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Chapter Twenty-Three


Kevin

One hour and Twenty Minutes Ago…

“We’ll be -- uh -- “ Nick thumbed at the door and Alex followed him into the hallway as he pulled the door shut behind himself, leaving me and Kristin standing there, facing each other in the silence.

I wanted to say something, but I didn’t know what. I just knew there was something. We didn’t look directly at each other, both choosing instead to go with sidelong views of the other. Her eyes were all red around the edges and she stood with a hesitant posture. She licked her lips slowly, not in a seductive way, but in the way she did when she had somethin’ hard to say and a limited number of ways to say it. Seemed both of us had somethin’ to say and neither of us knew how to start.

Kristin spoke first, “I’m sorry. About the scene downstairs.”

“It ain’t me you should be apologizing to, it’s Nick and Lauren, isn’t it?” I asked.

“I already said sorry to Lauren,” she said.

“Then I suppose you’re absolved,” I replied.

Kristin looked at me. “Kevin,” she said, “What’re we doing? Standing at Nick Carter’s wedding, causing fights over things that happened back in college…” she shook her head. She wiped away invisible tears, blinking faster than usual. “Tell me the truth. Did anything happen with her in Kentucky?” She wasn’t asking in a vengeful wife sort of way, just in a way that she genuinely wanted to know, like an all cards on the table sort of thing.

So I said, “No. Nothing happened.” I took a deep breath, “But only because I was being faithful to you.”

She thought for a moment, chewing her lower lip gently, and walked further into the room, loosening up a little bit. She ran her hands over a shelf of books, her fingers running across their spines, the pale color of her nail polish bland against the dark shades of the book covers. “Faithful to me, or too chicken shit to take a shot?” she asked.

“Faithful,” I replied sternly.

She turned to me, “So you’re trying to say you don’t have any feelings for Caroline?”

I stared at her.

Kristin smiled. “Don’t worry, it was obvious anyway the moment she walked in the room this afternoon.”

My mouth was dry. “I mean it doesn’t mean I love you any less, Kris.”

Kristin sighed. “I know you think that.”

“Kris...”

She shook her head, “Kevin, we both love each other less today than we did before. You know it and I know it, too. If we didn’t, there wouldn’t be a question hanging between us.” She opened her purse and produced a copy of the petition for divorce. I recognized the font, the white space on the page, the way it was tri-folded. I stared at it. She waved it in the air. “If we didn’t love each other less, these papers wouldn’t exist.”

“They don’t have to exist,” I said.

Kristin shrugged, “Even if we burned them, the memory of them would be enough.” She put the document down on the desk. “It’s like they say about words - they can be forgiven but never forgotten.”

I reached in my own pocket and produced the lyrics that Andrew Fromm and I had worked so diligently on. I unfolded the page, my hands shaking.

“What’s that?”

“My song, I wrote you a song,” I said.

Kristin’s eyes looked sad. I knew she was remembering the time years and years ago when I’d gone to her house in the rain to stand out front with a boombox John Cusack style playing the demo version of Back to Your Heart. She’d come down the stairs in slow motion it’d seemed and we’d embraced on the lawn just as the rain shorted out the cassette deck.

Before she could say anything or stop me or whatever she was thinking of doing with those beautiful doe-eyes of hers, I started singing in a cracking voice:

“It’s a long time coming, should’ve done this years ago
I’m sorry, I miss you, and now that I’m home I don’t wanna go
I’ve been too proud to ask for a second try
So please, let’s restart the spark, open the door to you and I...
I ran away from the only thing I wanted
And since the door closed my heart has been haunted
I can’t see a crowd without seeing you
Here I am, on my knees, asking what to do
I know it’s a long time coming, should’ve done this from the start
Baby, please, show me the way back to your heart…”

My voice hung in the air.

It was cheesy. I’d even named it “Back to Your Heart 2.0” as a working title. It would never see the light of day. And whatever Andrew Fromm had said in the kitchen of Nick’s Nashville house, it was shit start to finish.

