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1.       CALCULATIONS, OR ‘THE ART OF CONVICTION’

17th of December 2005

Life goes on… but not for me. Everyone thinks I’m paranoid, even traumatized and in denial. Everyone has gone away. Only me and Brian are left. And Harold. For some reason he can’t let go of his little brother either. I never get a chance to talk with him though, as he always leaves when I come in. And while everyone’s trying to go on with their lives, we’re the only ones left here.

I’ve never seen Leighanne as mad as she was the day I had to tell her what happened. But she wasn’t mad at me, but at her husband. Said words like ‘abandonment’,  ‘unfair’, ‘selfish bastard’ and ‘lying asshole’. Words I often heard being repeated by my fellow band mate AJ McLean. I know he has every right to be disappointed and angry at Brian, for we were all giving him a hard time whenever he had been depressed, drunk, or stoned and finally ended up in rehab. But I also think he’s being a hypocrite. Of all people he should be able to understand what Brian was going through… . I suspect he would have ended up just like Brian if Kevin hadn’t interfered back in the day. But once Kevin left, everything went wrong. Nobody interfered with Brian, cause we had no idea what was going on. He just didn’t like to share his problems, he never did. With AJ it had been clear as daylight when he was drunk or depressed. He even offered me coke at one point. I told Kevin and Kevin had a great, long and loud talk with him, in which he did most of the talking. But with Brian I had never been able to tell what exactly he was thinking behind the great wall of all the jokes, pranks and apparently fake smiles. Had never noticed a crumbling façade of the lie that had become careless, goofy and funny Brian Littrell.

I had tried to talk to AJ about 2 weeks ago, to get him to help me figure out the numbers, but he didn’t wanna have anything to do with the band anymore. Brian had scared him off big time. I tried to convince him that there was something off about the suicide note, but he didn’t listen. He just wouldn’t freaking listen to me!

 

2nd of December 2005

“Dude, just listen, there’s gotta be something with those numbers man!”

“D, would you just shut up?”

“Don’t you wanna figure out what happened?”

“No, I don’t! Cause I don’t fucking care anymore!”

I knew he didn’t mean that. He couldn’t mean that, could he?

“You don’t mean that…”

“The hell I don’t! Brian wanted to kill himself, Howie, I suppose everybody thinks about doing it now and then, but he just went along and did it…”

I had stared at him, couldn’t believe my ears. I certainly had never thought about doing it before. He noticed my concerned expression.

“Forget what I said, Howard. Brian wanted to die, it’s his choice, there’s nothing we can do for him. So why are you still bothering?”

“Yeah? Well, if he wanted to die so badly, then why isn’t he dead yet, huh? Why is he holding on like this?”

“Because we force him to!” AJ had exploded at me. I didn’t know how to reply, but I knew he wasn’t right. If Brian had really wanted to die so badly, then no amount of machinery could have kept him alive. At least that was my theory.

AJ had screamed more accusations at me. How I should go on with my life, how I should leave Brian be, how I should stop obsessing over his near death. Finally he yelled that he couldn’t care less whether Brian would live or die. I knew he was lying, he wouldn’t have exploded at me in the first place if he wasn’t. I am growing more and more concerned about him. He seems to spend a lot of his time on his own, and I don’t want to know what he does when he’s alone. I haven’t seen him in two weeks now, but I know he’s still near New Jersey somewhere.

 

Actually, I don’t mind sitting here in this hospital, in this room. It calms me down, gives me a chance to think and write. And since I’m the only one besides Harry that keeps an eye on Brian, I will play the part of guarding brother for once when Harry isn’t there.

“What do the numbers mean? Why are they there?” I ask to no one in particular. Brian is certainly not able to hear me, even less to answer me. It never even occurred to me to talk to him. I heard somewhere that you needed to talk to people in a coma. But that’s when there’s still hope left. There is no hope for Brian. Harry doesn’t seem to think so, he tells his little brother complete stories, jokes, the news and even the weather sometimes. He seems desperate to get through to his brother and never accepted the fact that Brian is never gonna wake up again. I have. I don’t sit in this room waiting for my friend to wake up. I sit here to think, to calm down to show everyone that I haven’t given up hope of finding answers, even if I have. But mostly I’m here because when Brian does die, at least I’ll know…

961317  146

It’s not a phone number, as Brian suggested. It’s not a safe security number. It’s not a bank account, it’s not a password, not an activation number, not a personal number and not a credit card number.

