After Leighanne took off toward the exit at the airport, Brian decided to take his time getting home. He wanted to give her a chance to cool down so that they could have the conversation that was coming rationally. Trying to talk to Leighanne when she was mad was like trying to get out of a padded room in a straight-jacket.

When Brian arrived back home he half-expected to see all of his things being thrown out of a second story window. Surprisingly enough, the lawn was clean. When he walked into the house, however, clean wasn't necessarily the word to use. It was more or less chaos. Leighanne must have gone on a rampage when she had gotten back home. Brian's framed gold record awards were smashed in the dining room along with the china that he and Leighanne had received as a wedding gift. His and Leighanne's wedding picture had been taken out of the frame and ripped in half. There was a fire burning in the fireplace with all of their photo albums—including Brian's childhood memories and his archives of his first few years as a Backstreet Boy—melting inside.

Furiously, Brian rushed over to the fireplace and reached inside to try to salvage what he could of the photo albums. Then, despite the stinging burns on his hands, he took the stairs two at a time until he reached his and Leighanne's bedroom. He flung the door opened and saw that—just like in the living and dining rooms—this room was a mess, too. Instead of destroying all of Brian's things, however, Leighanne was packing.

“What the hell are you doing?” Brian yelled as he entered the room. He wasn't talking about her leaving, he was actually thankful for that. He was asking what she thought she was doing by destroying everything that meant anything to him.

“What does it look like I'm doing?” Leighanne spat back angrily. “I'm leaving. I've been sitting here for months trying to figure out how to fix our marriage while you've been out picking up strangers all over Europe. I'm done trying to win you back. It's your turn to do all the work now.”

Brian shook his head. “I didn't pick up strangers in Europe. And who the hell do you think that you are, anyway? You're my estranged wife, not my warden. Not to mention that you're a hypocrite. You started dating first, remember?”

Leighanne rolled her eyes and laughed to herself. “I went on a date, Brian. Get a clue. If I was really dating why the hell would I have had someone send you pictures?”

“You're a piece of work, you know that? We're not sixteen,” Brian yelled back. Usually he didn’t like to raise his voice, but this was getting insane. “This was a marriage. Maybe it's your high school attitude that made me dread coming home to you.”

“This is still a marriage,” Leighanne screamed back. “I told you that I'm not letting you give up on us.”

 “Aren't you leaving?” Brian replied with narrowed eyes. He wanted to scream out in frustration. “Doesn't that mean that you're giving up?”

 “What am I supposed to do, Brian?” Leighanne responded as she glared at him angrily. “I go to the airport to meet you and you're making out with some whore 10 feet in front of me.”

 “Don't talk about her like that, Leighanne,” Brian replied softly. “You don't even know her.”

“And you do?” Leighanne yelled back in frustration. “You couldn't have possibly known this girl for that long. You're here now and she's gone and you're going to be alone in this big house, just like I was. Then, you'll feel sorry and you'll remember what it's like to not have me in your life.”

 Brian closed his eyes and shook his head slowly from side to side.

“No,” he replied softly while reaching into the bag on was still on his shoulder. He pulled out the divorce papers that he had been carrying around with him and threw them down on top of her opened suitcase. “No, I'm not going to feel that way. It's over between us. Done. I want out.”

“NO!” she yelled as she took a step toward Brian. “No! You're not leaving me. We are NOT getting divorced. You love me!” Leighanne pounded furiously on Brian's chest as she yelled. As he took a step back, she took a step forward and hit him again. “You love me!”

Brian grabbed Leighanne by the arms and looked into her glazed eyes. “I wanted to talk to you about this rationally, but it's over, Leighanne. I can't keep living this life that you and I have been living. I do love you, but I fell out of love with you a long time ago.”

Brian didn't mean to be so cold, but maybe that was the only way that Leighanne would listen to him. It was hard to be rational with a woman who thought that she knew your feelings better than you did.

 Leighanne continued to shake her head. She backed away from Brian and whispered, “No.” She pulled down the stack of papers that Brian had laid on top of her suitcase and threw them on the bed. “I won't sign this. I won't agree to this. You don't mean it.”

 “Leighanne,” Brian sighed. He walked slowly over to where Leighanne and bracing herself on the bed, holding herself up so that she wouldn't collapse. Brian grabbed her gently and turned her toward him.

