1.       DOING THE RIGHT THING

I have only felt this kind of fear once before. The day I went on a plane and hoped I would make it in time to say goodbye to my sister. I had been too late then, and I still regret that every single day. Everyone should be able to say goodbye to the ones they love. But now I’m thinking about it, I’m not sure if I even said anything that sounded like goodbye to Brian before. I can’t be too late again! That’s not going to happen! I know Brian has had seizures before, but this time it seemed so…  wrong, so… final.

Leighanne just asked me why I’m still writing in this notebook. I told her it’s for my ‘investigation’. But it’s more than that. It’s a perfect method of stress-relief. And it helps me sort my jumbled thoughts out and put them in some kind of order. And seeing that we’ve got nothing to lose anymore, I told her that as well. She actually said it seemed like a good idea and asked me if she could read my notebook. Maybe later, I told her. I’ll let everyone read it once it’s done, not sooner.

Nobody spoke the whole time we were waiting. Only Baylee chatted away as if there was nothing wrong. Well, he didn’t know any better. He had jumped of off Nick’s lap once his mother walked in, and has subjected her to a full interrogation. I can’t help but understand the kid, that demands answers from his mother. Leighanne hadn’t given him the information he was looking for though, and now his attention was focused on Nick instead. Baylee loved Nick, maybe because deep down, Nick was still a little kid himself. The youngest Backstreet Boy had done his best to tell Baylee a few jokes, but his arsenal of child-friendly jokes had long since dried up and now he was telling Baylee all about the practical jokes he and Brian used to play at each other and the rest of the group over the years. I don’t think Baylee understood half of it, but I heard him crow a few times as Nick mentioned a particular dirty one Brian had pulled on me years ago. Nothing like gory details to keep little three-year-olds amused. Leighanne was sitting opposite of them, next to me and listened carefully as well. She kept shaking her head when she heard all the stunts her husband used to pull on us, but I saw a constant smile on her face as well. Harold was staring off in the distance, lost in thought again.

“Oh Nick, how about that time in the mall a few months ago? Daddy sure wasn’t so brave then!” I suggested with a grin. My comment sent Nick into a fit of laughter and Baylee looked up at me with wondering eyes. “Wha happen Howiedee?” he asked me.

“Well, there was this huge group of girls that had been following us. Then all of a sudden…,” I paused for the dramatic effect, and it worked cause Baylee’s eyes got even bigger and his mouth fell open, “they began running at us! And you know what your daddy did?” Baylee shook his head vigorously. “You know what he did?” I stretched. Whatever Nick could do, I could do better.

“What he do?” Baylee almost screamed at me with excited anticipation. I figured the tension must have gotten too hard for him.

“He started screaming like a little girl!” I concluded ecstatically. I watched how the face of the little boy fell all of a sudden and he began to pout.

“Did not!” Good boy defending his dad.

“He did too!”

“Did not! You wong!”

“Oh he did! He screamed like a baby girl!”

“Well, if my sources are correct, mr Dorough here wasn’t much braver himself! I believe you wet yourself.” A deep voice resounded through the room. Baylee almost fell on the floor laughing so hard. I felt a hand clamp down on my shoulder, looked up and smiled at Kevin, who had just come in. “Your sources are wrong,” I grinned at him.

“Well, at least Brian was able to keep his pants dry!” He grinned back maliciously. Then the atmosphere turned serious once again.

“Any news yet?” Kevin asked Harold.

“Nope.”

Kevin sighed deeply, “We can’t keep him like this forever, Harold, you know that.” He spoke quietly, I had to strain my ears to hear him.

“Yeah, I know.” Harold replied, just as softly.

“It’s not fair to him or to us.”

“I can’t let him go, Kevin, there’s so many questions left. Have you never wondered? Brian’s had a couple of seizures now, why isn’t he just givin’ up?” Harold whispered. Kevin looked at his cousin with sympathy. “He never knew how to give up.”

Harold stayed silent for a couple of seconds. “Then why did he ever try to kill himself?” I was astonished. Apparently I wasn’t the only one thinking that way. Maybe I should have called Harold into my team sooner. Kevin didn’t seem able to reply. Instead he asked, “Have you called your parents yet?”

“No, since they were so eager to let me decide whether Brian lives or dies, I feel rather reluctant to call them.” Harry scoffed. The whole situation with Brian’s parents was a tad unclear to me. I knew his father wasn’t allowed to fly, due to medical reasons. And I guess because Harry had spent so much time by Brian’s side these past weeks, they assumed that their eldest son knew what would be best. But I never really got any insight in how they reacted to the suicide attempt. I knew they were highly religious people, but family always came first. And now they seemed kind of distant towards their sons.

