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Author's Chapter Notes:

Updated 6/12

The hours dragged by through the morning and into the afternoon. Leighanne’s condition changed little, if any at all. She was in stable, but critical condition. She was able to breathe on her own, but the doctor’s opted to leave her on the ventilator to give her lungs and heart a chance to rest and recuperate from the damage that she’d done with the drugs.

Like the illusion of the perfect husband that Brian was, he sat dutifully by Leighanne’s bedside throughout the entire day. When visiting hours were reopened, Suzanne joined him. Together, they sat silently by Leighanne waiting for something to happen, for Leighanne to give them some sign of the life that was still inside of her.

When the doctor’s came in to examine Brian’s wife, Brian and Suzanne stepped out of the room. Suzanne went back into the waiting room while Brian stepped out into the hall to call the Backstreet Boys’ manager and let her know what was going on.

Jen answered on the first ring.

“Brian,” she exclaimed. “Noelle told us that there was an emergency at home. Is everything okay?”

Brian sighed. He really didn’t know how to answer her question.

“I don’t really want this getting around,” Brian started, “so before I start can I know that you’ll keep this between the two of us?”

“Of course,” Jen replied. “We’re on a need to know basis. Got it.”

Brian walked further down the hallway until he was sure that there were no nosy bystanders listening.

“You know that Leighanne showed up at the hotel yesterday, and she and Noelle had a drag down brawl,” Brian began.

“Yeah,” Jen answered needlessly.

“Well, Leighanne just wouldn’t take a hint. I gave her the divorce papers; I’d told her that we were over, but she kept holding onto hope. Maybe that was my fault, maybe I wasn’t assertive enough,” Brian went off on a tangent.

He had been playing the events of the last few months over and over in his head. He kept wondering if there were things that he should have done differently. All of his thoughts ended at once place, one person, but he wasn’t ready to fully commit to the fact that maybe he and Noelle has rushed into their relationship. Brian knew that he loved Noelle with all of his heart, but it was getting hard to deny that there was so much that was pulling them apart; there was so much that was against them. The relationship had been a fight from the very beginning and Brian caught himself wondering if fate was starting to intervene to make him realize that he entered the fight too soon.

“Brian,” Jen interrupted Brian’s thoughts. “Where is this going? What happened?”

“Leighanne tried to kill herself, Jen,” Brian replied in a sad whisper.

“Oh my God, Brian,” Jen gasped. “Please, take all the time that you need. I’ll take care of everything. Is she going to be okay?”

“We don’t know yet,” Brian answered. “I’ll call you back when I have more information. Just please, I really need your confidence right now. I don’t want this spreading around, especially to Noelle. I need to be the one to talk to her.”

“Yeah, of course,” Jen replied. “If there’s anything that you need—”

“I’ll let you know,” Brian finished. “Thanks, Jen.”

Brian hung up and started to make his way back to Leighanne’s room. He spoke to the nurse briefly as there wasn’t much to report. Leighanne’s vitals were looking good, but she still needed time to heal. It looked like she was going to be okay, but only time would tell.

Brian thanked the nurse and then entered back into Leighanne’s room. Suzanne was back in spot near the window, and Brian took his seat closest to the door.

Suzanne looked up at Brian spitefully. She both loved and hated that he looked so wrenched over Leighanne’s condition. Suzanne knew that only Leighanne’s mental state could be blamed for her being in that bed, but the irrational side of her blamed Brian for her sister’s head space. If he’d just waited a little while to start dating, if he’d just tried a little harder, if he’d just gone through with the counseling and marital help that Leighanne wanted then maybe the three of them wouldn’t be sitting here like this waiting for a sign that her sister was going to live.

“So,” Suzanne started bitingly, “were you speaking to your new little girlfriend just now?”

Brian scoffed and shook his head. He wasn’t going to answer at first, but then frustration got the best of him.

“Not that it’s any of your business,” Brian spat, “but no, I wasn’t speaking with Noelle. I was on the phone with my tour manager letting her know that I wasn’t going to be back for a while.”

Suzanne shook her head, not liking his tone one little bit. “I don’t even know why you’re here.”

“What is your problem?” Brian yelled. “You don’t know anything. You haven’t even bothered to ask for my side of the story. You know me, Suzanne. You know that I wouldn’t cheat on Leighanne and then throw her under the bus and purposely hurt her! I know that this is hard for you, but while my relationship with Leighanne is circling the drain that doesn’t mean that I don’t still care about her! It doesn’t mean that I want her to die, and I sure as hell didn’t want to be the reason that she felt like she lost the will to live!”

Suzanne glared at Brian wordlessly. Her more rational side knew that he was right, but she felt like she needed someone to blame. She hated that her sister was lying in that bed and Brian was sitting there like everything was okay and he wasn’t the reason that she’d given up all hope. When she saw the tears begin to pour down Brian’s face, she softened and realized that maybe this was hard for him after all.

Suzanne sighed again. “I’m sorry, Brian. You’re right. You’ve been family for a long time, but I have to admit that I don’t understand. No one does. Things seemed fine and then you went away and the next thing that we know there are divorce papers being filed and you have a new younger girlfriend who happens to be your band-mate’s sister?”

“It wasn’t like that,” Brian answered, wiping the tears of off his cheeks embarrassedly. “I didn’t even know Noelle until after Leighanne and I were already separated. She and I met on a night that Leighanne was sending me text messages about some date that she was going on. I didn’t expect to fall in love with her. Even if I hadn’t fallen in love with her, I would have given Leighanne the papers anyway because I believed that our marriage was essentially over.”

