He continued to tread water, keeping himself afloat, trying to dodge the waves, but he was growing steadily more tired. His arms ached, but still, he kept them moving, knowing they were his only lifeline. He looked around again, squinting into the horizon, frantic, searching for any sign of land or life. But all around him, he could see nothing but ocean. The very ocean that had been his friend for so long was now his mortal enemy, desperate to claim his life with its wild, tossing waters.
“Help me!” Nick gasped, his shout cut short as his mouth filled with salty water. He spat it out, gagging, coughing, still bobbing in the relentless waves.
His arms were betraying him now, his strength and endurance rapidly leaving him. Again, he searched the wide expanse of water for a boat, and when he did not see one, he raised his eyes to the stormy skies, praying for a helicopter. Lightning forked across the dark clouds, but there was no aircraft.
He was growing panicky now, his eyes filling with desperate tears, which spilled down his already wet cheeks, mixing with the salty sea as they dripped from his chin. He took one last desperate survey of the scenery around him, praying for a way out, for a rescue. But as he bobbed up and down, tossed by the waves, he knew in some far region of his mind that he was about to die.
Weakly closing his eyes, he gave up, quit his struggle, letting himself sink beneath the stormy waters. Salty water rushed into his mouth; he could feel it filling his lungs, driving out the last of his supply of precious air. So this was what it was like to drown.
This is what it was like to die.
All at once, he felt himself being raised up, and opening his eyes, he could see a light above him. Was that it? he wondered. Was he already dead? Had it happened that quickly? He felt his body float effortlessly up, the light growing ever nearer. He closed his eyes again, waiting for the peace he knew would find him when he reached that light.
He wasn’t sure what happened next, but the next time he tried to open his eyes, his eyelids felt as if they were made of lead. When he finally managed to raise them, he found himself lying on a surface that was moist and warm. Taking in his surroundings, he realized he was on the shore, sprawled on a bed of sand, the ocean’s gentle waves licking his toes as they rolled smoothly onto the beach.
The realization hit him – he was not dead after all.
He tried to move, to get up, but his body was sapped, the strength sucked out of him. It was a struggle just to sit up, but finally he managed it. And as soon as he did, he heard a voice calling his name.
“Nick!”
He turned to look and was startled to see Claire jogging toward him.
“Nick, you’re awake!”
“Yeah...” he said slowly. “What happened? How did I get out of the water?”
“I pulled you out.”
“You did? You saved me?”
“Yeah – just in time, huh?” she replied, flopping down on the sand beside him. “You could have died.”
He nodded. “I know... I thought I was dead.”
She smiled and shook her head. “No,” she whispered, “I brought you back.”
“How? Did you give me mouth-to-mouth? Cause I think I could use some of that right now...” He looked up at her hopefully, his eyes lingering on his lips.
She rolled her eyes. “Cut it out, Nick.”
“You know I’m just playin’ with ya,” he said with a grin. But when she looked at him, there was no trace of a smile on her face.
“But I’m not,” she said. Rising to her knees before him, she reached out and gripped his shoulders, looking him right in the eyes. “Did you hear what I said? Cut. It. Out.”
He blinked, bewildered. “I told you, I was just kidding! What are you talking about?”
But she said not another word. She rose to her feet and walked away. He tried to get up, but his body failed him; he was too weak. “Claire, wait!” he called after her, but she showed no sign of hearing him. She did not even turn around.
Sighing in defeat, he fell back against the sand, too exhausted to sit up any longer. He closed his eyes and hoped that when he opened them again, the world would go back to making sense.
It did.
For when he opened his eyes, Nick found himself not on the beach, but in bed. He was quite clammy, and his chest felt tight, making it hard to breathe. Sitting up, he coughed profusely and took a few deep breaths, waiting for the breathless feeling to pass.
When it did, he slowly lay back against his pillows, his thoughts returning to the dream he’d just had, trying to find the sense in it. It reminded him of the recurring shark nightmares he had occasionally, only in this dream, there was no shark. Just the raging waters and the fear of drowning. It was strange though... he’d always had an irrational fear of sharks, but never water. He loved the water. So what was the dream about, and why was he having it now?
He shook his head, as if trying to fling the very memory of the dream off of his mind. What did it matter? It was just another crazy dream; did he really expect it to make some kind of sense?
“The only part of it that makes sense is Claire not making sense,” he murmured, his whisper surprisingly loud in the silence of the night. He paused for a moment, considering the words that had just tumbled out of his mouth. Had that made sense? Did anything make sense these days?
Well, one thing was clear – Claire definitely didn’t. She’d confused him out on the balcony just about as much as she’d confused him at the end of his dream. She’d looked him right in the eyes when they were out there, and he’d seen the emotion there... or he thought he’d seen it. But apparently he had misread her. Because one minute, she was about to kiss him, and the next, she was pulling away and making him feel like some kind of sex-crazed pervert just for trying to kiss her.
