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Chapter Twenty-Two
Point of View: Brian

I hung up the phone, feeling nervous, and rubbed the little antennae thing against my palm along the ridges of my lifeline. I took a deep breath and turned to walk back into the kitchen, where Leighanne and Baylee were waiting. Baylee was already half done the eggs and bacon that Leighanne had cooked up for him. I put the phone down on its cradle next to the microwave and dropped my hands onto Baylee's shoulders as he opened the ketchup bottle and squeezed it onto the eggs in a crisscross pattern. "They want me to go in and do a therapy session thing with Nick," I said.

Leighanne looked up, her voice sounded innocent but I could see the I told you so lurking in her eyes. "Just you?"

"Yeah," I said. I sat down in my own seat and looked at the eggs sitting in front of me, reached for the salt and tried to pry the ketchup out of my son's death grip. "You've got like a whole bottle on there, little man," I said, laughing.

"I like it!" cried Baylee, pouting.

"You'll like it just as much without wasting it all," I answered.

Leighanne couldn't bear it any longer. "I told you they'd want you to go in there," she said, "I told you we should've stayed in Los Angeles."

I shrugged, "Well when AJ went in they advised that we didn't visit until they requested us all in for the therapy session. I just assumed we'd be going in as a group again. I never dreamed they'd want me to go to a therapy session with him alone. I mean, why?"

Leighanne shrugged, "Maybe he asked for you, Brian. I mean, the poor guy is going through a lot right now and you're his best friend..."

"Yeah, but I figured he wouldn't want me like interfering," I poked at the eggs, suddenly not really hungry.

"Guys are so stupid when it comes to feelings, I swear to Christ," she whispered, shaking her head.

"Is Uncle Nick dying?" Baylee asked bluntly, looking up from his pool of ketchup and egg.

"No," Leighanne and I both said at the exact same time. We looked at each other, surprised, because it had been in the same tone as well. "He's not dying," I said, "Of course not. Uncle Nick was sick and now he's getting better. He's being very brave."

"Because he's at the hospital? Did they give him a shot?" asked Baylee.

"Yeah," I said absently.

Baylee rolled up his sleeve, "I got a shot right there, and I was brave, too."

"Yes you were honey," said Leighanne, smiling, "You were very brave."

"That was a long time ago though," said Baylee, and then he went back to his eggs.

If I was being honest with myself, I had been avoiding the problem of going to see Nick. I'd wanted to get to Atlanta to put as much space between me and Oak Groves as possible. I was terrified of what I would find if I went to Nick. I could remember how weird it had been visiting AJ in Arizona, how he'd been too relaxed, too calm, too... not AJ. He'd been docile like a sleepy cat in the afternoon sun, which was not at all what AJ was like normally. I didn't want to see Nick like that. I wondered if there was a way to get out of the session without hurting Nick's progress.

"Brian, you need to go to him," Leighanne said flatly, staring at me.

I swear, that woman can read my mind sometimes.

I sighed and stood up, scooping the phone off the cradle. Leighanne glanced at my hardly-touched, getting-cold eggs and raised an eyebrow. "What're you doing now?"

"Calling the airline..." I answered, wandering out of the kitchen with the phone.



I was standing in the hallway at the ominous doors through which I'd practically forced Nick just two weeks ago. They were scary, and I was only going in for a therapy/visiting session. I couldn't imagine going through them to stay. I was really nervous still about what I was going to see. Would I encounter a granola-munching-docile version of Nick as I had AJ in 2001, or would it be a broken shell of the Nick that I'd once known that I found on the other side of the door?

Finally, steeling myself, I stepped through the doors. Instead of turning right, as we had when I was dropping Nick off (the reception room was down there) I took a left, as the woman on the phone had told me to do, and walked to the office door labeled "DR. F. HASELTINE, REHABILITATION" and knocked.

Dr. Haseltine was not at all what I had expected when I heard the name originally. I'd imagined someone that looked kind of like Kevin when I'd heard the name. Instead, standing before me, was the old guy from the Wendy's commercials. Or maybe the Monopoly guy? I couldn't decide.

"Good afternoon," he said, striking out a hand and shaking mine. "I'm Floyd Haseltine, and you must be the famous Brian that I've heard all about," he said, glancing at his watch. "Nick should be here in just a few moments. Come in and have a seat."

I followed Dr. Haseltine into his typical-looking office. There were two chairs in front of a big desk. I sat down in one of them and Dr. Haseltine smiled and said, "Don't be surprised if Nick makes you move. He's become rather possessive of that chair."

I knew how Nick was. He had a weird thing where he had to sit in the same spot every time if he was in a place frequently. Somehow he had some kind of weird internal compass, too, so he knew which side of the table he should sit on when we went to restaurants, and he always ordered us all around to our seats "where we belonged". It was a really strange habit, but it was Nick. I glance around the room and spotted the goldfish in its tank. The angle that it was at, he wouldn't have been able to see it from the other chair. That explains that, I thought.

"So, Brian," Dr. Haseltine said as I switched chairs, relinquishing Nick's seat before he'd even complained about my having taken it yet, "Nick has been wondering where you've been."

So he had been asking for me.

"I had to go home to Atlanta," I said, "I had some things to take care of there, and my boy needed a break from the hotel rooms."

Dr. Haseltine nodded, "Well that certainly makes sense. How long have you lived across the country from Nick?" he asked.

"I moved to Atlanta before Leighanne and I were married so about..." I thought. "I don't know, probably eleven years ago? Leighanne and I are going on ten." Damn, I thought, Ten years? Time's flown by so fast.

"Mmm, I see." Dr. Haseltine nodded, "So you and Nick have been best friends a long time, then."

"We've been a band like seventeen years," I replied.

Dr. Haseltine looked surprised. "Well, I guess you know him well then, huh?" he said.

I nodded. "So... how is he?" I asked, wondering where he was.

"Nick is doing very well," said Dr. Haseltine, "He has been progressing nicely. We've discovered a lot of things about why he needed alcohol and drugs in his life, and we are working on understanding that certain things are not his fault."

"What things?" I asked, worried that it was going to be something I could've prevented.

Dr. Haseltine paused, "When did Kevin Richardson leave the Backstreet Boys?" he asked.

"A couple years ago," I answered.

"Nick is under the impression, for a reason that he will not disclose, that Kevin left the band because of him," Dr. Haseltine answered.

"Kevin left the band because he wanted to start a family," I said.

"Ah," said Dr. Haseltine. I had a feeling he had something more to say, but he refrained, as a knock came on a door behind me that I hadn't noticed. The room had a door on each side and it occurred to me suddenly that one must lead to the patient area, and one to the corridor. "Come in, Nick," he called.

The door opened slowly, and Nick hobbled into the room. I stood up as soon as I saw him, my heart pounding, waiting for his eyes to meet mine so that I could see what had changed about him.

Nick looked up at me. A grin grew on his mouth and into his blue, shining eyes. "You came!!" he yelled, and despite the cast on his leg, he bounded to me, his arms whipping around my shoulders. He jumped back, excited, "You really came! I'm so happy you're here!"

It was like having back the old Nick.