At no point was that more blatantly obvious than as I stood there in the silence that followed the words melting into the atmosphere, waiting for a reply.

Maybe, I told myself, feelings aren’t supposed to come out pretty. Maybe they’re just supposed to come out.

“Kevin…”

“There’s more,” I said, thrusting the page at her, “See? There’s more. I know it’s shit, but I mean every word. I feel them.” I thumped my hand against my chest, right over my heart.

Kristin took the page, but she didn’t look at it. She was looking at me. “Honey,” her voice was thick, “Kevin. It’s not for me.”

“What?”

“The song. It isn’t for me.” She held the page back out to me.

I took it, feeling numb. “What do you mean it isn’t for you? Of course it’s for you. I sat in Nick’s place in Nashville, agonizing over writing this…”

She tilted her head to one side. “Kev. It’s for Caroline.”

I looked up at her.

“C’mere.” She set herself down on a short little couch and patted the cushion next to her. I walked over and sat slowly, staring at her. My mind was going over the words with an urgency. Had I seriously subconsciously poured myself into lyrics for Caroline? I could feel a lump growing in my throat, a realization dawning in my mind, a pit deepening in the bottom of my stomach. I looked at Kristin. “Kevin, this divorce isn’t rewriting what we had. It doesn’t mean that we didn’t love each other, or that we didn’t have amazing memories, or even that I don’t still love you. And you still love me, too.” I nodded. “And maybe that’s the most heartbreaking part of this. The fact that it isn’t a bitter divorce. It isn’t hateful. It’s just… an ending. Things were said that can’t be unsaid, things were done that can’t be undone. On both parts. Mine and yours. We both made mistakes and we both came down too hard on each other. It didn’t erase our past. It couldn’t ever erase the past. But it ended us. It ended the trust I had for you, and it ended the respect you had for me and we broke. We’re broken and the only way to heal is to move on.” She stared into my eyes for a long moment. “I believe you have been faithful to me --”

“I have,” I said. The words were meant to be strong, but they came out weak and thick.

“I know. I believe you. And Kevin, I’ve been faithful to you, too, but --” she took a deep breath, “There is another man for me, too, Kev, just like there’s Caroline for you. And I think we owe it to each other… to… to let go… so we can move on with the people we’re splitting our affections with.” She reached out for my hand with one hand and swept the other through my hair, cupping my temple in her palm. “I’ll miss your eyes somethin’ fierce.”

I could barely see, my vision blurred by tears.

Kristin held out the divorce papers.

“I love you enough to tell you to follow your heart,” Kristin said. And tears were in her eyes, too.

“Do you have a pen?” I whispered.




Now

“So… is it really?” Nick was barrelling down the Pacific Coast Highway.

“Is what really what?”

“The song? Is it really for Caroline?” he questioned, glancing uncomfortably long away from the road to give me an expectant expression.

“Would we be driving to LAX if it wasn’t?” I asked, pointing at the road, reminding him to pay attention.

“I dunno, I’ve done crazier things in my life,” Nick said with a shrug.

Like drive down the Pacific Coastal Highway without looking? I thought.

“After I signed the papers, I stared at the lyrics for a long time and Nick, she’s right.” I gripped the handle above the window as Nick squeezed between a semi and an Escalade by a hair and cut into the next lane over with barely a glance back, inciting honking as he took a left turn exit into LAX. My heart was in my throat for so many reasons already -- Nick’s driving just another one of the many. “I was driving to Nashville from Kentucky and alls I could think of was her and every time I thought of Kris and the song the words were seizing up in me and then Andrew asked me to write what I felt and a lot of it was about Kris but a lot was about Caroline too and we weeded through the things I felt ‘til we found the most passionate things and… and I guess those are the things I wanted to say to Caroline.”

Nick shook his head, “I wish you’d realized it sooner, I wouldn’t have let her leave…” He slammed the brakes on as he pulled into slower moving traffic of LAX’s complex roadways. My knuckles were white as I clutched the handle, and I closed my eyes. “And dude there’s another man?”