“What the fuck, Claire?” he moaned softly in the darkness, dragging his hands down his face in a mix of frustration and exhaustion. Having only gotten a few hours of sleep before the dream had woken him up, he felt drained, but at the same time, wide awake. There would be no more sleep for him now, at least not for awhile. He had to think things over.
There had not been time for logical thinking earlier. It was he who had gone in to comfort Baylee (okay, after he had woken the kid up in the first place), and that had settled him down a little. But after he’d put Baylee back to bed, he’d gone to bed himself, and there the whole thing had come stabbing back into his mind, rather like the knife-wielding psycho killers from teenage slasher movies, who always seemed to revive at the end and come back for one last strike just when you thought they were finally dead. He’d lay seething for a long time, angry and embarrassed by her rejection of him. Then, after awhile, he’d tumbled into a restless sleep, only to wake up a few hours later, breathless and bothered by the dream he’d just had.
He wasn’t so angry anymore, just confused and upset. At first, he placed all the blame on her. She was the one playing games, here – the game of “hard to get,” specifically. He wouldn’t have even tried to make a pass at her if it hadn’t have felt so right, so natural, so... perfect. He thought she’d felt the same way, but apparently not. It wasn’t the first time she’d thrown him a curveball, and he was sure it wouldn’t be the last either. She always seemed to understand him so well... so how come he had such a hard time figuring her out? It was a girl thing, he decided. Women were impossible, and though Claire was different from the other females he’d hung around with in the past few years, she was apparently no exception to this rule. It had to be universal.
Just as he was appeasing himself with this explanation (I bet it’s PMS... don’t they have mood swings like that when it’s, uh... that time?), a light bulb flickered in some part of his brain, as another possibility hit him.
Maybe it was him, not her. Not him PMSing or having mood swings... but him playing games. Not that he’d meant to. But when he thought about it, he’d probably confused the hell out of her too. He had initiated that kiss in the movie and then not even talked to her about it for three weeks... and when the topic finally had come up, he’d told her it had meant nothing to him. Which was, of course, a big fat lie.
At the time, it had seemed the right thing to do, to “let her go” and give her the freedom she deserved while he remained imprisoned in an unpleasant world that revolved around chemotherapy treatments and physical therapy sessions. He had regretted it afterward, but it didn’t change anything. She’d moved on, as he had wanted her to (correction: as he had convinced himself was the best for her), and any hope of something beyond friendship blossoming between them had wilted and died. But his own feelings for her continued to bloom, and letting those feelings get the best of him earlier had been like replanting the seed.
Only to her, it must have seemed like a repeat of what had happened before. No wonder she wanted nothing to do with him. He’d kissed her and then hurt her once before; of course she wouldn’t let it happen again. In putting up a wall to hide his true feelings from her, he’d caused her to put up a wall too. But not a wall to keep herself in – a wall to keep him out.
Realizing all this, he sighed miserably. He felt like crap. What a mess. He just kept screwing things up, and now he didn’t know what to do. If he tried to talk to her, would she believe him? The problem was, she had believed him the first time, when he had lied to her. If she bought his lies, maybe she wouldn’t accept the truth. The truth about how he really felt about her.
“I can’t just tell her,” he murmured, gazing up at the ceiling, which was hardly distinguishable in the dark bedroom. “I have to show her. I have to prove it to her.”
Okay, that made sense. Good work, Carter. Now there was only one thing left to figure out – how?
***
The solution came to him two weeks later, at the first rehearsal for the upcoming charity concert with the guys.
He would sing to her.
He would sing something meaningful, something that would hopefully express his feelings in a way that he could not, verbally. Something that would show her how much she meant to him.
The guys had already discussed the possibility of each singing a solo at the concert, the way they had done during their first U.S. tour. This had been Kevin’s idea, and Nick wasn’t sure if it was his way of assuring that Nick had a chance to rest in the middle of the concert or assuring that he, Kevin, actually got to sing more than a few lines by himself. Maybe it was both. Either way, Nick liked the idea, especially now. Before, he had just assumed he would sing one of the songs from Now or Never, but as he went over the lyrics in his mind now, none of them seemed quite right to get the point across to Claire.
He and Claire were back on good terms, for the most part. The rest of that weekend in Atlanta had been awkward. They’d been alone at the house together twice on Sunday, once that morning, while Brian and Leighanne went to church, and then again that evening, when they’d taken Baylee trick-or-treating (he’d gone as a lion – and roared loudly whenever someone asked, “What does a lion say, Baylee?”). After a full day of awkward silences and avoided gazes, Claire had smirked and said that with Baylee dressed like a lion, Brian should have gone as a scarecrow, and Leighanne should have put on a blue-checked dress, shoved Tyke in a basket, and been Dorothy. “And you would have been the Tin Man, of course,” she added, throwing him a mischievous glance.
