A few hours later, we had our first experience of Lou Pearlman’s true animosity. The five Forever girls and Donna Wright were huddled around a telephone on speaker in a small conference room in the hotel. “Absolutely not,” Lou said firmly. “He wasn’t a relative, and I don’t see why you girls feel like you need to go to the funeral.”

“Lou,” Donna said gently. “He’s a very close friend who was killed fighting for our country. I think the fans would understand. Besides, they’re going to the concerts to see the Backstreet Boys anyway. No offense, ladies.”

“None taken,” Mel smiled weakly.

Donna continued. “Howie told me this morning that they’d be willing to lengthen their show, maybe throw in a couple extra numbers to make up for the loss of an opening act.”

Lou was silent for several moments, almost like he was considering it. Then he finally spoke again. “Exactly how close were the two of you, Miss Rose? Was he your boyfriend? This could make a hell of a story in Seventeen.....Heartbroken newcomer to the pop world draws inspiration from loss... Hmm...” I could literally see the dollar signs in his eyes and felt like I was going to be sick.

“No. Absolutely not,” Mel snapped.

“Mr. Pearlman, sir,” Christina cut in gently. “We’d just like to go pay our respects to our friend and let him rest in peace and with dignity. Surely you can understand that.”

“What if we cut your soundchecks short and cancel your radio interviews for the next couple days, but you still perform at your concerts? That way you’d have the opportunity to grieve properly.”

“Lou,” I leaned forward on the table and five pairs of eyes turned to look at me. “I’m going. The funeral’s Tuesday at 11:00. If we leave after the show tonight, we could be back in time for the show in Manchester on Wednesday, so we’d miss two shows tops. This isn’t negotiable,” I spat out. The rest of them were shocked at my boldness, but I made no apologies for my pissed off attitude.

Turns out, it actually was negotiable. The rest of the girls agreed to stay behind and continue the shows without me after Lou threatened to fire us from the rest of the tour and offer the next gig he had lined up for us to Britney. Amelia was extremely reluctant to let me go by myself, but finally relented when she knew that I’d only be alone while in the air, and I insisted that I was so exhausted that I’d probably be sleeping most of the time anyway. Howie and his bodyguard dropped me off at the airport and my older brother Ryan was waiting for me as I stepped off the plane at JFK in New York City.

He smiled sadly as I bounded towards him and wrapped me in a protective bear hug. “I’m so sorry, Em,” he murmured into the top of my head as fresh tears coursed down my cheeks. “How long is your layover?”

“Three and a half hours,” I stammered, wiping my face and pulling my carry-on up higher on my shoulder. He immediately grabbed it from me and draped his arm around my shoulders.

“That gives me time to take my baby sis to my favorite restaurant for lunch,” he said as he lead me outside and to a taxi.

“How’d you get out of class?” I asked. Ryan was in his first year of medical school at Columbia and had been living in New York for just a few months.

“We just finished up the last block of exams before semester finals yesterday, so there’s not going to be too much going on in my classes anyway. I’ve got a buddy who takes good notes. I surely wouldn’t miss this,” he said gently, wrapping his arm around my neck and pulling me close. I burrowed my head into his shoulder and attempted to blink back more tears.

A few minutes later, we were sitting in a little bistro in Brooklyn. After the waitress had taken our orders, Ryan cocked his head to the side and peered at me from across the table. “So how’s it been going? Besides the whole ‘my best friend just died, life sucks’ thing?”

I cleared my throat. “Things were going pretty good, I guess. I mean, touring Europe with the girls as the opening act for international pop stars is the stuff dreams are made of.”

“Yeah....for you it definitely is.” He grinned. “So, are the paparazzi going to start following me around soon because I’m the older brother of a celebrity?”

“Meh- I doubt it. It’d be pretty cool though, huh?”

“Absolutely.” Ryan smiled, but his face fell when he noticed I was now staring down my glass of iced tea, stirring it with my straw and avoiding eye contact. “Em? What’s wrong?”

“Dad hates it.” I was a daddy’s girl through and through, and to think he was disappointed in me almost made me want to just stay in Kentucky after the funeral and go to college instead of going back on tour.

“Of course he does,” Ryan matter-of-factly. “We’re talking about the guy who taught you long division when you were five. How was he supposed to know you would turn out to be so multi-talented?” I blushed and continued studying my drink quietly. “You never did take compliments well,” he stifled a laugh and I smiled wearily. “Don’t worry about Dad. He’ll come around,” Ryan assured me.

“I hope so,” I whispered. Our food arrived and Ryan engaged me in small talk until he put me on a plane headed towards Lexington and made me add him to the list of people I was supposed to call when I landed, which was already comprised of Amelia and Howie.

My parents picked me up at the airport and nothing was mentioned about how I was letting them down by not going to college. The three hour ride home was pretty much silent and mom immediately got to work on preparing spaghetti (my favorite) when we got there. Dad took me to the visitation that night and both of them went to the funeral with me the next day. It was just as one would expect a funeral for a 19-year old to be--horribly depressing. If I thought I was heartbroken before I saw Danny’s mom, my heart was literally in a million pieces afterwards.

I told my dad that I was planning on taking an online college class starting in January on the way back to the airport, which brought a genuine smile to his face. As we were waiting for my turn to board the plane, he told me he was proud of me. If it weren’t for the somber occasion that had brought me back to Kentucky, I would have been beaming.

Amelia and Donna picked me up at the airport in Manchester and took me back to the hotel. It was after midnight and had been a scheduled day off for the group before our two final shows in Manchester and Dublin. Donna told us goodnight as we stepped off the elevator on our floor and Amelia began leading me towards the room we would be sharing, but I soon stopped dead in my tracks. In my exhaustion, I had to rub my eyes to make sure I wasn’t seeing things, but sure enough, there they were. Melissa and Howie were in quite the compromising position near the end of the hallway. Her back was up against the wall and one of her legs was hiked up around his waist while they kissed each other hungrily.

“Whoa,” Amelia muttered. “Well, that’s news to me.” She ushered me into our room and asked if I was okay with being alone for a few minutes while she let the others know we were back. I assured her that I’d really rather be alone anyway.