Chapter Twenty
Nick
What if Brian made the wrong choice? What if he didn’t think about it at all and simply sent off the contract to Jen without a blink of an eye?
I clutched the steering wheel of the Jeep, my knuckles tight.
Did I make the point clear that I didn’t want him to leave?
“Breathe, breathe,” I verbally reminded myself, “Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale.”
I’d come to a stop at the end of his street at the stop sign, just trying to coax myself to get a grip on my emotions.
Headlights shone through the dark, cutting the night behind me and reflecting in my rearview mirror. I reached out and pressed my emergency flasher lights on and waved my hand for the car to go on around me. But they didn’t. Instead, they pulled up behind me and then their flashers came on, too.
Brian walked up to the passenger side door and got in, leaving his car behind, blinking away in the dark. He sat there a moment, taking deep breaths, rubbing his hands together, like he was cold. I reached down and turned the heater on so the warm air came out of the vents and he pressed his hands to them.
Neither of us said anything for a long moment..
“How’d you know I stopped?” I asked.
“I didn’t,” he answered. “I was going to drive to Nashville.”
I looked down and fiddled with the keychain hanging from the ignition. “Why?” I asked finally.
“I didn’t know how to tell you,” he said after a couple moments. “I didn’t know how to tell you when I thought you wouldn’t care, when we were broken apart like we were and I didn’t know how to even more once we were starting to get put back together.”
“Kintsugi,” I said.
“What?”
“It’s not sushi, don’t worry.”
Brian stared at me.
I realized I was gonna have to explain it. I wasn’t sure I could as good as Lauren had.
“It’s like when shit’s broken. There’s this art from Japan, they like stick it back together again with gold, and it’s like… it’s like us, I guess. Like we were broke and…” I didn’t know what to say next. Were we fixed? Were we healed with gold? Was one night driving five hours down an interstate really enough to undo all the damages of almost twenty years? Or was it a gesture that was too little, too late? I looked up at Brian, at the way the street lamp seemed to outline his face. I shrugged because I didn’t know what else to say.
Brian took a deep breath.
And silence fell between us once again.
More headlights came up behind us in the road and then there was a flashing blue light - a cop. Brian sighed, “Damn it.” He turned and pushed his side door open and got out of the car.
I gripped the wheel as I watched him walk around the back of the car in the glare of his car’s headlights and the blinking yellow hazards.
Finally, I pushed the door open and got out, too. The cop was walking up alongside Brian’s, his radio clipped to his shoulder like in the movies. “Is there a problem?” he asked as he sidled up, his accent thick.
“No sir,” Brian replied. “We’re okay.”
I nodded.
“Accident?” the cop looked at my car’s bumper for damages.
“No sir,” Brian answered.
“We were just talkin’,” I said.
The cop looked at me then back at Brian. “Well. Okay. Move along, though, there’s plenty of places y’all can talk at that ain’t the middle of the street, blocking traffic,” he pointed out. I wanted to ask what traffic, exactly, were we blocking but I kept my mouth shut. He walked back to his police cruiser, glancing into Brian’s back seat as he passed by it, like he expected to see a ton of drug paraphernalia just laying around in there. Then he nodded his head at us and walked the rest of the way back to his car. He didn’t pull away, though, just kept his lights glaring at us, like he was waiting to see us leave.
Brian turned to me, “Come back to the house,” he said.
I shook my head. “I gotta get back to Nashville.”
But even as I said it, I knew I was going to go home with him.
“C’mon,” Brian insisted.
Brian
Leighanne had already gone back to bed when Nick and I got to the house so the rooms were all dark. I led the way through to the kitchen. I’d put the contract he’d brought down on the table and he stood in the doorway, staring at the envelope. “You want a drink or anything?” I asked, grabbing a glass for water out of the cupboard myself.
He shrugged.
I waved at the fridge. He awkwardly stepped over and looked inside, his eyes scanning the shelves until he found a package of juice boxes that were Baylee’s and he grabbed one and sat down at the table, ripping the straw off the back and poking it through the lid. There’d been a time I wouldn’t have had to offer. Nick would’ve just walked in and pulled the fridge opened and helped himself to anything he wanted.
I sat down across from him as I drank my water.
We both stared at the contract.
Nick looked up at me, his blue eyes wide and wondering.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” I answered the question that glistened in them. I sighed and leaned back in my chair. I shook my head, my throat tightening. “I really want to stay,” I explained, “But I don’t want to be selfish. I don’t want to weigh you guys down.”
“I don’t want you to go,” Nick said quickly.
His words surprised me.
“I don’t want you to go,” Nick repeated. He leaned forward and put his hands on the envelope holding the contract, “I never wanted you to go. I didn’t realize it, I was too busy guarding myself, but whatever I said, I didn’t mean it, and I don’t want you to go.”
