yet..."
Howie chuckled, "Kevin, what are you doing? Like timing us all now? Calm down, it's okay."
Kevin sighed. "I'm nervous, that's all."
"Okay, well calm down then, and I'll be over in just a couple momentos," Howie answered, smirking at his anal friend’s nervous voice. “Kev?”
“What?” Kevin’s voice was shaky.
“This isn’t how we rehearsed the morning of. Just saying.”
“Shut the hell up, Howard.”
Nick looked out the window as the courthouse loomed into view. He pressed his forehead against the glass as a fine mist of rain started falling. He stared out at the city – at the trees, grass, people… He felt like he had to commit each and every one of them to memory. He might not see them again for a very long time.