“You believed that?” Suzanne inquired, thinking that Brian had slipped up. Maybe she was just hoping that Brian had slipped up. For such a strong action of Leighanne’s to create such a strong reaction from Brian might be more detrimental than helpful.

“I love Noelle,” Brian sighed. “I do, but I don’t know what I think anymore. I don’t know what’s right and what isn’t. How can I walk away from someone who would rather die that live without me?”

“That’s not exactly healthy, Brian,” Suzanne answered.

“Which side are you on?” Brian snapped as he glared at his sister-in-law. Inside, he knew that she was right.

“I’m on Leighanne’s side, always,” Suzanne replied. “That doesn’t mean that I’m on the side of Leighanne that thinks she should get whatever she wants, because sometimes, what she wants and what she needs are two different things.”

“I don’t know anymore, Suz,” Brian sighed. “I don’t know if I jumped too soon. I don’t know if I did the right thing. It’s easy to remember why we shouldn’t be together when we’re screaming at each other every second of every moment of every day, but it’s so much harder to make any of that matter when she’s lying in this bed clinging to life because of me.”

“You know that this isn’t just because of you.” Suzanne smiled sympathetically. “Leighanne made it about you, but this is largely because of Leighanne’s insecurity. It’s normal to be sad; it isn’t normal to take a bottle of pills because you feel like you can’t live without someone.”

“Juliet stabbed herself with a dagger…” Brian joked sarcastically.

“While you may think that you are, you’re not Romeo and Leighanne isn’t Juliet and this isn’t some Shakespearean tragedy.” Suzanne rolled her eyes at his analogy.

“I was just kidding.” Brian sighed and sat back in his chair. He tried to smile, but the gesture didn’t quite reach his eyes.

Just then, his cell phone started to vibrate in his pocket effectively ending their conversation. He looked down and felt a sincere pang in his heart when he saw Noelle’s smiling face staring back up at him. The picture was taken first thing in the morning. Her hair was in waves over the pillow. She was fresh-faced and just woken up and she looked beautiful, angelic even with the white sheets surrounding her face.

“You should get that,” Suzanne said from across the room, somehow sensing that it was Brian’s girlfriend. “It’s okay.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Brian nodded and quickly left the room. He wasn’t sure that he was ready for this conversation, but he selfishly wanted to hear Noelle’s voice.

“Hey,” he answered as he made his way down the hallway back into the abandoned area of the corridor.

“Hey,” Noelle replied. She was nervous for some reason. She tried to remind herself that she was just speaking with Brian, but she somehow sensed that everything was about to change. “Jen just let everyone know that you had something going on at home and that the guys were going to reschedule some tour dates. She didn’t give much more information than that. How are things?”

“Things are—” Brian paused. That was another question he didn’t know how to answer. “Things are weird.”

In her and Brian’s hotel room in New York City, Noelle nodded. Somehow, she understood the underlying themes in that simple statement. “Yeah, things are weird.”

There was an awkward pause in conversation before Noelle spoke again, “So, what happened? Or do you not want to talk about it?”

“Leighanne prescribed herself a cocktail of muscle relaxers and pain killers,” Brian replied quickly without giving himself a chance to even think about giving Noelle the news more gently. There was dead silence on the other end of the line and mentally, Brian kicked himself. “Hello?”

“She tried to kill herself?” Noelle asked softly, shakily. The question came out more as a statement than any question at all.

“Yeah,” Brian answered simply.

“Oh my, God,” she gasped. “Oh my, God.”

In a hurry, Brian knew that he needed to talk Noelle off of a ledge before she went overboard in playing the blame game.

“Hey,” he started. “It’s going to be okay. The doctor’s said that it seems like she’s going to be fine, okay? And please, don’t blame yourself. I’ve been doing enough of that for the both of us.”

“But Brian—” Noelle started.

Brian cut her off. “But nothing, Noelle. You and I didn’t do this. Not directly, anyway.”

Noelle sighed and Brian could hear that she was holding back the tears that were about to overflow. A thousand thoughts were running through her mind. They just happened to be the same thousand thoughts that Brian was wrestling with himself.

“Brian?” she whispered.

“Yeah?” he answered just as softly.

“Are you thinking that maybe everyone was right? About you and me?” Noelle asked.

Brian let out a shaky sigh himself. He wanted to choose his words carefully, but he decided to be as truthful as he could be.

“I honestly don’t know.” He paused again the continued, “Do you? Think everyone was right?”

Noelle answered after a slight hesitation, “I don’t know either.”

Suddenly, it felt like he and Noelle were a thousand miles apart. He didn’t want to be this distant from her, but nothing felt like it was going to be the same. Suddenly, their last kiss in that hotel room seemed to mean so much more.

“Hey Noelle?” Brian started again.

“Hmm?” Noelle answered.

“You know I love you,” Brian said, but he left the rest of his thought unfinished.

“Yeah,” Noelle replied. “I know. And I love you too. Always.”

With that, Brian and Noelle hung up with so much left unsaid and their entire relationship hanging in the balance. It was needless to hope that things were different or that it was a different time, but that’s the very thought that was running through both of their minds.

Sometimes, you get everything that you ever thought that you wanted, but at that moment in time there just seemed to be too much standing in the way.

Goodbye is a strong word, but many times it’s the only word left to say.

Chapter End Notes:

Again, thanks for reading! We're getting into some new stuff now. Let me know what you think. Your thoughts and comments are appreciated!