The weeks passed by slowly. Christmas came and went, then new years, and another lonely Valentine’s Day for Noelle.

Back in Florida, Noelle was procrastinating. She had heard back from the medical school admissions board at USC and had been admitted to their program for the upcoming fall semester. Currently, she had a number of tabs open on her Internet browser. She was supposed to be registering for classes and packing her apartment for her move across the county, but instead she was perusing the gossip websites. With the little packing that Noelle had done, she was already realizing that she had way too much stuff. She wanted to throw everything away and just start over. That would be easier than shoving everything she owned into a box.

Alex hated her habit to read Perez Hilton’s website or TMZ, but though her brother was a part of that world, she couldn’t help but to be fascinated. It wasn’t so much the celebrity that fascinated her; Noelle was convinced that it was the girl in her. Other people’s lives fascinate women whether they were willing to admit it or not. Noelle had no problem admitting that she had a problem.

As she scrolled through the pages reading about whatever drama Britney Spears and Lindsey Lohan were getting themselves into, she stopped dead when she ran into an article and video about the Backstreet Boys.

‘Backstreet Boy and wife work their marriage out – because she wants it that way’.

Noelle rolled her eyes at the cheesy headline and read through the article.

Backsteet Boy Brian Littrell announced late last year that he and his wife of almost ten years, Leighanne, were parting ways. This afternoon, the seemingly estranged couple were seen leaving the offices of Dr. George Dalton—an Atlanta area marriage counselor and family therapist.

Apparently, their problems weren’t ‘Larger than Life’ because this Backstreet Boy’s back—in his wife’s pants. Okay, even we can admit to a bad joke. Moving on.

As a side note, Brian began dating band mate AJ McLean’s sister, Noelle, while separated from his wife. They parted ways before the end of the Backstreet Boys’ last world tour.

Calls to the Backstreet Boys’ representatives were not immediately returned for comment.

Noelle sighed and shut her laptop closed. Suddenly, she was thinking that Alex was right about reading the gossip pages; it would bring nothing but trouble.

TMZ was late anyway. Brian and his wife had been back together for at least six months. Sometimes, Noelle tortured herself by wondering how things were going. Were they back in love? Were they sharing passionate love-making sessions? Did Brian realize that Noelle was just a distraction and that he’d never loved her like he thought that he did?

She groaned and put her head in her hands, embarrassed to even be thinking that way six months later. Based on the picture that accompanied the article, Brian looked fiercely protective of his wife and of his relationship. He was shielding her from the paparazzi, shooting the photographers an angry glare. Noelle wondered how long it would take the media to get Leighanne’s medical records or a comment from an unnamed source about what really went down. Noelle honestly hoped for both Brian and Leighanne’s sakes that would never happen.

There was a sudden knock at the door and Noelle was glad for the distraction. She got up from her desk and made her way to the front of her small apartment. She looked through the peephole and froze. Noelle stood behind the door for a second contemplating not opening it at all. When the knocking continued, Noelle knew that he wasn’t going to go away.

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and opened the door. There, standing on her stoop, was none other than Dr. Robert Matheson.

“What are you doing here?” Noelle greeted without a hint of false pleasantries.

Rob peeked into the apartment and noticed her stacked boxes. “I see the rumors are true?”

Noelle groaned. “About me? They usually are.”

Rob smiled. “You’re really moving.”

“I am,” Noelle nodded slowly. “Is that what you came here for? To make sure that you pushed me out of town permanently?”

“Noelle, you know that I cared about you. I still do,” Rob took a step closer to her, trying to inch his way into the apartment, but Noelle held her hand out to keep him at a distance.

“Look Rob, this isn’t going to go anywhere. Can you please just leave?” Noelle asked strongly. She’d stopped thinking of Rob a long time ago and wished that he would stop popping up randomly, especially when she was feeling weak.