 Leighanne looked up at him slowly. There was a hardening in her chest and she couldn't breathe.

“Please don't leave me, Brian,” she cried desperately. “Please.”

 Brian ran his hands through her blond hair and shook his head slowly. He could feel the tears that were springing to his eyelids. He kissed Leighanne's forehead gently.

“I'm sorry,” he whispered. “I'm sorry that it has to be this way. I'm sorry that you married the wrong man because you deserve so much better than I can give you. You deserve someone who really, truly loves and cherishes you. I'm sorry.”

 Leighanne wrapped her arms around Brian and held on for her life as she sobbed into his chest. “You can't do this, Brian. You can't leave me. I don't know how to live without you. I know that I'm hard on you, but I just want things to be the way that they used to be. Let's talk. Let's work this out. I'll do anything.”

 Brian wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and gently pulled away from her. “It's too late to try to fix it. You know that this isn't right; you just don't want to give up. It's done, Leigh. It probably should have been done a long time ago.”

 “You don't mean that,” Leighanne whispered hoarsely. “You don't mean it.”

 “I do,” Brian replied, trying to stay strong even though it was hard. “I do mean it.”

 “No,” she replied calmly. “No. Here's what we're going to do. I'm going to leave now. I'm going to my sister's and I'm going to stay with her and you're going to stay here and we're going to take some more time and in a couple weeks, you'll change your mind, you'll want to talk about this.”

 “Leighanne,” Brian interrupted, but Leighanne continued speaking.

 “No,” Leighanne replied as she zipped up her suitcase and pulled it off of the bed and out the bedroom door as Brian followed behind slowly. “It's okay. You know? I'm going to go. You're going to change your mind. I know that you are.”

 “Stop it, Leigh,” Brian cut in. “Just stop, this isn't going to go away. This is real. I'm not going to change-”

 Leighanne just shook her head and turned back toward him with a smile, which caused Brian to quit speaking.

“I love you and it's okay. I'm not going to hold this against you. I'm going to go now and when we talk, I'll forget this ever happened. You don't mean it.” She kissed him quickly on the lips and hurried out the front door, slamming it in Brian's face.

Brian rushed to open the door, completely confused by what had just happened. He knew that Leighanne was in shock, but he didn't expect her to completely ignore what he was trying to tell her. He didn't even know if she was serious about ignoring the pending divorce, or if the things that she was saying were a coping mechanism.

“Leighanne!” Brian called out to her as she packed her car with the things she had brought from the house. “Leighanne! This is crazy. Will you listen to me?”

But Leighanne never turned around. Instead, she got into her car and drove off toward her sister's house, which was fairly close by, leaving Brian standing in the front yard just as he had done to her a few short months earlier.

Brian didn't know how to explain what had just happened. He couldn't wrap his mind around the mess in the house, and their crazy fight and then Leighanne's complete denial. Leighanne was the type of person who always got everything that she wanted, so Brian didn't deny that she completely believed that he was going to change his mind. That wasn't exactly the way that he wanted that conversation to go. In his mind, the perfect situation would have been for them to sit down like adults and actually talk. Then, he hoped to tell her that he had fallen in love with Noelle and for Leighanne to see that he really meant it, that someone else made him happy. He hoped that she'd be mature about it and that she'd want him to be happy in the end, even if it meant being happy without her.

Okay, so he'd hoped for too much.

Brian walked slowly back into the house, plopped down on the couch and surveyed the mess that Leighanne had made of their house. He knew that Noelle was waiting for his phone call, but he had to clean this disaster area before it drove him crazier than he already felt.

----

It was after midnight and, though she had gotten little sleep the night before, Noelle was wide awake. She hadn't heard from Brian since she had left him that morning, and it was starting to make her nervous. It wasn't that she was afraid that he was going to change his mind or anything—not really. Well, okay, the thought had crossed her mind. It was plausible wasn’t it? Brian went back home, took one look at his beautiful wife and realized what a mistake that he was making?

Noelle sighed and turned onto her other side. She was tired of watching the minutes tick by on the digital clock. She was trying not to be so insecure. Brian and Leighanne had a lot to talk about. Divorce is a pretty big issue and if they were still in the house together, then of course Brian couldn't call Noelle and there was no way that Noelle was going to call Brian.