“But what about my vocals and the live shows?” I asked, “What about recording this new CD and having to think about that and the producers and the fans making comments and --”
“Fuck’em, Brian, fuck them.” Nick stared at me, his eyes glowering. “We’ve made it work before, we’ll make it work again. They know now, ‘cos of the movie, they understand better what’s happening. They’ll be supportive. You know our fans, they’ll be supportive, Brian. They will. And if they aren’t, then fuck them. You’re a Backstreet Boy, Brian, you’re a Backstreet Boy and it ain’t gonna ever be the same without you and I can’t picture it without you and I don’t wanna. You’re my best friend, whatever’s happened between us, you’ve always been my best friend and I don’t wanna lose you. So if you need help with vocal therapy and stuff then I’ll help you, I’ll fly my ass here every fuckin’ day if that’s what it takes, just to do the exercises with you in the morning. We’ll sit outside and bleat like goats ‘til the sun goes down if that’s what you need, I don’t give a fuck, Brian. Alls I give a fuck about is if tomorrow you’ll be there.”
I stood up because the emotion building inside me from all those words was too much to hold onto sitting down. I paced the length of the kitchen. I could feel Nick’s eyes on me, even when I was back-to him. I pressed my palms against the door frame, looking out the sliders into the backyard. I stared out into the bare trees, illuminated by the moon, where the fort had stood before I’d knocked it down.
“I know you don’t really wanna go Brian,” Nick said.
The words surprised me and I turned around. “How do you know? Maybe I’m just sick of the whole thing.”
“Because it wouldn’t have been so hard to tell me if you really thought it was the right thing,” he replied.
I contemplated that.
“You would’ve been like eager to tell us, because it wouldn’t have felt like a negative, you would’ve really believed you were doin’ what you hadda do and that it was really a good thing, so whatever you thought you told yourself, it didn’t work. You don’t really think it’s best for the band or you would’ve told me and the other guys a long time ago. Before going to management. Like Kevin did.”
“Maybe,” I said. He was right. I’d been convincing myself that it was the right choice. I wasn’t sure I believed it at all or if I’d just talked myself into it.
Nick stared at the juice box in front of him on the table, spinning it between his fingers. “Say you won’t go, Frick.”
I took a deep breath.
“Please.”
For a moment it was easy to forget that years and years had passed. Sitting there at the table was just the twelve year old kid I’d met in 1993, who just needed somebody to give a damn about him because he wasn’t getting that at home. Sitting there was the too-much-too-fast nineteen year old whose ego’s bark was bigger than it’s bite, who loved the attention, craved it even, yet wasn’t sure if he deserved it - despite the attitude he seemed to field. Sitting there was the twenty-something who’d needed me, who I’d turned away from way too many times to be fairly called a best friend, who, despite it all, had called me his best friend just the same.
I walked over and grabbed the manilla envelope, dumping out the contract and the Polaroid dropping onto the table between Nick and I. I grabbed the contract quickly by it’s corners and ripped it clean down the middle.
A smile spread across Nick’s face slowly, creeping from the somber look of pleading he’d worn a moment ago into a wide grin. “Yeah?” he asked.
I nodded. “Yeah.” I threw the ripped contract into the trash, ripping it even smaller as I threw it away, an excitement building in my chest that burned like open flame.
I hadn’t felt the feeling in a while but I recognized it:
It was hope.
Nick
“Uncle Nick?”
I blinked opened my eyes and found Baylee staring at me with confusion on his face. He was in pajamas, holding a bowl of colorful cereal and the TV remote. He put the cereal down on the coffee table in front of the couch, where I’d fallen asleep the night before after Brian had ripped up the contract and insisted I stay over night. I rubbed my eyes with my fists, the brightness coming in scorching them. “Hey Baylee,” I mumbled.
“What’re you doing here?” he asked.
“I came to talk to your dad last night,” I replied. I sat up, groggy still.
This was apparently answer enough for Bay because he climbed up into the space I’d just unoccupied and turned the TV onto some cartoon and grabbed his cereal. I sat there a moment, feeling my hair standing up at odd angles and watching the show with him as he crunched away on the cereal.
Even though waking up in Brian’s living room should’ve been evidence enough that I hadn’t dreamed the night before, I still had to pull myself to my feet and go check. I left Baylee there in the living room as a little purple dog was ranting about pickle flavored ice cream or something and went out to the kitchen.
Leighanne was standing at the stove, cooking. She glanced over at me as I walked in. “Hey, there you are, I was wondering where Brian put you up at.” She smiled.
“Just the couch,” I answered.
“Did Baylee wake you?” she looked concerned.
“Nawh,” I lied, “I was already awake.”
“Oh good,” she said, smiling still in that way that I’d always just assumed was fake. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe she just smiled like that. I wasn’t sure. “Brian’s just taking a shower,” she told me, her voice all chirpy. “He should be down in a minute. Do you want breakfast?” She flipped the egg she was cooking.
“Sure…” I replied.
I looked at the trash bin, then inched closer to it and tapped my toes on the lever that would open it as inconspicuously as possible. Laying in there, under an empty Trix cereal box was the pieces of the contract.
He’d really done it. He’d really ripped it up.
I lifted my foot off the lever slowly so the lid went back down on the bin.
She looked over with a question in her eyes.
“Sorry,” I said. “I - I thought I might’ve dreamed that he threw the contract away,” I explained. Somehow I felt weird about letting Leighanne catch me looking in her trash can, even if I did have a good reason.