“She didn’t cheat on me any more than I cheated on her,” I reminded him.

Nick sighed.

The car jerked as he cut across a couple lanes sharply. A horn honked. “Jesus,” I mumbled.

“Fuckin’ traffic,” Nick muttered. “Dude, Lauren’s gonna have my balls if I ain’t back in time for the wedding.” He sounded nervous.

My palms were sweating.

“You know, this shit only ever happens in movies? Like the Wedding Singer?” Nick pointed out.

“I know,” I mumbled.

“I actually can’t think of any other movies this happened in,” he said.

“Happened on Friends,” I pointed out.

“Oh yeah,” Nick said, “Shit AJ would be proud of you for knowin’ that.”

“Yeah,” I agreed.

“You gonna sing her your song?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“What’re you gonna say?”

“I don’t know,” I answered.

There was a colossal thump and a jolt and an unsettling disturbance in equilibrium. “Fuckin’ median,” Nick hissed.

I squeezed my eyes tighter shut. And he’d been worried about me driving. Even with a lot more alcohol than I’d had, I couldn’t possibly be any worse at drivin’ than Nick was doing, I thought.

But then again, we’d made great time getting to LAX from Malibu. Which was handy, seeing as, like he’d pointed out, we had to move quite quickly or he’d miss his own wedding again, this time through no (or at least hardly any) fault of his own.

He couldn’t be late.

I couldn’t let the girl fly away.

I realized that we hadn’t really moved in sometime and opened my eyes. Traffic at the airport was ridiculous, bumper to bumper as far as I could see. The departures door wasn’t too far ahead of us. I looked over at Nick. “In the interest of time…”

“What?”

“Wish me luck.” I shoved the door open and before Nick could say anything, I ran like hell for the unloading dock. I could hear him yelling my name from behind, but my feet moved too quick and I was soon out of hearing range. All I could focus on was finding Caroline as quickly as possible and getting us both back to Nick. I ran through the doors, into the lobby of LAX and stared around wildly. People were streaming every which way, people from every sort of life - tall, short, all races, both genders, every build, every social bracket. They swarmed around me and I realized that in an ocean I was one drop of water seeking another drop.

She could be fuckin’ anywhere.

I looked at my watch. I estimated it would take Nick twenty minutes to make a lap around the LAX lot, and I needed to be back to the curb for when he managed to get there.

Think, Kevin, think, I demanded myself.

First thing’s first: find out where her plane is taking off from.

I ran to the huge digital departures board that loomed in the center of the lobby, over a series of escalators that led the way up to the security booths. I scanned my eyes over the soupy red letters. None of the flights were going to Kentucky. She was obviously making a connection, if she’d found a new flight yet, that is. The board had proved no help whatsoever, but I continued staring up, like I expected the words to melt away and a map to appear, clearly depicting which way I needed to go.

“C’mon,” I whispered a prayer under my breath, “I know I ain’t talked to ya in a piece, but if you just lemme have this one I swear I’ll be better about keepin’ in touch.”

I took a deep breath, my eyes roaming over the various airline counters, their snaking lines stretching way back toward me in tight arcs. I had no way of knowing which one she’d booked.

“Help me,” I continued my whispered prayer.

I turned to look further down the breezeway. And there was a sign.

Need help? Customer Service is here to help you.

I walked over to the counter. A heavy set woman sat behind the counter, staring benignly around the lobby. She spotted me a good ten feet off and smiled at me, waiting until I got to the counter. “May I help you?” she asked pleasantly.

“I’m looking for a passenger, a particular passenger.”

“What flight are they on?” she asked, clicking at her computer keyboard.

“I don’t know,” I replied.

She paused in clicking, then looked up at me. “Oh.” She paused. “Departing?”

“Yes.”

“Where are they headed?”

“Eventually, Kentucky.”

“I don’t see any flights for Kentucky on our schedule.”