“’Course,” he replied, cracking a smile. “And who would you be then?”
“Why, the wicked witch, of course,” she replied with an impish grin.
He chuckled. “Aw, no you wouldn’t... you should be the Good Witch of the South or whatever. The one that comes in a pink bubble.”
“Glinda, the Good Witch of the North,” Claire corrected, sticking her tongue out at him, “and hell no. Can you honestly picture me in a poofy pink dress, carrying a little fairy wand? I don’t think so. Besides, after last night, I’m sure you think I’m more like the Wicked Witch.”
Was that an apology? If so, it was unnecessary, because he had already realized it was he who needed to apologize. So he did. Quickly and simply, without elaboration (because there was really no way he could elaborate without explaining why he’d really tried to kiss her, and it just wasn’t the time for her to hear that), and that was that. Things weren’t quite back to normal between the two of them, but at least they were talking again. Still, the drive home the following day had not been nearly as fun as the drive up. Less conversation, more silence, and a distance between them that far surpassed the arm rest dividing their seats.
Nick hated this new awkwardness that surrounded them and was desperate for a way to get rid of it. And somehow, he knew the only way to do that would be to just talk to her, to be perfectly honest with her. They’d both danced around their feelings and what had gone on between them for far too long. It was time to lay the cards out on the table and just talk. But Nick wasn’t good with words, and talking just wasn’t exactly one of his strong suits.
Singing was.
Which brought him back to his idea. He knew she would be at the concert in December; he had promised her front row tickets, and she had promised to come. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” she’d told him. So all he needed was a song, a special song that show her the truth. It seemed like a romantic idea to Nick, more romantic than just talking to her, and as Nick was not exactly the king of romance, he was rather proud of himself for thinking of it.
Now he just needed the perfect song.
He kept thinking about it as he rehearsed with the group. They were all back together in Tampa now; Brian, Kevin, and AJ had flown in that weekend. There were less than three weeks left before the concert, and it was time to get in gear. They had yet to even finalize their song set, and of course they would have to spend time rehearsing with their band and making sure their voices were in shape.
They had spent the whole morning planning and singing, and by afternoon, Nick was exhausted. Sitting on a stool and singing was more taxing than one would expect, especially with the amount of passion that he threw into it. When Kevin called for a fifteen-minute break, he had to admit, he was relieved. Slouching into a chair, he grabbed his portable CD player and CD case. As he flipped through his large CD collection, trying to decide what to listen to, he came to his set of Journey albums. And all of a sudden, he knew.
“Hey, guys!”
He received scattered responses from the others, who were all doing their own things – Kevin chugging water, Howie scribbling down something on a pad of paper, Brian absently bouncing a mini basketball, and AJ already with a pair of headphones on, rocking out to something. “What, Nick?”
“I know what song I’m gonna sing for my solo,” he announced proudly.
AJ, who had taken off his headphones to see what Nick wanted, rolled his eyes. “Well, terrific, your majesty, we’re so glad.” He’d been a little miffed at the fact that Nick, having already put out a solo album, had tons of material to choose from for his solo, while he and the other guys only had a few select songs that could be performed.
“I’m not gonna sing anything from my album,” said Nick, wondering if this would make any difference to AJ or not. “I wanna sing ‘Open Arms’.”
AJ cocked his head. “Why? You haven’t sang that song onstage in years.”
“I have my reasons,” Nick said with a furtive smile.
“Well, we can arrange for that, Nick,” Kevin said with a nod, capping his water bottle.
AJ expelled an exaggerated sigh and shook his head. “I dunno about that, dude. Nick, you shoulda gone with ‘Miss America’.”
Nick laughed. AJ loved “Miss America.” It had been a longstanding joke that he’d always wanted that song for himself. “Nah... but hey, if you wanna sing ‘Miss America,’ be my guest. It’s all yours.”
“Nick!” Brian gasped. “Don’t say that! He’ll be humping the stage right and left if he sings that song, and there’ll be children in the audience!”
They all roared with laughter, except for AJ, who rolled his eyes behind his sunglasses and flipped them the bird. “Y’all suck,” he grinned.
“Hey, you’re the one who actually did that! I’d say that’s definitely grounds for us ripping on you,” said Brian, then began to snicker. “Haha, get it? Grounds? The stage?” He laughed hysterically at his own pun, the basketball falling out of his hands. It bounced off the toe of his tennis shoes and rolled away, which, for some reason, made them all crack up.
It felt good, to be goofing off and laughing together that way. It reminded Nick of countless other rehearsals they’d been through together, for tours, awards shows, TV appearances, and the like. It reminded him of the good old days. Those days were over now, he knew. But it was moments like these that reassured him that there would still be good days ahead.
It was also moments like these made it impossible to consider the reverse – that there would also be bad days ahead.
Claire was not the only one who threw curveballs. Life rather enjoyed throwing them too.
***
