A story that has been edited and rewritten more times then I can count. Will this be the final version? You be the judge.

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He still haunts me. To this day I can't get his face out of my mind. I could've help him. I could've saved his life. But I was too caught up in my own problems to notice how serious his were. How could I be so stupid? How could I not see that he was depressed? How could I not hear his cries for help? Was I that shallow? That oblivious?

Twenty years ago.

So long ago. So many years I've spent without him. He'd be forty-five this month. But no, his life was cut short. All because I was blind.

*"Please! Don't leave! Stay here!"*

*"Nick no, shit, I've things to do!"*

Why didn't I stay?

* "Please! I don't want to be alone and..."*

*"God! Grow up! You're twenty-five not two. You can be alone you know!"*

Why? Why was I so cruel? I was his driving force. My not caring caused him to do what he did. My selfishness killed him. My own stupidity. He wanted me there. And I wasn't. I'll never be there. It's all over now. I can't change the past.

*'Twenty-five year old Backstreet Boy, Nick Carter, was found dead in his apartment this morning after committing suicide...'*

Funny how they say to move on and forget the past when really it's the past that controls your future. It haunts you, nibbling at your soul until there's nothing left. Until you're just bones...white chalky useless bones.

*"...I have this fear that I'll end up just like Kurt Cobain..."*

*"Don't be stupid Nick..."*

In the end who was stupider? Me.

Slowly I turn the pages in my scrapbook, watching as the months drifted past us. Nick's smile dimmed more and more before it finally vanished. Watching as his eyes grew more vacant as the pages flipped in my shaking hands. Watching as he grew more empty. More depressed.

How could I have not noticed? I just didn't see! I didn't want to see!

*"Don't you ever feel cold? Not on the outside, but on the inside...?"*

*"Don't be ridiculous Nick."*

He was so beautiful. So talented. So absolutely depressed and so alone.

He could've been so happy.

He needed me. Needed my comfort. He could've gotten through this! Could've been here today. Sitting with me right now.

*"...I hear whispers in the dark. They're calling for me."*

*"Who?"*

*"Them."*

Why couldn't I see? Why was I so increasingly dumb?

Another page turn and suddenly he's disappeared out of the pictures.

Why? Because he wasn't there anymore.

Gone.

All because of me.

*"...I was helping Bob clean out Nick's apartment today, and I swear, I heard him crying!"*

I no longer can close my eyes. I have stolen my own sleep. I only see his face. His lifeless body dangling from the ceiling. Slightly turning, slightly twisting with the wind from an open window. I only see his once glorious body in a casket, his neck scarred with the indentation of rope. I only see him as he was that morning, frozen in time, just hanging there, drifting almost.

And he's calling for me in my dreams. Haunting me, letting me know every night how he died.

*"...I walked in...he wasn't there...I went upstairs and..."*

Of course I was the one who found his body. It was my punishment for not seeing... All he wanted was to be seen and I denied him that!

*"...he was dangling from the ceiling. He had tears still on his cheeks...If only I came eariler..."*

Earlier! How earlier? Minuets? Hours? MONTHS?

Why couldn't I see? Why couldn't I have just opened my fucking eyes!



I close them now, and see his blue orbs of light. Always there. They never leave.

Almost mechanically I reach for his suicide note.

*"...Emptiness has a way of filling you up. After a while you overflow, and drown in your own tears..."*

How many times did he rewrite it?

Was the first time out of desperation?

Had he been writing it for years...?

The bottom of the page is blurry, partial from his tears, but more my own. His last thoughts written on that beige stationary.

Stationary I gave him when he was fourteen. Stationary with the gold N. Carter written on the top.

My eyes cloud over as I read what I know I've read a thousand times before...

*'A.J.--It isn't your fault. I know who you really are. It's what you turned into that destroyed me. Turn around...Change yourself before you fall also...'*

But I never listened...

How could I?

I destroyed myself when I destroyed Nick.

THE END