“Neither do I,” I said.

She stared up at me. “So you don’t know what flight they’re on or where to find them, or where they’re headed to exactly?”

“Right.”

She stared at me.

“Her name is Caroline Watson,” I said, looking at my watch. I glanced around the lobby again, hoping she’d show up. Suddenly, I couldn’t even remember what she was wearing. I remembered she looked spectacular in it, but my mind had drawn a blank on what it was. I looked impatiently at the woman behind the desk as she stared at me. I waved for her to start tap-tap-tapping her keyboard. “Please. I have to find her.”

“Sir, I can’t give you information about a passenger if you don’t have any information about the passenger’s flight. We are not at liberty to disclose information due to privacy laws.” Her voice was tired. She’d said this a million times a day for the unforseeable past.

“Please,” I begged.

“Sir, no amount of pleading is going to make your situation worth losing my job,” she said apologetically.

Frustration rushed through me. I gripped the edge of the desk. “But I love her. And she doesn’t know.”

The woman gave me a tight-lipped, faux-apologetic smile.

“Fuck.” I turned away, looking down at my watch again. I had fifteen minutes. I glanced back at the entry doors. Nick was out there, somewhere, driving around the loop. Traffic was still inching by. I didn’t have time to mess around. I had to find Caroline. Now. Or else I’d have to give up. Nick had to be back to the resort in time for the wedding.

And then I spotted her.

She’d changed into jeans and a sweater and was on the escalator, her luggage on the step below her, near to the top, a pair of headphones on.

Because of course she had to have headphones on.

“Caroline!” I bellowed. Several people near to me stopped to look my way, but most people kept right on going without even so much as a glance. I pushed my way forward, breaking between groups of people. I felt a bit like that old video game Frogger, dodging people instead of 18-wheelers. “Excuse me, excuse me. Pardon me. Excuse me. Coming through. Excuse me.” I pushed and dodged and ducked.

I looked up. She was at the top of the escalator and I was only about halfway across the lobby. My heart jumped into my throat as she stepped off the top landing of the escalator, pulling her suitcase along behind her. “Caroline!” I shouted again. “Wait!”

Propelled by this new urgency, I plunged forward once more, plowing down several offended flyers, shoving my way among them. I got to the escalator and ran up it, ducking around the lazy people standing and riding up it. At the top, I rushed forward. I couldn’t see her, but obviously she was headed for security which was right up ---

A thick arm caught me, wrapping across my chest, almost knocking me down. “Whoa, hold up there, son,” said a deep voice. It was a TSA agent. “Do you have a ticket?”

“No, but I don’t need to fly, I just need to catch up to that woman --” I waved in the direction I’m sure she’d gone.

“Sir, you can’t pass this point without a ticket.”

“But Caroline just came through here and I need to talk to her -- Caroline!”

He pushed me back from the edge of the ticketed passengers only area. “Sir, if you return down stairs and get a ticket --”

“I need to get to a wedding, I don’t have time to go downstairs and get a ticket,” I snapped, “I just need to get to Caroline. Please. Just a couple minutes and I’ll get her and we’ll be all good and --”

“No.” The agent glowered at me. “I can’t authorize that. Now step back.” He pushed me good and I stumbeld a couple feet. I stared at him.

“Please.”

He shook his head. “If you go downstairs and get a ticket --”

“God damn it, aren’t you listening?” I cried. “I need to tell her that I love her. I need to tell her to come back.”

“I’m sorry son,” he said. “But you need a ticket.”

“Fuck,” I swore and I turned back to the escalator going down. I looked at the watch as the steps moved slowly downward. I had five minutes. No where near enough time to get the ticket and get back upstairs and have any hope of catching her. I looked up at the ceiling. Every fiber of me wanted to get the ticket anyway and go after her. But Nick’s wedding. I could text him, I told myself, text him and tell him to go back without me. But he needed me there. Nick needed me at his wedding like I’d needed my dad at my wedding.

It was important.

