Chapter Eight
Nick
“Nick?” Brian sounded surprised.
“Somethings in my eye,” I lied and I tried to get up to go to the bathroom to lock him out so I could let the cloudy feeling in me float off without him staring at me but I got dizzy the second I moved and I laid back on the bed. “Fucker at the bar gave me like a concussion or something,” I groaned. “I’m not crying.”
“I didn’t say you were,” he said.
But we both knew he knew I was.
Brian moved to stand up and looked down at me. Looking up at him, it was like I was laying on that couch in the band house all over again and my nightmares were suddenly reality once more. I felt my throat seize up even more than it already was.
“Fuck. I hate crying, I hate everything to do with crying.”
Crying is a weakness, my father used to yell that at me whenever I cried when I was little. I’ve cried very frugally since then.
“Nick, it’s okay to cry.”
“No it isn’t,” I said. My throat was fire. I shook my head, “Fuck.”
He frowned.
“Stop looking at me like that,” I said.
“Like what?”
“Like you did that night,” I replied.
“What night?”
“The night, Brian, the night,” I said. I struggled to roll away so he wouldn’t look at me and managed only to roll myself right off the bed and onto the floor with a thump. Brian dropped to his knees beside me and helped me right myself. I put a hand on my face where the bruise was smarting from having hit the carpet on the way down.
Brian sat down, facing me, my back against my bed and his against his, the space between the two beds not even enough for either of us to fully stretch our legs out. He stared at me for a long moment and he said slowly, “What night, Nick?”
I couldn’t look at him. I stared at my knees, at the way they bent in front of me, my feet pressed against the bottom of Brian’s bed. “It’s stupid, kinda, really,” I muttered. And suddenly it did seem stupid, stupid that I’d hold onto a grudge against him for so long when, really, it wasn’t even Brian who had done anything at all. He didn’t even know why it was such a big deal. How could he? I had never told him. I cleared my throat.
“Tell me, nick,” he urged.
I closed my eyes and shook my knee with nervous energy. “It was when my parents divorced and my mom had moved me and the other kids to that shitty apartment house in Tampa, remember? The one with the dishwasher AJ said sounded like if Jabba the Hut had a stomach ulcer?”
Brian laughed breathily at the memory of the comment. “Yeah, I remember that place.”
“Well we didn’t have enough money, even for that shitty place, ‘cos alls we had was my $75 a week and she claimed she couldn’t work ‘cos she had to drive me to and from Orlando all the time to earn that and stuff and I felt like shit… ‘cos she made me feel like shit. I was just a kid and I was the main income for my family, and that’s hard and I felt like I didn’t do enough and you know how much we were doin’ back then.”
Brian’s voice was low, “Yeah. We were hardly ever home.”
“I know, but it wasn’t enough.” I opened my eyes again, but still couldn’t bear to look at him. “So… so this night, I went to Lou’s house. I took the bus all the way from Tampa without even telling my mom, and I get to his place and he lets me in. It was like ten at night by the time I got there and he asks me what I’m doing out so late alone and I told him about my family, how - how we were - were goin’ to bed hungry and shit and how the apartment was - was all we could afford…” I felt like there was a force tightening around my throat, pulling my lungs closed.
Brian’s eyes were on me, I could feel ‘em.
“I asked him for - for more money,” I tightened the corners of my mouth, trying like hell to hold back the emotion that was building up inside me. Every fiber of my being was having to push energy toward getting the words out because desperate little hands of fear were trying to hold it back, to keep me from telling Brian the truth.
“What’d he say?” Brian asked.
My mouth had never been so dry in all my life.
I paused, biting my lip, letting courage build up in me. I looked up and my eyes met Brian’s for the first time since I’d started speaking. A hundred things passed between us… all the words I didn’t know how to say, the words my heart wouldn’t let me say.
“He said there were ways I could earn more money.”
Brian shook his head, his jaw dropping, “No… No.” He paused, just staring, absorbing the information I couldn’t speak. “Did he... hurt you?” Brian’s voice was only just barely above a whisper.
I felt my stomach turn and I looked away from Brian, at the floor, at the pattern of the carpet. “I left as soon as I realized… what he meant,” I said. The tears wouldn’t stay in my eyes now.
Brian’s voice shook. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I tried,” I choked.
“When?”