Noelle wasn't normally this pathetic. At least, she wasn't this pathetic when she and Brian had first met. She probably needed therapy. It wasn't normal for a woman to perpetually fall for unavailable men. Noelle understood that things were different with Brian—or at least, they were going to be—but here she was, lying in bed, waiting for Brian to leave his wife just as she had done with Rob so many times before. Rob had made the same promises. He had never showed her divorce papers, but he promised her over and again, “Tonight, Noelle. I'll tell her tonight.”

“Chill out, Noelle,” she said to herself with a sigh. “You only saw him a few hours ago for God's sake.”

Just as she closed her eyes, her cell phone rang on the bedside table next to her. She grabbed the phone quickly and smiled when she saw Brian's silly face flashing at her.

“Hey, you,” she answered softly.

Brian smiled when he heard Noelle's tired voice. He hadn't wanted to call because it was so late, but he was glad that he did. “Hey Beautiful. Enjoying being home?”

Noelle smiled and rolled onto her back. “I would enjoy it more if you were here with me. How are things with you?”

Brian groaned softly, then chuckled to himself. “I'm okay, I guess. I'm glad to be talking to you.”

“Rough day?” Noelle probed. She wanted more of the details, but she wasn't sure if she should pry. She didn't even know Leighanne. What right did Noelle have to know how the biggest conversation of her life had gone?

“To say the least. She didn't really take it well, as can be expected, but it's done. I gave her the divorce papers and she left. She went to her sister's house in Macon,” Brian finally replied as he leaned back against the headboard of his bed. “I wasn't going to tell you this, but uh, she was actually there, in the airport.”

Noelle gasped and sat up in bed. “What?”

“Yeah,” Brian replied, “that's why I wasn't going to tell you.”

“She saw us in the airport together? Brian!” Noelle shrieked.

She didn't want Leighanne to find out about her like that. She really didn't care if Leighanne ever found out about her, but to see her husband and some other woman laughing and talking and kissing and hugging and doing all of the things that that the two of you haven't done because of a separation or because of fighting or because of whatever, well, that was heartbreaking.

“I know, Noelle,” Brian responded quietly. “It wasn't the ideal situation, but it happened and I dealt with it.”

“What happened?” Noelle asked impulsively. Now, she was actually involved. “What did she say?”

Brian shrugged though he knew that she couldn't see him. “She called me an adulterous bastard, basically. She went home and destroyed some of my things and then she started to pack. I don't even really know how it happened. I just know that at some point, I got frustrated and threw the divorce papers at her.”

“Oh, God,” Noelle gasped softly. “That sounds terrible. I'm sorry.”

“Don't worry about it, Sweetheart. It wasn't meant to go well,” Brian replied, suddenly exhausted. The day was wearing him thin. “I'll be glad to be on the road again next week.”

“Yeah,” Noelle whispered. “So, what are you going to do now? I mean, with all of your things and whatever? What are you going to do?”

Brian shook his head slowly. He hadn't really thought about it, but now that she mentioned it he guessed that he couldn't really leave anything that meant anything to him here. “I don't know. I guess I'll have to put them in storage. I'll have some phone calls to make tomorrow.”

“I can come back to help you if you want,” Noelle replied, though she knew that it was a bad idea.

“No,” Brian responded quickly. “I can't let you do that. I don't know if Leighanne is going to come back and I can't put you in the middle of all of this, but thank you for offering. It's getting pretty late. I really should let you go. We both need to get some sleep.”

Noelle sighed. She didn't want to let him go, but she knew that he was right. “Okay. Try to sleep well. I'll talk to you tomorrow?”

“First thing,” Brian replied with a smile. “I love you, Noelle.”

Noelle smiled and pressed the phone closer to her ear as if she held the phone close enough it would bring Brian closer. “I love you, too, Brian. I'll see you soon.”

Brian and Noelle said their goodbyes and then hung up shortly thereafter. Noelle was a mixed bag of emotions. She loved that even though Brian had such a bad day he could push all of that aside and still tell her that he loved her, but she hated that she was in the middle of such a messy situation.

Both AJ and Emily were right, Brian and Noelle should have tried to wait until Brian's marriage was completely over with until they got together, but that didn't change the facts now. When they were together, nothing had ever felt more right.