Maybe it’s a code…

Maybe it’s a code…

A CODE!

If it’s a code, I’ll need Nick! He and Brian used to be experts on codes. They had several ways of writing messages to each other using very complicated secret codes, just for fun, to see who could come up with the most complex code imaginable and still make it understandable. The code language had lived among the two for quite some time, until they began to talk it back at each other, and no one could understand them anymore. Not trusting the two rascals, Kevin put an end to the secrets that only they could share.

What if Brian had left a message for Nick? What if he had been lucid enough to think up one of their old codes and had used it to contact one of the persons he trusted most?

Shit!

I don’t think Nick even knows about the note Brian left on that terrible day. It was taken by the police and I’ve had it in my possession ever since they had no use for it anymore. Nick never even bothered to figure out if his best friend had even left anything. In fact, I haven’t seen Nick since that terrible day. He had left right after we had been allowed to see Brian for the first time and let AJ and me deal with Leighanne, who had gone completely mad after she learned about what her husband had done. I guess she’s at home with Baylee now, trying to figure out what to do. I feel hopelessly sad for Baylee, nobody has told him what happened to his father. For all he knows, daddy just disappeared into thin air. Not that he’d understand what’s going on. His third birthday came and went with a tiny birthday party, that nobody really felt like attending. Even the birthday boy himself seemed down and distant, asking everyone on his party if they knew if daddy was gonna come and celebrate or not. Just desperately looking for a father that will never return, but he doesn’t know that yet, cause no one has the nerve to tell him. He must feel abandoned and betrayed, even if he can’t figure that out himself just yet. I actually tried to tell him that his daddy was really sick and couldn’t be with him yet, but that he missed him and would have been there with his little boy if he could. I tried to stay as close to the truth as I could and to be extremely vague, so that he couldn’t ask any questions. But three year olds always know how to ask the most impossible questions.

 

24th of November 2005

“Daddy sick?” the kid had asked me with big blue eyes, that reminded me so much of his father’s, it made me cringe. His attention was focused solely on me, and I knew I made a horrible mistake when I realized this was probably the first time he heard anything about his father since Brian had mysteriously disappeared from his life two weeks prior.

“Yeah, daddy’s very sick. And what do you need when you get sick?”

“Me’cine!” he had cried happily and I flinched.  I hadn’t meant that, I had meant the word ‘sleep’ not ‘medicine’. I thought about how Brian had probably taken enough medication to make sure he’d never need it anymore. I know AJ must have thought the same thing, cause he got suspended from the party by Leighanne for the thing he yelled next.

“Ha! Your daddy has had more than enough medicine, boy!”  Leighanne got mad and sent him away. Leighanne gets mad at everyone lately, but it’s always directed at the same person in the end, I just hope she doesn’t lose her temper with Baylee.

The young boy didn’t leave me be. He had figured out if he wanted answers he needed to come to me. He asked me questions I didn’t answer to. What was wrong with daddy? When was daddy coming home? Did daddy ever talk about him? Did I want to tell daddy that Baylee loved him very much and missed him too? It was heart breaking, the hope on such a young face, and I couldn’t bring myself to lie to him anymore, so I kept my mouth closed altogether. After a while Baylee stopped his endless fire of questions and sauntered away with a disappointed look on his little face. Not soon after his interrogation with me, he had found another victim to question. That’s how he spent the rest of his birthday, hoping things that everybody else knew were never going to come true.

 

 

Nick hadn’t been on the party. He hadn’t been anywhere he needed to be, he seemed to have just vanished from the face of this earth. Maybe I should worry a little bit more about him, but I can’t bring myself to do that. I do need to find him now though…

 

20th of December 2005

It took me three days to find Nick Carter. I had no idea where to even begin looking for him. He didn’t answer his phone, did not reply on my e-mails and no one seemed to know where he went. I know Kevin had tried to track him down countless times, but without any promising results. Not even his family could tell me anything useful.

But finally, in a flash of total brilliance, I figured it out where Nick would probably be. When everything else fails, he had once told me, you have to get back to where you came from. Back to basics.

Jamestown, New York.

There’s not much of value in Jamestown, but I knew what I was looking for, so I couldn’t care less for this little town. I knew exactly where I needed to be.

The Yankee Rebel had long since changed its name and the exterior didn’t resemble anything of the old days. But Nick had showed me the bar that had been his father’s pride for years, a few times before. If Nick wouldn’t be here, I told myself, I would report him as a missing person after all. The bar was dustier and darker than I remembered. The bartender looked up as I came into his bar. If he recognized me at all, I didn’t notice it. He looked at me crankily and pointed to a clock above the toilet doors.

