At the word “school,” it hit him. “Leah? Leah Gaylers?”
Her face broke into a smile. “You do remember!”
“Yeah, sure, now I do. Haven’t seen you in forever.”
“I know.”
There was another pause, a rather uncomfortable one. Nick struggled for words, knowing he should ask her what had been going on in her life and all that, but also not really caring. It wasn’t like Leah had been one of his old grade school friends or anything. Quite the opposite, in fact. By the time he had left the seventh grade to join the Backstreet Boys, he had hated Leah Gaylers’ guts.
It hadn’t started out that way. In fact, from about fifth grade on, he had had a huge crush on her. Leah Gaylers was one of those girls that you couldn’t help having a crush on. She was pretty and popular, student council representative, captain of the seventh grade cheerleading squad... you know the type. But she was also an extreme snob, something Nick hadn’t really realized until the beginning of his seventh grade year.
The school was having a Back to School Dance, which was only open to seventh and eighth graders. He had never been to a dance before, nor had he ever asked a girl out, and he figured this would be a good opportunity to do both for the first time. And instantaneously, he knew just the girl to ask. Leah Gaylers, of course.
Looking back on it now, he couldn’t understand how he hadn’t realized it wouldn’t work. Leah was practically royalty, and he was just Nick Carter, one of those unfortunate “unpopular” souls, the skinny, weird one who was teased because he was always getting out of school for his singing and acting gigs. No one at the time ever thought he’d be a star, and Leah was just like the rest. He wrote her a note, asking her to the dance, and gave it her after school, blushing furiously and darting away as soon as he had slipped it into her hand. Peeking around the corner a few seconds later, he had watched her unfold it and read it, a smile turning up her lips. He still remembered the euphoric feeling that had risen within him; his heart had begun to race with excitement as he realized that she was going to say yes. Her smile told him so.
His intuition was very wrong, however. A moment later, Leah ran across the hall to one of her girlfriends, who was standing at her own locker, and squealed, “Ohmygod, read this, just read this! Can you believe it?!” The girl read it and burst out laughing, shrieking, “Nick? Ohmygod, he’s such a weirdo; I can’t believe he asked you to the dance!” This of course brought a whole herd of girls stampeding over, and before long, they were all gathered around Leah, laughing hysterically at Nick’s note. Leah’s laugh rose over the rest, more of a malicious cackle than the beautiful, tinkling, girly laugh Nick had grown to adore.
His shoulder slumped in defeat, his face red hot with embarrassment, Nick ran away down the hall before any of those girls saw him. Leah had never given him an official answer, choosing to ignore his note instead. But he already knew what her answer was.
And after that, he hadn’t liked Leah so much anymore.
And standing here now, looking into her older, but familiar face, the pain and utter humiliation of that moment came flooding back to Nick in a whirlwind of emotion.
“So... um... how are things going with you?” Leah asked the question first, letting Nick off the hook.
“Oh... good... pretty good,” he replied. “Uh... how are things with you?”
“Fine.”
“That’s good.” Nick waited for a moment, then said, “Well, I better be getting back to my table; my friends are gonna start wondering where I am. Nice seeing you ag-”
“Hey, Nick?” she interrupted him, touching his arm.
“Yeah?”
“Um... you don’t have to or anything, but if you’re gonna be in Tampa for awhile... would you wanna grab a drink with me sometime? You know, catch up on old times and stuff?”
Nick stared at her. The girl had laughed at him when he had asked her out ten years ago, and now she was asking him to go out for drinks with her? He knew exactly why she had asked; it was the same reason most women wanted to go out with him. He was a Backstreet Boy. He was famous, and he was rich, and many a beautiful but shallow girl had tried to get him to go out with her for that very reason. And he had to admit, he had fallen for their traps before. Like with Mandy...
“Oh, I dunno, I’m gonna be pretty busy,” he said, blowing her off casually. “I’ve got a tour coming up in a couple weeks.”
“Oh, how cool.” She smiled. “Well, I understand. It was really nice to see you again, Nick. And congratulations on all your success. I never you thought you would-“
“Yeah,” Nick said shortly. “No one did.”
Leah looked taken aback. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant... well... congratulations! I think it’s awesome.” She smiled again, and her brown eyes twinkled. Nick gulped. She was still so beautiful, just like in seventh grade. If she hadn’t have done what she did back then, she would be completely irresistible to him now.
“Thanks,” he said. “It was nice to see you too.” He returned the smile, but it was not genuine. Then he headed back to his table, half-surprised that she hadn’t asked him for an autograph so she could auction it off for big bucks on Ebay. It just seemed like the sort of thing a girl like that would do.
***
