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Before: Team Nick's Scar


Ashley

"Happy Birthday."

My tears were hot on my face, streaking across my cheeks. "Thank you," I whimpered.

He was quiet a second. "Are you crying?"

"Yeah but I'm okay," I replied, choking out the words.

"What's wrong?"

I drew a deep breath, trying to level my voice, "You just called me and said happy birthday to me, that's so nice," I gasped.

Nick sounded confused, "What?"

"I'm pregnant Nick," I said by way of explanation, "I cried over a commercial for Skype yesterday, okay? I cry easy and you called me and I cried because you called me and I miss you and I was just thinking about you and how your old Journey shirt is the only shirt that doesn't make me feel like a fat hooker."

Nick's voice was low, "Oookay..." he said.

"You're touring," I said, changing the topic and swiping my tears away with my balled fist. I pulled Chris's steak off the pan with the fork, being careful to put the burned side down on the plate so he wouldn't see it. Hopefully, he wouldn't notice it. I waddled, carrying the plate, and pulled the potatos out of the microwave oven, glancing at the clock. He would be home any moment. I shoved a bowl of frozen peas into the microwave and started those up.

"Yeah we've been touring a few months," Nick replied.

"How is it going?" I asked.

"Eh."

"Only eh?"

Nick sighed, "I dunno. It's just... I don't know how to explain it."

"Try?"

Nick was quiet a moment, then... "So like today, I was on the tour bus and we were parked out back the venue, you know, and I heard these fans outside by the fences and I went out and these girls had like painted their face with like this make up so like they had my scar and they had these t shirts on that were like always handsome to us. I think they were trying to like, I dunno, be supportive or something, but... I dunno. It was weird."

I tried to put myself in his shoes, pictured how that would feel, which obviously was something those fans had not done. I got where they were coming from, as Nick evidently had, too, but it still... "I'm sorry, Nick," I said.

"It's like that's all anyone can talk about to me," he said, "My fucking scar, the fucking crash. Nobody wants to talk about like anything else."

"What do you wanna talk about?"

He was silent. "I don't know, I guess there's nothing I want to talk about. Which is why this is a problem, see, because all they wanna do is talk to me, all these reporters and shit." He sighed heavily, "I'm just tired. I'm tired of being in a spotlight, I just wanna be left alone."

"I don't blame you."

I heard Chris's keys at the door locks and I pulled the peas out of the microwave, dumped a bunch of them onto the plate, and shoved the whole plate into the microwave, hitting the thirty second warm button. "Hey I gotta go," I said.

"What?"

"I gotta hang up, call me tomorrow, okay? I wanna talk to you again. Around ten my time. Bye." I hung up and threw the phone across the counter quickly, only just in time, as Chris came into the room.

"Why the fuck does it smell like smoke in here?" he demanded. He threw his jacket over the back of the chair nearest to him.

"I burned something earlier," I said nonchalantly.

Chris rolled his eyes. "You need to be more careful."

"I was stuck in the couch," I said, thinking this might make him laugh.

"Yeah because you're fat," he said.

He didn't laugh.

"Yeah exactly," I said, laughing myself a little. But he still didn't laugh or smile or anything so I stopped and popped the microwave open, taking out his plate. I put it down on the table and he sat down, surveying the food. I waddled to the cupboard for a cup, "What do you want to drink, baby?" I asked.

"I don't know, do we have beer?"

"I think there's bottles of my Molson left from before," I said, "But I haven't gone shopping this week."

"Why the fuck not?"

"Because I all but need a crane to lift me out of here?" I joked. "I need help to go shopping, babe, if you haven't noticed I can barely walk across the kitchen not to mention push a heavy cart around a grocery store.

"Of course, I gotta do everything..." he muttered.

"So... Molson?" I asked.

"Whatever."

I squatted to get the Molson out of one of the crisper drawers in the bottom of the fridge as he pulled a drawer out and got a fork and knife. He cut the steak and sniffed it. "It's really over done," he commented. He stuffed the piece into his mouth and chewed.

I got back up and put the Molson down in front of him. "Sorry," I said, "The phone rang while I was cooking, I might've over done one side a bit."

He spit the piece out into his napkin. "Christ, it's like chewing rubber." He stood up and slammed the plate into the kitchen sink, "I'm not hungry anyway." He grabbed the beer from the table and stormed out of the room. "Why the fuck is it so hot in here? Jesus!"

I stood in the kitchen, closed my eyes and leaned against the counter, counting to ten. "Because you didn't call about the air conditioner, that's why it's hot in here."

"Fucking A, you'd think we were god damn rotisserie chickens," he complained.

I sighed.

Chris hadn't even said thank you, much less anything about it being my birthday.




Nick

I laid on the bus that night, staring up at the ceiling of my bunk, listening to the wheels on the cement below, thinking about Ashley. It'd been a long six months of doing nothing but thinking of her, every night I dreamt of her, dreamt of that ride to Nevada and back, dreamt it turned out differently. I'd analyzed every moment that I'd spent with her last year, thought how I could've done it differently, seen every opportunity I'd had and wasted to tell her that I loved her before it was too late. I hated myself for every moment that I had that could've been used to say it.

Maybe I hadn't learned anything in the plane crash after all. Maybe all I'd walked away from that plane with was the fear of flying and a scar to remind me of that hellish night.

A scar for which every person on the planet seemed to want an answer.

I ran my fingers across my face, along the length of the jagged skin that slashed across my left cheek bone from my eye to my jaw, dragging down the corner of my lip so that I looked perpetually like I was going hmmm on one side. I hated the way it puckered and pulled, the way it felt smoother than the rest of my skin, the way it looked brighter pinkish silver, never fading.

I hated that it bothered me.

The thing was that with Ashley I'd always found it easy to forget that I was permanently disfigured by that crash. She'd only once looked freaked out by it and that was the first time she saw it. A year ago almost exactly, I thought, when I'd brought her out for coffee. The day I'd found out she was engaged. She alone was capable of looking past the scar and making me feel like I was whole again.

Everyone else... well. Not so much.

Especially not the fans. The fans were so damn busy trying to be supportive of me and my scar that I found myself being constantly reminded of it, constantly being faced with pictures of me then and me now and hashtags on Twitter going global declaring stuff like DontH8OnNicksScar and NickCarterSupport or whatever. I had yet to see Team Nick's Scar but I was sure it existed, just like I'd jokingly said once.

I just never felt good enough anymore.

I propped my hands behind my head and sighed, wishing for so many things to be different than they were. My scar. Ashley being married to Chris. Me not wanting to be on tour, really.

I hoped that things would get easier. I could really use easier.

But that was so the opposite of what was coming.