“Bit late, aren’t we?”

“Yeah, I know. I’m just looking for someone who might be here.”

“Who?”

“Mister Nick Carter.” I saw the hooded figure in the back look up slightly, before he turned his back on me again.

“Ha! Isn’t everyone looking for Nick Carter? I don’t know kid, but I think you stepped into the wrong bar. We don’t serve people like you!” I knew what he meant, but I wanted to ask him anyway, just to hear him say it out loud. I never got the chance, when the mysterious man in the red hoodie grabbed me by my arm and dragged me out of the gloomy bar. We entered the tiny park across the street and sat down on a bench underneath a giant oak-tree, that practically filled up the entire park.

“Asshole…” he muttered.

“Nice to see you too, Nick.” I replied heatedly.

“I wasn’t talking about you. Stupid bartender has been getting on my nerves these past two weeks. Asking way too many questions. ‘What’s your name?’ ‘You look really familiar’ ‘dude, aren’t you one of those Backstreet Boy gays?’ I’m not a Backstreet Boy goddamnit! Not anymore!”

“You’ll always be a Backstreet Boy…”

“Oh yeah? Well, I don’t know if you noticed, but right now I’m basically ‘unemployed’, and so are you!” I didn’t answer. He was right, Backstreet Boys were over as soon as Brian decided to destroy not only his, but our careers as well. I can’t believe he didn’t realize the pain and problems he would cause if he killed himself.

“So how’d you find me?” Nick looked like he hadn’t slept in days, weeks probably. His face was shabby and his hair uncared for. I suspected the only thing he did all day was sitting in that filthy  bar, drinking beer after beer ‘til he was kicked out.

“Well, after I searched the entire earth ball for you, my final choice came down to the bar your parents used to own. Don’t you ever bail on us like that again!”

“Bail on you, bail on you?!” He yelled at me. Thankfully there was no one other than a few pigeons that could hear us, “so when Brian bails on us, it’s fine, but when I leave, the whole world crumbles down?”

“It’s not fine Nickolas, nothing is fine! We had to send AJ back to rehab two days ago, but you wouldn’t know that, cause you were off having your own bar party!” Kevin, who had magically returned from Orlando on the 18th, told me he’d caught AJ talking to a  piano, stupidly drunk, “Kevin’s not been sleeping for days, because he blames himself for everything. Leighanne’s been shutting everyone out of her life, and she drags Baylee down with her. Harry’s desperate, and I’ve been trying to figure out what the hell happened, but I don’t know a single thing I didn’t know since I started! Brian fucked up everything! This whole world is fucked up!” I screamed ‘til I couldn’t scream anymore. Nick grew silent and stared at me with shameful eyes.

“I can think of only one reason why you would be here now,” Nick said with a grim expression.

“What?” I replied curtly.

“He’s dead, isn’t he? That’s what you came to tell me. He died, he finally pulled it off…”

I shook my head. “No Nick, he didn’t die. That’s not what I came here for.”

“Then why?”

“I came here to talk to you, to ask for your help…” He seemed surprised, I had never asked him for help before, I don’t think anyone ever has.

“My help? With what? Funeral plans? Why do you even still care about that piece of shit?” I closed my eyes and pretended I hadn’t heard Nick refer to his best friend as ‘piece of shit’.

“No, I need your help Nickolas, because I think that there’s something off with Brian’s suicide. It just doesn’t make sense… did you know Leighanne’s pregnant again?” That certainly sparked his attention.

“What?!”

“Yeah, she came into Brian’s room the other day, screaming at him that she found out they were getting another baby boy, but that he apparently couldn’t care less. I asked her if Brian had known she was pregnant before the 14th, and you know what she said?”

“What?”

“He knew! He was about to become a father again, but he still went and killed himself? It just doesn’t make sense. You know how much he adores Baylee!”

“Well yeah, but…”

“Why? What reason could Brian have possibly had to put an end to everything? I’ve had a hard time figuring it out…”

“He did seem a little stressed out towards the end…”

“We’ve all been stressed out before Nick, but we didn’t go and killed ourselves!”

“But…”

“You know what? About a month before his attempt I discovered something.”

“What?”

I sighed deeply, I had never told anyone this before, because it would technically count as breaking my promise. “He had a gun Nickolas, I caught him with it when we had that day off early. I took it from him. He said he needed it for protection…”

“I think he needed it for a whole different reason, D.”