“That… that night,” I squeaked. My throat was so tight, and my whole face felt all red and blotchy. “I ran all the way to the band house from Lou’s, trying to get to you to tell you what was going on… It was important, I told’ja it was important but you were… with Leighanne… and you were - were busy… but I needed you, I needed you and you weren’t there, the first time ever you weren’t there when I needed you. I hated her for it and I hated… I hated you for it.”
There were tears in Brian’s eyes now too. He closed his eyes and took in a shaking, emotional breath.
“I didn’t know what else to do, Brian,” I cried, “So I just hated you for it.”
I felt so stupid, sitting there, crying like a little kid.
“I’m sorry, Nick,” he said thickly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
Brian
My heart had never felt as broken as it did sitting in that hotel room, learning that Nick had nearly been molested, right under my nose. I felt like I’d failed him. It had been my responsibility to keep him safe and I hadn’t done that. A cold creeping sensation filled me from the bottom up as Nick’s tears fell across his bruised face.
So many things very suddenly made sense about the past, like a beacon of light, suddenly everything it touched made sense. Nick hating Leighanne, Nick being angry with me, pulling away, spiraling into depression, becoming addicted to drugs and sex and falling apart. His need to be seen, his need for getting his way, being a workaholic, all the things that had infuriated me about him over all these years. It all made sense.
Nick had never had a reliable father figure in his life. All these years, I’d thought of myself as having been Nick’s father figure, but I hadn’t been. I had betrayed him at a time when he needed a father the very most, like all the other father figures he had in his life (his paternal father, Lou, me, even Kevin eventually had let him down by leaving the band when he’d gone too far into drugs and alcohol). No wonder he had animosity towards me.
I’d been a horrible friend (slash father figure) not to see it all along.
Especially when the rumors started when Lou had been arrested, when Ashley Parker Angel and the guys from *NSYNC and various other boy bands Lou had started spoke out, I should’ve known then because when we talked amongst ourselves, though Nick denied it, he was very quiet about it. Had he been sitting there during that moment of private time between the five of us, thinking of that night, internally struggling with whether to tell us about what Lou had suggested or not? Had he decided not to because nothing had actually happened, though the emotional scars were still throbbing painfully from the mere idea that Lou had laid the opportunity on the table?
He was quiet now, too.
He might be taller and bigger than me but when he did that he still kinda looked like a little kid as he sat there all bleary eyed and red-faced.
“It’s my fault,” he said quietly.
“It’s not your fault, Nick,” I said.
“It is,” he said. “This whole thing between you and me… it is my fault because I never told you. I just expected you to… to know, I guess. I didn’t give you a chance to fix it.” He shrugged. “And I’ve been such a dick to you about your voice,” he mumbled, “But… it’s only ‘cos it scares me. You asked me the other day if I wanted you to lose your voice, and the answer is I don’t. It’s the last thing I want in the whole world, the thought of it scares the bejeebus out of me.”
I licked my lips. “It scares the bejeebus out of me, too,” I said.
Nick ran his hand through his hair. “We’re both just scared ain’t we?”
I nodded. “We are,” I answered. I sighed and leaned back, looking up at the ceiling.
“You’re right about one thing. I can’t imagine what it’d feel like to be you, to be the one going through it,” Nick said quietly.
I took a deep breath, “It kinda feels like if Superman was put on a Kryptonite IV.”
Nick frowned, “That would suck.”
“It does suck.”
Nick thought for a moment. “There’s gotta be a way to fix it. Your voice I mean.”
“The doctors just say I need to work on the therapy,” I said with a shrug.
Nick chewed his lower lip. “Yeah. That therapy.”
I looked at him thoughtfully. “I’m sorry I let you down, Frack,” I said.
“I’m sorry I held a grudge on you for like twelve years,” he answered.
I reached over and shook his knee with my palm. “We’re gonna be okay, kid,” I said.
Nick nodded slowly.
“Your face is the most brilliant shade of purple I’ve ever seen,” I added, tilting my head to get a good look at it.
Nick’s smile spread slowly, “Do I look like a fuckin’ Spartan warrior or something?”
“You’re a regular Agamemnon,” I replied, getting up. I held out my hand to help him up. “Let’s put some ice on that thing before your whole face looks like a pool toy.”
Nick laughed and I attempted to pull him to his feet, but he’s a lot bigger than me and my help was less necessary than it was comical, and he pushed himself up from the floor by leaning against the nightstand.