I closed my eyes as I stepped off the bottom of the escalator and the people behind me flowed around, headed to their destinations.

I felt numb.

Sure I could wait.

Sure I could find her. It wasn’t like it was hard to find her.

But somehow it seemed more impossible if I didn’t find her here.

I walked slowly forward, glancing back, the storybook dreamer of me hoping to see her come running back from security, shouting my name.

The traffic sounded louder when I stepped back out onto the Departures curb and looked around, trying to spot Nick’s car in the mess of vehicles that filled the street in front of me. He was several lanes out and only halfway past the curb. Ahead, it looked like there may have been an accident, which was keeping the traffic crawling. I cut my way through the cars to Nick’s door and opened it, sliding myself inside.

Nick looked over. He glanced at the back seat where I did not have Caroline. He looked back at me. “I’m sorry Kev.”

“I saw her. She was going to security. I tried to catch up to her but they wouldn’t let me by to talk to her without a ticket.”

“Did you get a ticket?” Nick asked.

“No,” I answered, “Course not. By the time I got a ticket and caught up to her and all that you’d have missed your wedding all over again,” I answered, “I can’t be the reason you lose Lauren. It’s bad enough being the reason I might lose Caroline.”

Nick waved at the cars in front of us. “At this fuckin’ rate, I’ma miss it anyway,” he answered.

I looked back at the airport, then back to Nick.

“Go, man, you gotta try it,” he said. “Text me when you find her and I’ll let you know if I’m still stuck here or not.”

I nodded. “If you get out of this mess, go to the wedding.”

“Okay,” he agreed.

“Okay.” I paused, hand on the door, “Good luck, Nick. And thank you.”

He nodded.

I ran back across the roadway, back into the lobby, back across the room to one of the desks, where I breathlessly grabbed hold of the counter. “I need a plane ticket,” I said.

“And where are you traveling?” asked the attendant.

“Somewhere, anywhere,” I replied.

“Anywhere?” she looked confused, “But where are you headed to?”

“Security checkpoint,” I answered. “I need to talk to a girl.” She looked at me. “She’s upstairs and they won’t let me through to talk to her. Please. Any ticket at all will do.”

Her eyes widened, “Oh my gosh, this only happens in the movies,” she said, lighting up. Her fingers flew across the keyboard. “Do you have your ID?” I fished in my wallet and handed it to her. “Everything’s current?” she asked. I nodded and watched as she typed everything in. “And how are you paying today?”

“Credit.” I pushed my card to her.

Within minutes, I was running back up the escalators. I wondered if Nick had got through the traffic yet, if he’d make it back to the wedding on time. I waved my ID and my boarding pass at the agent that had stopped me, who acted like he’d never seen me before, nodding at my pass and inspecting it’s authenticity and everything. Finally, he let me through and I ran like nobody’s business toward the security queue.

She was four snake folds ahead of me, a line of tired, bored looking people between us, hauling their luggage and children with them.

“Caroline!” I yelled again.

She still had her headphones on.

“Caroline!”

I looked down at the line divider. It was one of those little nylon strap things. “Fuck this shit,” I muttered and I unsnapped the divider’s end, letting it clatter to the floor. “Excuse me,” I said, pushing around a businessman in a brown tweed suit, unsnapping that divider, too, and pushing by a pissed off looking hispanic woman who looked like she might’ve been thinking about smacking me for stepping into her personal space. I unsnapped that divider, upsetting an elderly couple, the old man yapping at me about respect for rules, and meanwhile the hispanic woman was shouting for someone to stop me, the maniac, from cutting them all in line.

“Caroline!” I unsnapped the last divider that separated us, pushed around a herd of Japanese children with their parents, and pulled her headphones off her head, “Caroline!”

She grabbed at her headphones, startled by the removal, and turned quickly to face me, “What the hell do you think you’re doing!?” She yelled, then her eyes met mine and she stopped mid-shout, stunned. “Kevin?”

“Caroline.”

