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Chapter One Hundred-Eighty-One
Point of View: Nick



One thing that I hadn’t admitted – possibly even to myself – prior to the trial was the amount of guilt I had been living with hoisted onto my shoulders. It wasn’t an easy existence, knowing that the world believes you to be the one who killed your ex-girlfriend and you unborn child. I mean, think about it. I really had loved Krystal, no matter how we’d ended up. And perhaps if she’d been sober when she came to my house that night – or if I’d been sober when we spoke on the phone later that evening – we may have ended up together after all. Certainly, Krystal never would have died. And that knowledge weighed heavily upon me.

The fact of the matter was, even if I got cleared of the charges, I would still feel guilty for Krystals’s death.

Dirk was puffed up like a Thanksgiving turkey or a peacock or some other self-righteous bird as he waltzed before me towards the jury. “So, what then, if these two things are scratched away, was Nick Carter’s motive for killing Krystal Armaletto?” he pondered. He turned to me. He paused. “I mean,” he said, “If he didn’t know that Krystal was cheating on him, would he have questioned whether the baby was his at all? So why would he have been angry that she’d had a child with someone else?” Dirk palm-upped the air. He stopped right in front of the witness stand. “Nick, take us into the chase. What happened in the chase?”

“I didn’t mean for it to be a chase, first of all,” I said slowly. “I mean, it wasn’t about hurting her or whatever. I just wanted to make sure she was okay. But she was going really fast, and I had to go fast to keep up with her. I wanted to talk to her. We were yelling to each other with our car windows down.”

“Yelling to each other?” Dirk asked.

“Yeah, I kept telling her to slow down, to pull over…” I paused. “She was freakin’ hysterical.”

“Hysterical?” Dirk raised an eyebrow. “Now, Nick, what do you know about Krystal’s mental health?”

I bit my lip.

Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw her mother cover her mouth with her hands. Mrs. Armaletto looked horrofied. I took a deep breath. “I knew… some stuff… but… I promised Krystal I wouldn’t tell anyone,” I said slowly.

Dirk stared right into my eyes. “Krystal is gone, Nick. She’s dead. You can spend your life in prison, keeping her secrets.”

I stared at him. “Krystal isn’t the only one who telling could hurt, though,” I said simply.

Dirk followed my range of vision to Peggy Armaletto, then turned back to me, fire in his eyes. This wasn’t part of the plan. I wasn’t supposed to deny him the testimony of Krystal’s suicidal thoughts and tendencies. He didn’t know it all, though. Nobody except I did.

“Nick,” he hissed, “You can’t protect her forever.”

I gnawed my lower lip. “I can’t, but I can’t be selfish enough to abandon her now.” I looked at my hands. “I’m sorry, Dirk.”

“Was Krystal Armaletto suicidal, Nick?” Dirk questioned.

I took a deep breath. My eyes hovered over Peggy. Peggy closed her eyes, as though bracing herself, opened them back up and our eyes met. Then, ever so slightly, she nodded. I had her permission. “Yes,” I said.

Dirk looked at me. “How do you know this?”

I hesitated again, but Peggy’s eyes hadn’t left mine, and I had a feeling as long as that connection remained unbroken, I had her graces. “She was hospitalized several times while I was with her for cutting,” I answered solemnly.

Dirk returned to his suitcase, opened it, and pulled out another laminated newspaper article. This one was from the paper in Santa Fe. “I would like to submit this review article of a show on Krystal Armaletto’s recent world tour…” Dirk handed up the sheet. “On this article, I have included a full color, high-resolution, magnified image of the portion of the picture that I wish for us to focus on."

He came back with a copy of the article and passed it around the jury's stand. They all murmured among themselves until it had made the round, then Dirk turned to me and handed the article to me.

It looked like an ordinary concert review - with several pictures from the stage show and a five star entertainment rating... and it would've been questionable why Dirk was submitting this for evidence until my eyes fell on the blown up portion of Krystal's arm.

I sucked in my breath and closed my eyes.

Dirk's voice broke into my head. "So you knew Krystal was a cutter." It was a statement, not a question.

I nodded.

"How long had this been going on?" he asked.

I opened my eyes. Dirk was standing a few feet away, looking at me with wide, concerned eyes. The jury was staring at me, too, a couple of them covering their mouths in shock and concern. Peggy Armaletto stared on from the seats. I took a deep breath.

"I met her at a psych's office," I answered.

Dirk nodded, "I see."

"Neither of us took it seriously, and once we'd found each other, we both talked ourselves out of going to see him anymore..." I said. I stared down at my hands. "We figured we were better off without him, and agreed to kinda help each other out. My problem was my family..." I swallowed. "I- I've never had it easy with- with my family..." My fingers alternately locked and unlocked, "And she... understood." I decided to leave it at that.

They didn't need to know the details.

Dirk seemed thoughtful a moment. "Were you aware at that point that she was suicidal?" he asked.

I shook my head. "If I'd known, I would've told her not to stop going."

"When did you find out?"

Why do we gotta keep talking about this...? I sucked in my breath and hesitantly answered, softly, "About a year ago."

"What was that, Nick?"

"Last year," I said louder. I looked up at the crowd and saw Brian's forehead was puckered in concern. I knew he was trying to figure out what had happened. I hadn't told him. I hadn't told anybody. Krystal had asked me not to.

"What happened, Nick?" Dirk asked.

I shook my head. "It's irrelevant..."

"Is it?"

"Yes." My voice was firm.

Brian sat back in his seat. I knew he'd ask me later, the first chance he got, what had happened. And I'd tell him the same thing. It was irrelevant. Nobody needed to know what happened. There were some things that Krystal thought we both would take to the grave... and I wasn't going to abandon that, even if she already had taken it to her grave.

Peggy Armaletto's eyes, though full with tears, still had not left me.

"But this," Dirk thumbed at the article, "Was not the first time Krystal had cut, was it?"

"It was the first time in a long time," I said, shaking my head. "And she never told me about it..." I stared at the page. Why did you do it, Krystal? I wondered.

Dirk paused a long moment. I think he was thinking what else he wanted to ask me. He looked me over. "Nick... Did you love Krystal?" he asked.

I could feel myself shaking. When I spoke, the words came out with the weight of utter sincerity. "I always will."

Dirk looked to the judge, "No further questions, your honor," he said, and turned back to the desk.

And with that, I stepped down from the stand.