Nick
There was an unexplainable weight that was lifted off my shoulders after our talk. We walked from the hotel room to the vending and ice machines and filled a handtowel with ice cubes, which I held against my face. It stung at first, but it was a relief, too. I felt like once the bruise was cleared up that all the problems of my whole life would be gone with it.
Well, except one.
I sat in bed long after Brian had fallen asleep, my computer open, tongue in cheek in concentration, looking up Brian’s condition. If Superman had a kryptonite problem, then, damn it, I was going to find a way to fix it. In my Google search, I saw all the exercises he’d been doing the other night - stick your tongue out as far as possible, massage above your thyroid, hum, learning to yawn on command… But there was a lot of information about the condition. For example, in addition to being something that’s caused by respiratory and esophageal issues, it’s also a learned condition, meaning it was something that could be developed over a long period of time misusing the vocal chords.
I chewed my lips.
In 2009, when we were in Japan to film our music video for Bigger, Brian had caught the Swine Flu. He’d been out for weeks with this bad ass flu that had fucked with every possible part of his body. I thought about it and, though the problem had been developing prior to that point, it had gotten considerably worse since then. It’d been happening since the Unbreakable tour, really, but only really bad since the H1N1 had crawled into Brian’s system.
We’d all abused our vocal chords, really, I thought. Over the years since we’d started, we’d all overused our voices for months - years, even - on end, not really practicing the vocal rests and silence periods the way that professionals are recommended to do. We were too damn busy, honestly, to ever indulge in those kinds of breaks.
Actually, after researching more about what Brian’s condition was exactly and what caused it, I was kinda surprised that all five of us weren’t suffering from it by now.
The good news was this though: if it was something he’d learned to do… wasn’t it true that it was something he could unlearn to do?
I glanced over at Brian where he lay, sleeping peacefully, head rolled to one side, eyes wobbling in REM sleep. Years had been stolen from us, I thought, by the things we’d been through and the things we never said. Well, no more. It was time to fix the things that had been broken.
And we were gonna start with Brian’s voice.
Brian
When I woke up in the morning, Nick wasn’t in bed.
“Nick?” I called, my voice breaking mid-word. I cleared my throat, turning my head back. It was always groggy first thing in the morning. “Nick?” I tried again, sitting up.
He came out of the bathroom and my first instinct was to cringe because his poor face was so swollen and bruised. I felt bad. “Oh man that looks bad,” I said.
“I know,” he replied. He shuffled over to the bed and sat down with a sigh, “It’ll get better though. At least today’s an off day and tomorrow’s all radio.” We were driving the five hours to Frankfurt, Germany later that day - just Nick and I, Mike and Drew were flying, this was thanks to Jen’s grand plan to help make Nick and I be friends again. I wondered if we sent her a picture of us getting along again if she’d book us a flight, too.
“Video killed the radio star,” I mumbled. I reached for the room service menu and flipped it open, looking at the options.
Nick cleared his throat, “So I decided something last night.”
“What’s that?” I asked, looking up.
“I decided I’m gonna help you with your therapy,” he declared.
“You are?”
“Yes.”
I stared at him for a moment. “How?”
“I researched it last night,” he said, “And it says it’s a learned condition.”
“Right,” I nodded slowly, wondering where he was going with this.
“So… so I’ma help you unlearn it,” he said. He waved his hands at the menu, “Order tea with honey, ‘cos we gotta lot of work to do,” he said, and he got up. “I’ma take a shower. I want bacon. Lots of bacon. Lauren ain’t around to tell me no.” I watched as he disappeared into the bathroom.
I ran my hand to my throat once the door closed.
I’d been planning to tell Nick about me leaving the band during our ride to Germany. But suddenly my mind was filled with mental images of Nick helping me to reclaim control on my vocals. If I could control them… then I wouldn’t need to quit the band. I could stay working with the Backstreet Boys, stay touring, stay singing. I could back all the things I felt like I’d lost over the past several years since the muscle tension dysphonia had developed and I’d be free again… free to be me again… free to be Brian again.
I nodded slowly, wrapping my mind around the idea that maybe last night had been nothing shy of a miracle. Maybe that creeper at the bar had done more good than harm, whatever Nick’s face might look like. Maybe everything could go back to the way it was, years ago, when we were happy and touring and Frick & Frack. Maybe the glory days were about to return, finally, after years and years of praying for a second chance.
I called down to room service and ordered Nick the biggest plate of bacon you ever did see.
There's Us by Pengi