“You want me to call them?” Kevin offered. Harold didn’t answer. He was looking at the note Nick still held in his clenched fist.

“Can I see that?” he asked quietly.

Hesitating, Nick looked at me. I nodded. With all that was going on right now, the note seemed awfully unimportant. Nick handed him the worn piece of paper.

“What’s that?’’ Kevin demanded and I realized just how few people even knew about the note.

“It’s a piece of paper Howie and Nick have been obsessing over for quite some time now,” Leighanne replied unmoved. I didn’t take the bait, but watched Kevin standing behind Harry, whose face was drained of all colour. I frowned.

“Holy shit!” was all he could bring out. We were all watching him now and he brought his hands up to rub his face.

“Fuck!” He screamed out. I was really worried now. I knew the paper wasn’t a pleasant thing to read, that’s probably why I never show it to anyone, but I thought Harry reacted rather fiercely to it.

“Harold!” Leighanne reprimanded him. Baylee’s head had shot up when he heard the foul word coming out of his uncle’s mouth.

“Said bad word!’’ he yelled at him.

“He sure did, baby,” Leighanne gave her brother-in-law a pissed off look.

But Harold didn’t hear either of them. He seemed at the brink of panic and dropped the note instantly as if it had caught fire.

“Harry, are you okay?” Kevin asked uncertainly.

“No, no, no, no, this can’t be true!” The younger man cried out. I looked at Nick, who was having the same stunned look in his eyes as I must have had. Harry continued to shake his head.

“No no no no, it’s all my fault! I should have known!”

Nick frowned and picked up the note that Harold had dropped. “Do you mean the code?” he asked hopefully. Harold didn’t answer, he slumped down in his chair and started to cry softly, apologizing over and over again. “I’m sorry, Brian, I’m so sorry.”

I looked at him, stunned. Then I glanced at Nick. Could Harry have been the key element to my entire investigation? What in the world was he hiding from us? It was now or never…

“Brian had a gun.” I stated silently. I could feel Nick’s eyes boring down on me. I looked up and saw him looking at me with a meaningful expression. He did not approve. But I had to share it with the group, I couldn’t keep it for myself much longer. The other eyes in the room were on me as well, demanding an explanation.

“Five weeks before he… well you know… I walked in on him while he was holding a gun.” The silence that followed was a heavy one. The tension in the room had increased greatly. Everyone seemed to wait for me to continue.

“He said he had it for precaution, to protect himself. I used to think for a long time that he was lying, that he would have used it for a whole different reason if I hadn’t taken it from him, but honestly, I don’t think he was lying… just like I know that the thing he used to cut his arms wasn’t his, cause it was never found afterwards… Oh, and you all should have known he would never abandon Leighanne if she was pregnant,” I blurted everything out at once, it may have been a little hard to follow, but I think everyone got the message. The silence that had taken over the entire room seemed to last forever. Baylee didn’t seem to find it important enough to stay awake for, and he had fallen asleep, after he had climbed back on Nicks lap. Finally Kevin cleared his throat.

“What are you saying Howard?”

“I think Harry knows exactly what I’m saying.” And so the attention shifted from me to Harold.

“I didn’t know he had a weapon!” he defended himself.

“Where’s that gun now, Howie?” Kevin questioned.

“I don’t know,” I said, but I did. I may have lied when I said I left the weapon in some hotel drawer. I have kept it hidden instead. Hidden, but I kept it.

“Okay, and why did he say that you knew what he was talking about?” Kevin turned to Harry once again. I listened intently. I had already spilled my guts, now it was Harold’s turn. He took a deep breath.

“I promised him I wouldn’t tell anybody,” he sighed, and I couldn’t help but feeling sympathy for him. I had promised to keep Brian’s secret about the gun as well, and breaking a promise with Brian was one of the worst things you could do. He would make you feel bad about it forever and ever after.

“What’s on the note?” Leighanne suddenly asked.

“The numbers are actually saying ‘help me’ in some sort of code,” Harry whispered.

“What the hell?!”

“It’s all my fault,” he murmured once again.

“How is it your fault?” I asked him.

“I can’t tell you, I promised I wouldn’t tell…” he answered desperately. I sighed, we weren’t getting anywhere this way.