“Noelle, you’ve been through some things. You’ve dated two married men in high profile ways. Why didn’t you tell me that your boyfriend was really a superstar that day at the restaurant?” Rob stopped and shook his head. “I guess that’s because he really isn’t anymore. Anyway, only one of those two men has real intentions of leaving his wife.”

Noelle laughed humorlessly. “Rob, you’ve been saying that for close to two years now. Listen, I loved Brian. I just thought that I loved you, and you really don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.

Now, listen carefully because I’m only going to say this one more time. Get out of my life. You did a lot of really awful things, but I forgive you because really I don’t think that you know any better. So please, move on to your next conquest and leave me out of your future memoir. I’m moving to California, and I’m going to go to a great medical school and learn about fertility and obstetrics from doctors who actually respect me and who can actually teach me things. Now go.”

“Noelle, please—” Rob continued, but Noelle cut him off.

“That’s enough, Rob. This obsession with getting what you can’t have has gone on long enough. It’s verging on creepy, so if you’ll please stop keeping tabs on my life, that’d be awesome too.” Noelle stepped back and slammed the door in his face.

She was sure that he’d only have more awful things to say about her in the future. He’d do whatever he could to discredit her later on down the line when her work actually rivaled his own, but for now she was satisfied that she told him to leave without the emotion attached to her words. The truth was that after she experienced what she experienced with Brian, what she thought she had with Rob was inconsequential; it was puppy love.

Knowing that, Noelle knew that nothing that Rob could do could truly hurt her anymore. With a self-satisfied smirk, Noelle went back to packing her boxes. There was no more time to put off leaving the sleepy, retirement community of Gainesville, Florida behind forever.

***

Slowly, Brian and Leighanne’s life together was turning into a routine. They were back to being friends. They had stopped fighting because they both knew where the other stood. Brian and Leighanne had gotten comfortable with the way that things were. They knew that they had problems, but avoiding them was starting to seem like the best solution.

Soon, Brian and Leighanne would be leaving Atlanta again and heading back to their home in Los Angeles where the Backstreet Boys were set to record for their new album. Throughout the months, Brian had flown back and forth to LA for a couple of days at a time to lay down vocals, but at this stage in the game, it was time for them to get together and finish everything up.

Brian and Leighanne’s therapist, George Dalton, had recommended that they continue their marriage counseling once in California and had even recommended a therapist to see. Apparently, they still needed that much help.

Day after day, Brian had been working feverishly writing and recording songs that he hoped would make it onto the album. He’d had a sudden burst of inspiration, but he didn’t know if the others would appreciate the semi-depressing nature of the music that he was writing. Diving into his work had always been a coping mechanism for Brian. Things still weren’t right at home. If he holed himself up in his personal studio, he wouldn’t have to deal with the pressures of married life. This time, he thought that Leighanne was even grateful that he wasn’t always around.

While Brian worked, Leighanne packed them for the move. They would be gone for a few months, so certain areas of their country home had to be closed off. Certain items needed to be stored away, and there were plenty of things that Brian and Leighanne needed to remember to bring with them.

They’d had their home in Los Angeles since before they’d gotten married. The home had been Brian’s bachelor pad. He hated staying in hotels and since he used to spend about half the year in Los Angeles, he’d bought himself a much too spacious house for a single 20-something-year-old. The house was furnished, the kitchen was fully functioning and the closets were even loaded with clothing—mostly with items from the 90s that Brian and Leighanne would never wear again and that probably needed to be donated to a charity or thrown away after all this time.

Leighanne much preferred their home in Atlanta, but she understood that when your husband is an international celebrity you have to make sacrifices sometimes, and it’s not that easy to pack up a house and move it across the country. Brian loved the house in Los Angeles. Leighanne had wanted to get rid of it when they first got married, but Brian put his foot down. She guessed that the home had some kind of sentimental value and decided not to push the issue.

