June 01, 2002 Tampa, Florida

Curled up next to an empty crib Nick had fallen asleep. He couldn’t even bring himself to sit in the rocking chair, he didn’t have the energy. After reading Tina’s note he had scoured the house looking for some kind of sign that it was all a joke. He wanted them to pop out of a closet somewhere laughing at his expense but that hadn’t happened. So he’d ended up in Zoey’s room, staring into her empty crib; the bedding made up and a small stuffed giraffe still sitting on the inside. He’d nearly had a panic attack when he saw the stuffed animal, thinking of how Zoey must have been feeling wherever she was without the giraffe that she loved so much. He’d clutched it in his arms before sliding onto the floor where he had stayed for hours, sleeping, crying, and clutching a giraffe.

When he woke up and realized that it wasn’t a dream and they were really gone he’d felt desperation course through his veins. All he wanted was to be with his kids. With the brown and yellow animal still held tightly in his hand he raced into the master bedroom, grabbing a cordless phone off the night stand. He punched in Tina’s number and anxiously held the receiver to one ear.

“The number you have reached is not in service. Please check the number and try your call again,” a robotic female voice announced and Nick’s face fell. He hung up and immediately dialled Lynn’s number, hoping to reach the older woman but he received the same message; the number had been disconnected. He couldn’t believe the lengths they had gone through to get away. He was ready to fix things, he was ready to compromise and now he was alone.

Biting back the sob that was rising from the back of his throat Nick threw the phone to the floor and raced out of the bedroom. Down the stairs and through the house he flew as if compelled by an outside force. He went out the front door and straight across the street, pounding his hand on wood.

After a few moments the door swung open and a curious looking Max gave him the once over, “Nick?” she asked, taking note of his tear filled eyes and the giraffe still in his hand, “Can I help you?”

“Where did she go?” he demanded, using the back of his hand to wipe away his tears, “You know; I know you know! Tell me how to get in contact with her.”

Max sighed and crossed her arms across her chest, staying in the doorway so Nick wouldn’t step into the house, “I don’t know. She said she would call me later.”

“This is your fault!” he accused, pointing a finger at the redhead, “If you had never moved in here she wouldn’t have left!”

She shook her head at him sadly, the pity clear across her face, “You’re blind,” she told him softly, “This is your fault. You drove her away. Her mother and I only encouraged her to get out of an abusive relationship for the sake of her children.”

“Our children,” he snapped defensively, “and how can you call me abusive?!” he threw his hands out in aggravation, “I never touched her! I would never have hurt her!”

“That’s where you’re not seeing the big picture,” Max told him, keeping her cool as she stepped out of the house, shutting the door behind her as she joined him on the porch, “It’s more than just being physical. It was a mentally, and emotionally abusive relationship. It wasn’t just you, it was both of you. Some people just shouldn’t be together no matter how in love they are. You two shouldn’t be together you’ll destroy each other!”

“We’re supposed to be together,” he whispered, bringing the giraffe to his face to shield a fresh onslaught of tears, “We’re going to get married. I was ready to fix things.”

“Did you ever think that maybe Tina wasn’t ready to fix things?” Max suggested, reaching out to pull Nick’s hands away from his eyes, “You both have so many things to work on within yourselves and I don’t think you could do it together.”

He yanked his hands away from the woman, glaring at her, “You cunt!” he exploded irrationally, “Fuck you for thinking you could get involved in my life. You have ruined everything! You don’t know shit about me or about Tina. For crying out loud you tried to convince her to drug me! Who do you think you are?! Do you realize what you just did to my kids? Fuck you,” he repeated the slur for the final time before turning on his heels to head back to the house.

The words didn’t hurt Max; in fact she had expected them. She’d seen Nick arrive home early that morning and she knew he would end up at her door slinging expletives. She had been honest with Nick when she told him that she didn’t know how to get in contact with Tina. It had been just over a week since Tina’s father had left driving a U-Haul van with the last of their stuff, so it was on a matter of time before she expected to hear from them.

“If you keep putting all the blame on me you’re never going to get her back!” Max called out to Nick’s retreating form. She felt bad for the guy, it was a terrible way to have the rug pulled out from under you, but she knew that he needed to work on his faults if he was ever going to convince Tina to marry him.

~*~

Sniffling Nick held the phone out in front of him, dialling a familiar number. He was embarrassed for the way he’d acted on Max’s doorstep, in plain sight of half the neighbourhood, but he was so angry. It was so easy to blame her because she had been the catalyst in the destruction of their relationship but deep down he knew she was right, that it was their own issues that were the bigger problem.

He held the phone to his ear as it rang, feeling anxious until he heard a voice pick up on the other end.

“Brian?” he asked with another sniffle even though he immediately recognized his best friend’s voice on the phone.

“Nick? Are you okay? Are you crying?”

“They’re gone,” Nick cried, launching into the story of what had happened that morning, how he’d come home to an empty house and a note.

Once Nick had gotten it all out Brian sighed on the other end of the phone, “Nick...” he paused, searching for the right words to comfort the younger man, “Do you want me to be honest with you?”

“Of course I do!” Nick agreed, wanting to know what Brian’s advice would be.

“I’m sure you’ve heard this quote before but someone once said that if you love something set it free. If it comes back, it’s yours and if it never does, it never was.”

Nick waited for the rest of the advice to come but Brian had stopped talking. Surely he didn’t mean that he should just move on, because that wasn’t an option. He couldn’t set Tina free; he didn’t want to set her free.

“I don’t understand,” he admitted sadly, “How can I let Zoey go? How can I let Parker go? It’s not fair of her to expect me to just let them go in the hopes that she’ll decide to come back some day. Or by that saying there’s a chance she’ll never come back and I’m just supposed to accept it because it’s meant to be?”

“No,” Brian scratched his head, trying to find a way to put it to him gently, “I’m just saying that from an outsider’s point of view it’s not really surprising that she took off.”

All of the Backstreet Boys had been concerned about Nick’s relationship with Tina but none of them as much as Brian. He had seen the two of them interact more than the others and he could see the same things that Tina’s parents and Max were seeing; that the relationship was terribly unhealthy. Brian suspected it was Nick’s upbringing that went into the way he’d come to treat women. His first experiences with girls were groupies, and he had learned to use and dispose of them like commodities. Then there was the family influence. Nick got his temper from his parents and their relationship was not the benchmark for which any relationship should have been based.

It was terribly twisted the way Brian watched Tina be dominated and controlled, it had made him pity the girl. What was most unfortunate was that Nick had picked a person, a girl out of all the others that was weak and vulnerable. He had found the perfect person to control. That worked well when she was 18, but after a few years and a few children Tina had started to develop a backbone and Nick hadn’t matured at the same rate. The result was a disaster. They were the dictionary definition of dysfunctional.

Nick wanted to argue with him and tell Brian how Tina hadn’t held up her end of the bargain either but he couldn’t. He just wanted them to come back and if taking the blame for the whole fiasco was the first step then he would have to comply, “So what do I do?” he asked, defeated.

Brian looked over at Leighanne who was sitting next to him on the couch and put his hand on her pregnant belly, not able to imagine the pain that Nick was feeling just then. His son wasn’t expected for another four months but he couldn’t imagine him being ripped out of his life.

“You do the only thing you can do. Wait.”