“Look, he made me promise too okay? I promised him I wouldn’t tell anyone about the gun, but I did. It doesn’t matter anymore, Harry, it’s not about keeping promises, it’s about doing the right thing.” He kept looking at me, considering my words, but didn’t answer for a long time.

Then he finally spoke up.

“Did you know he used to have anxiety attacks?” It wasn’t what I expected, and I couldn’t do anything but shake my head.

“Yeah, when he was little he used to worry about everything. Ever since he got out of the hospital. Always had nightmares about those two months he had spent there. I know, cause I shared a room with him. He would wake up crying and screaming, breathing like he had run a marathon, and then he’d come to me. He had always come to me whenever he was scared. I would do my best to comfort him, telling him that everything turned out alright after all. That he wasn’t going to die anymore. Cause that’s what he believed back then, that’s what everybody had been telling him. After a while he usually seemed to calm down somewhat and he made me promise not to tell mom and dad. Apparently he’s good at making people promise.” Harry choked on his voice. We waited for him to get himself back under control.

“Go on,” I urged softly.

“Three days before his attempt, Brian showed up at my house. Said he needed to talk to someone, said it was important. And of course, just like all those years before, he came to me. But this time it was different. I have never seen him so scared, so panicky so stressed out before. So I did the only thing I could think of back then. I gave him a hug and let him in.”

“What did he tell you?” I asked eagerly.

“Not much. He said someone was after him. ‘He’s gonna kill them, he’s gonna kill my son!’ he kept saying it. I didn’t know what to do. I thought he was being paranoid, he has a tendency to be paranoid sometimes. So I did what I’d always done. I pulled him close and told him all was gonna be fine. That nobody was gonna kill anybody, and that he didn’t need to worry about everything. But it didn’t work, he wouldn’t calm down, no matter what I did.”

“So?” Nick asked quietly, so he wouldn’t wake the sleeping kid on his lap.

“So I let him stay at my place. The next morning he seemed to have changed his mind. He was distant, said he needed to get to New Jersey to do some recording and made me promise not to tell anybody about what he had shared with me. I didn’t know that three days later, he would be lying half-dead in a hotel in Livingston.” Harold cried desperately.

“Do you think he wanted to kill himself cause you didn’t believe him?” Kevin asked incredulously. I gave him an exasperated look. He could be so dim-witted sometimes.

“No! He means to say that what if Brian wasn’t that paranoid? What if someone was really after him? What if it wasn’t suicide? What if, just what if, someone did this to our brother?” Nobody said a word for a long time. Imagining that Brian may have not wanted to die was something everyone wanted. But we had been forced to accept the fact that he did want to kill himself, and changing our minds wouldn’t be so easy. Eventually Kevin scoffed.

“Who’d wanna kill Brian?” he asked unbelievably.

Nobody could give him an answer, because nobody knew if Brian had any enemies.

“Harold, did he tell you a name?” I thought up.

“I don’t know… I can’t remember Howard, I’m sorry.” I looked at him venomously. It was the one thing we needed to know, and he couldn’t remember?

“Think hard, Harry, cause it’s important, if you didn’t know.”

“I don’t…”

He didn’t get to finish his sentence, cause at that moment dr Rosswes came into the room. My heart, that had already been pounding like an idiot, seemed able to beat its way right out of my chest. Please tell me you have good news.. I wished with all my might and closed my eyes.

“I may have some good news,” he said. I opened my eyes and looked at him, astonished. He didn’t really say that, did he?

“What?” we all cried out at the same time.

“Well, we don’t know exactly how, but during the episode, some part of Brian’s brain has reacted positively to the signals of the seizure, and we were able to get him breathing again.”

I couldn’t believe my ears! I had been right after all, not all hope was lost! Everyone listened with subdued joy how the doctor explained that apparently not all seizures were a bad thing, that sometimes they helped comatose patient take a step forward. He told us we shouldn’t get our hopes up yet, cause everything could still go horribly wrong. That it was just a small step in the right direction. That they hadn’t taken Brian off of the ventilator yet, cause they thought it would be too risky. They had turned the machine to assist instead, so that he didn’t have to the work all by himself yet.

I didn’t mind. I was happy and so were the others. I felt like I could breathe again for the first time in months, as if I had been holding it in, unable to get it out, just like Brian. The fear we had all been feeling for a long time had lessened considerably and all the tension finally came to the surface. I watched with watery eyes how everyone cried tears of relief, of joy. Maybe we shouldn’t get our hopes up, but we did. And I finally realized that it was Christmas evening.