She didn’t say anything, just turned back to cooking.
I took a deep breath.
“So.. um… I know we ain’t got much like in common…” That was the understatement of the year. “...but uhm… Well, we do have one pretty major thing in common. Brian.”
“Yeah... ?“ she nodded, turning to face me, a look of interest on her face, although she still looked unsure where this speech was going.
I wasn’t entirely sure myself.
I rubbed my arm, uncomfortable. “So… um… like, maybe… maybe we could, you know, make a better effort with each other in the future?”
She was assembling a breakfast sandwich with english muffin and the egg and some bacon. She contemplated my words and slid the sandwich onto a plate and put it down at an empty spot at the table before turning to face me. I expected almost for her to deny there’d ever been anything between us, like we’d always been friends the whole time and she’d never said bullshit about me and I’d never said bullshit about her, either. But I knew better - there had been a wall there, and it wasn’t just a figment of my imagination. I knew the fans had seen her say stuff before about me. Probably stuff I deserved, honestly, but still.
Leighanne nodded, “I think we could make a much better effort with each other. Both of us,” she added, like she knew what I’d been thinking. She reached out a hand and put it on my shoulder, locking eyes with me. It was a little uncomfortable, her awkward eyes and that smile again, but I could feel the sincerity in it this time. I smiled awkwardly under her stare until she turned back to the stove. “Eat your breakfast sweetie,” she said. “There’s orange juice in the fridge.” She cracked two more eggs on the edge of the pan.
I felt strange as I was grabbing the orange juice out of Brian’s fridge and pouring myself a glass. I sat down and took a bite of my sandwich. Everything was coming together, everything was healing, one little step at a time, and I felt like maybe everything would be okay in the end after all. Maybe I wasn’t gonna lose my friend, whatever I’d always believed.
Brian
As I stood in the shower, my palms pressed to the wall, feeling the hot water spray my face and run in lines down my back, I ran my mind over everything that had happened the night before. I was stoking the flame of hope I’d kindled the night before. I wanted it to burn bigger, brighter, I wanted it to fill me up, consume me. I’d been in such a dark place for so long, I was ready to burn it all down and emerge new and bright like a phoenix from the ashes.
When the water ran cold, I got out and dressed and headed downstairs. Baylee was in the living room watching cartoons and eating cereal as I walked by, and I heard Nick’s laugh echo from the kitchen. I turned that way and hovered a couple steps from the doorway in the dark of the living room as I saw Nick and Leighanne sitting at the kitchen table, glasses of orange juice and plates of food before them, talking and laughing together.
Another miracle? I thought. For the longest time I hadn’t believed I’d even get one miracle. Suddenly, I was being showered with them. I had never seen Nick and Leighanne sit peacefully together without me there to mediate. But here they were. She was telling him about a wardrobe disaster she’d had, back when she’d first started designing clothes and she’d handsewn a piece that had started coming apart at the grocery store. The story had him in a giggling fit that I hadn’t heard the sound of in years.
Leighanne looked up and spotted me. “Husband,” she said, smiling as I stepped into the room. “Breakfast is on the stove.”
“Thanks,” I replied.
I got my sandwich, and they fell silent until I’d sat down at the table, too. I took a bite of food and chewed slowly.
“So what’d you do?” Nick asked, still regaining his breath from laughter.
“I went to the customer service desk and I asked ‘em if they had a stapler and --” she mimed stapling up her whole hip and waist to her bust.
Nick laughed, slapping his palm to his knee, “Oh shit, dawg, you did?”
Leighanne nodded. “Actually, it inspired those jackets I designed with the zipper up the side here.”
Nick’s laughter was still coming out when he looked up at me as I collected my food and sat down, afraid to make any sudden movements and break whatever spell they’d been placed under. Certainly some kind of voodoo magic was at work here. I glanced between them.
Leighanne got up to clear away her plate and ran her hand over my head, smoothing my hair, “You had some cowlicks in the making,” she explained as she put the dish into the sink and started washing it.
“Thanks,” I answered. I looked at Nick. “We’re okay still?” I asked him.
He nodded, “Definitely.”
“You call Lauren?” I asked.
“Shit, no. I better go do that.” He jumped up. “Be right back.” He rushed out of the room.
Leighanne shook the dish of excess water and put it into the draining rack by the sink. She wiped her hands on a dish cloth and turned to face me. “So.” She said, reaching down and picking up the Polaroid that was still on the table. She looked it over carefully a moment, running her thumb over Nick’s note at the bottom, then put it back down, turned to face me. She raised her eyebrow, “You threw the contract away.”
I finished chewing the bite of food I’d just taken and set my sandwich down on the plate. I nodded slowly as the food made it’s way down my throat. “Yeah,” I said. “I ripped it up first.”
She stared into my eyes, reading me. “Good,” she said. She smiled, “You made the right choice. I can see it in your eyes.”
It felt good to hear her say that. It was the first absolute statement she’d made. She turned and left the kitchen, leaving me sitting there with the Polaroid to keep me company. I stared down at it.
It’s gonna be okay, I realized.
It really is going to be okay.
There's Us by Pengi