She blinked at me in surprise, “What the -- how did you -- why -- Nick’s wedding! Kevin! What are you doing here??”

“I came for you.”

“What?”

The line moved forward. The Japanese family glared at us as they moved around us.

“I came to stop you from leaving, don’t go.”

“Kevin,” she was turning red, “C’mon, I’ve been a part of enough scenes today.”

“I love you.”

She stared at me, her eyes wide.

“I love you,” I said again, just in case she hadn’t heard me the first time. This was, after all, the part where the girl freaks out, hugs the guy, and they have a really long, over dramatic kiss and the music goes all floaty and things get blurry around them and the credits go up and all that. But she just stared at me.

“But… but what about Kristin.”

“I signed the divorce papers. I signed the papers, Caroline. I signed them for you. I wrote a song. I wrote a song and it’s about you and I didn’t even know it ‘til Kris read it and she pointed it out. I love you. I’ve always loved you.”

She swallowed.

She still looked shocked.

“Kevin… I…” she shook her head, “I can’t do this right now. It’s… it’s too quick.”

“Please,” I said.

Somehow, we’d shuffled our way to the front of the line. “No. I can’t do this right now. It’s too much. It’s too quick. I can’t. Not yet.” She turned and hurried away to the security checkpoint, kicking her shoes off as she went, throwing them into a bin.

“What am I supposed to do?” I asked as she pushed the bin onto the conveyer belt.

“Go home. Pause. Think about it. Let the pieces fall. Get back on your feet. Then we’ll talk about this again.” She turned to the metal detector. She glanced back at me for a moment. “I’m sorry,” she said simply. “I just don’t want to be the one you picked because she left you.”

The security guard waved her through.
“That’s not what you are, though, I --”

“Kevin,” she said sternly from the other side of the detector, pulling her shoes back on, “Go home.” And then she turned, pulling her suitcase from the belt, and disappeared in the mass of people on the other side.

It was my turn to stand as she ran away from me.

The guy who’d come up behind me tapped my shoulder, “You gonna take your shoes off or what, buddy?” He demanded.

There was a huge lump in my throat.

“You go ahead,” I replied numbly. I turned and walked away.

“You find her?” the agent by the front of security, the guy that had made me buy the ticket, asked as I walked by.

I nodded.

“Where is she then?” he asked.

I shrugged, “On the way wherever her plane’s going,” I answered. I took the escalator, clutching the handle to keep me upright.

Outside, Nick wasn’t more than ten car lengths along from where he’d been. I walked over and got in.

He looked even more surprised than he had before.

“Fuck,” he whispered, a disappointed look on his face.

“I found her,” I said.

His disappointed look became confused. “But…?”

“I don’t wanna talk about it. I just wanna get the fuck out of here.”

Nick bit his lips. “Oh,” he said. Then, after a pause, “I don’t think we’re going too far too soon,” he said.

I looked around. There had to be a way out. I couldn’t stand being here, so close to her, yet so far away. And Nick’s wedding time was looming closer and closer, like invisible walls closing in. I just wanted to get the hell away from LAX. I looked at the traffic, then across a barely-there median strip at the opposite side’s empty street. “Pull a U-turn.”

“What?”

“A U-turn. That side’s clear.”

“Says no U-turns,” he said, pointing at a sign.

I looked around again, “Yeah well… fuck the sign.” I answered.

“Yeah but --” he looked concerned.

“Trust me, you can’t be late because… Well, this watching the woman you love walk away from you stuff?… This feels like shit.” I said.

He hesitated for the slightest moment, then, “Dude. Since when are you the badass rule breaker and I’m the one that needs to be talked into it?” he asked as his foot came down on the gas pedal and propelled us around in a U-turn onto the opposite side of the roadway.

I took a deep breath as we left the airport behind. I couldn’t dwell on any of my shit right now, I realized because, honestly, that wasn’t fair to Nick. And God damn it at least one of us deserved a happy ending.

I looked at my watch.

I just hoped we could get there in time.