Leighanne went into the closet and pulled out her and Brian’s large suitcases from their place in the closet. She jumped when a bunch of papers and photographs flew out of the side pocket of the bag that Brian had used last year for the Unbreakable tour. Tentatively, Leighanne leaned down to pick up the photographs. She flipped through the pictures slowly, smiling at the silly outtakes of the Boys’ backstage antics.

Her smile fell when she came across photo after photo of Brian and Noelle. It was starting to seem like Noelle was around every corner in the darkest part of Leighanne’s life, but at this point Leighanne didn’t have the fight left in her to be angry at Noelle for existing anymore.

In Leighanne’s mind, Brian’s time with Noelle was a fling; it was a brief love during a time that Brian needed companionship. Seeing the look on both of their faces brought Leighanne crashing down to reality. Brian was actually happy with her.

In therapy, George knew that Brian had been in a relationship while he and Leighanne were separated, but he had decided not to spend much time talking about it because it was in the past and if Brian and Leighanne had agreed to move past it, they weren’t going to keep bringing it up and opening wounds. At the time, Leighanne was glad not to have to remember the pain of Brian being with someone else and not to have to listen to Brian talk about it. Now, she wished that George would have wanted to talk about it. Maybe Leighanne wouldn’t have been trying so hard had she known just how truly over it all Brian had been.

Or maybe she just should have listened to her when he had tried to tell her.

Leighanne left the security of her and Brian’s bedroom and headed toward the studio thinking that maybe it was time for them to really talk. She let herself in quietly. Brian was in the recording booth; the control room was empty. He was sitting behind the piano, playing softly and singing a song that he should have long since forgotten:

Here we are seven days and seven nights of empty tries
It’s rituals, habitual but it’s never gonna work this time
We’re to the point of no return and along the way the other thing we’ve learned is how  to hurt each other
I’m looking back and wondering why it took so long to realize that nothing’s changed it never will all these years of standing still
And still we stay in all this pain and nothing’s going to make it go away

I don’t want to wait another minute put me out of my misery
I can read your mind baby you’re not in it and we’re not what we used to be

As Brian trailed off and quit singing, he looked up and saw Leighanne standing in control booth. He jumped, not expecting to see her there. He wondered if they were going to get into a huge fight or if Brian could talk his way out of singing a song to himself that he had vocally proclaimed that he didn’t like to sing.

Brian stood from the piano bench and made his way out of the recording booth.

“What’s up?” he greeted as he approached Leighanne.

Leighanne tried to smile and appear unaffected. More and more, the fragile shell on the outside of her marriage was crumbling. “I thought that you hated that song.”

Brian laughed softly. “I do. I’m just having a bit of writer’s block, I guess. Did you need something?”

Leighanne gripped the pictures of Brian and Noelle in her hand as she realized that she didn’t even want to get into some long drawn out conversation that would only lead them full circle. She put her hands on her hips and sneakily stuck the pictures that Brian hadn’t noticed that she was holding into her back pocket.

“I was just packing and realized that you didn’t have a suit…” Leighanne tried to recover quickly, though she knew that she was failing. “I was just wondering if you wanted the green tie or the blue one.”

Brian looked at her skeptically. “Um, whichever. You know I don’t really care about stuff like that. Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Leighanne replied in a chipper tone. “I’m fine. I guess I just logged too many packing hours and have stopped being able to make even the simplest decisions.”

She laughed softly and backed her way slowly out of the room. “I’ll let you get back to work.”

“Yeah, okay,” Brian replied, still looking at her curiously. He knew that there was more of a reason that she came looking for him, but she was acting strangely and Brian just wasn’t in the mood.

Leighanne made her way back up the stairs, feeling stupid. Though there was a panging in her heart, Leighanne didn’t cry. She was pretty sure that her tear ducts were empty after all of this time. Brian was doing the best that he could for her, but the question now was whether Leighanne was willing to live with half of his heart.

With a sigh, Leighanne stuck the photographs that she never should have seen back into the pocket in Brian’s suitcase where they would simply remain another ‘secret’ in the couple’s not-so-happy marriage.