“Oh yeah, then why did he say it? You know he’s the worst liar in the world, man. Why didn’t he just keep his mouth shut?”

“What would he possibly need protection from? Huh? You’re paranoid, Howard!”

I didn’t know, so I didn’t elaborate. But as I was trying desperately to convince Nick about my theories, I realized how wrong this whole suicide scene had actually been.

“There’s something else too, that’s why I need your help.”

“What is it?”

Slowly and carefully I retrieved the note from my pocket. It was tattered and grimy, because I had used it so many times.

“This is what Brian left us.” He grabbed it from my hands and read it apprehensively and gave me back the paper.

“How come I didn’t know about this?” He choked out in a tearful voice.

“Because you disappeared before I had a chance to show you!’’ I shouted. Nick sighed and brought his hands to his face.

“What do you need my help for? It all seems pretty clear to me. ‘Don’t feel bad’, ‘not your fault’ ‘the things I’ve done’ What part is unclear to you Howard?”

“Oh, I don’t know, what about the last sentence?” He didn’t pick up on my sarcasm, and I suspected he really had no idea what I was talking about.

“So? It’s just a phone number Howard…”

“You are such an idiot! Phone numbers are at least 10 digits, Nick!”

“Why would he lie about it?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out! Now, the numbers don’t stand for a bank account, password or any other personal number he could possibly have. I’ve already tried all that.”

“So?”

“So, I figured it must be some sort of code. That’s why I came here!”

“Because???”

“Because you are the first person I can think of whenever I hear the word ‘code’!”

Finally I could see a flicker of recognition in his eyes. “You mean those secret codes we used to think up? You think Brian could have left me a secret message?”

“I don’t know, but it’s our last chance…”

“Give me that! Do you have a pen?” I smiled. It worked, Nick was on board! I handed him the pen I always had on me for emergencies. “Care to explain what you’re gonna do, Nicky?”

“Well, if it’s a code, the numbers must stand for letters, right?”

I felt so stupid. I could have thought of that!

“I guess…”

“So way I see it, Brian always gave me some sort of clue, because I was younger and he thought it was unfair to leave me behind with just the numbers. Basically he considered me too stupid to figure out a damn code all by myself.”

“So what’s the clue? ‘My parents new number’?”

“No, I think the code consists of three parts. There’s the numbers, or the actual ‘code’. There’s ‘my parents new number’, or the lie to mislead the reader. And finally there’s the clue, ‘just take the ones before’.” I looked at him in total confusion. I had heard what he said, but he could have spoken Chinese for all I knew. I had never understood the fascination the two had shared in breaking these codes. But it seemed to be more of a puzzle than I had imagined. And Nick had been just as brilliant at solving them as Brian had been.

“So how do we break the code?”

“My first guess is to see if any of the numbers resemble letters of the alphabet.”

“Ah…”

“So there’s 9, 6, 1, 3, 1, 7  and there’s 1, 4, 6.”

“And?”

“Well, what does that spell?” He had circled the numbers and wrote the letters they resembled underneath. “So that would be: ’i’, ‘f’, ‘a’, ‘c’, ‘a’, ‘g’. space. ‘a’, ‘d’, ‘f’.” He stared at the letters for a long time. “That doesn’t make sense…” He concluded.

“What if it’s not 1 and 3, but 13?” I offered. I wanted to sound smart as well.

He scratched the letters and wrote underneath it.

“Could be, we could take 1 and 7 as 17 and 1 and 4 as 14… then we’ll have ‘i’, ‘f’, ‘m’, ‘q’. space. ‘n’, ‘f’.” He looked at the letters again and tried to figure out what they could mean. I only hoped they made sense to him, cause they certainly didn’t make sense to me.

“Still doesn’t make sense…” He finally said. We both sighed. We didn’t come this far to give up now.

“Wait! What about the clue?!”  I exclaimed.

“What about the clue?”

“‘’just take the one’s before’’?

“So?”

“So! What are the letters in the alphabet before the ones you’ve written down?” I saw a smile spreading itself across his entire face, as he picked up on my idea.

“Good thinking, D!” I smiled too, happy he finally recognized the genius that was Howard Dorough.

“What do we get then?” I was desperate to know.

“Let’s see. H, E, L, P, space, M, E… holy crap…”

 

Shit.

Shit.

Shit.

SHIT!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter End Notes:

yup, guess what :D