8th of January2006

“Maybe that’s not the best idea…” she suggested with an uneasy smile. I mentally kicked myself a couple of times. Of course not, you idiot!

“I… ah… yes, you’re right,” I replied, defeated. Her smile grew wider. “But, if you ever want to talk to someone, give me a call!” Carry handed me a small piece of paper with her name and phone number, “I promise it’ll stay out of the records.”

I looked at it for a while, not daring to look at her. She noticed my embarrassment and offered me her hand.

“It was nice to meet you, Howie.”

I took her hand, finally rediscovering some of my confidence again and smiled warmly at her, “It was nice to meet you too, Carry. I’ll give you a call soon, okay?”

10th of January 2006

And here we are again, in this stupid room. I sighed deeply, wondering what it would take to give Brian the last little push towards consciousness again. I was thinking about this a lot lately, because we just didn’t seem to get anywhere again. It was kinda weird, how he, just after Kevin suggested to let him go, took a step forward. As if he wanted to show us that he could do it, but didn’t want to, unless he had to. It was remarkably frustrating.

If that wasn’t enough, the fact that my own investigation seemed to be stuck as well as Brian, was rather stressful too. Why, in this whole network of people that knew Brian, had nobody ever heard of someone named Peter? Had Peter been someone Brian had met recently, of had he known him longer? Was Peter someone that he knew from the past, perhaps? I tried my best to search my memory of anybody named Peter that had come in contact with Brian. But Brian was a free man, he could meet people whenever he wanted to, he didn’t need consent from anybody. Hell, I don’t even know half of the persons I meet at parties, concerts, interviews and photo-shoots. How can I know all the people Brian meets? I’m not a stalker!

Stalker.

With wide eyes, I looked at Brian and my mouth fell open when I noticed his eyes were no longer closed. He looked at me frantically, alarmed and I noticed his breathing had picked up speed considerably. With a deathlike grip, he grasped my hand. I marvelled at the amount of strength he possessed for someone who’d done nothing but sleep for two months.

“Brian?”

There was something he wanted to say, but he just couldn’t seem to find the right words.

“It’s alright, calm down… just take a breath, okay?”

After a while, he looked at me again, this time the determination shone through.

“Peter…” he whispered hoarsely.

“Peter? Who’s Peter?” I asked urgently. I know it wasn’t right to put so much pressure on him, when he just woke up, but I couldn’t help myself. I’d been waiting for this for so long.

“Peter Robins…”

I woke up with a start, immediately looking around me. My frustration rose to a new level when I saw Brian hadn’t moved an inch since I’d fallen asleep. I’d been dreaming about his awakening a few times before. It always included a panicked Brian and an even more panicked me, but we’d never discussed Peter before.

Peter Robins.

I’d heard that name before, but I didn’t know where. It was pretty clear that I’d known that name all along, and now my subconscious finally found it the right time to let me in on that information. With only a first name, I couldn’t work, but if you added a last name… There must be records of one Peter Robins, right?

When I was sure that my dream had just been a dream, that Brian really wasn’t waking up, I stood up and silently left the room.

I didn’t get very far. In the room we now conveniently called ‘coffee room’ were Kevin and AJ, both standing tall with their arms folded and a dangerous expression on their faces. It took me a while to comprehend that they were angry with me. It took me even longer to realize it was weird that of all people, AJ, was there.

“Aje!” I exclaimed when I couldn’t stand the lasting silence anymore. “You’re back!”

AJ’s eyes narrowed and he took a step closer. “Yeah, no thanks to you!”

I stared at him for a minute, wondering what he was talking about. Then it finally dawned. “Oh yeah. Sorry…”

“I’ve waited for over four hours, Howard! Where the hell were you?”

“I was err…” I stammered and looked at the ground, ashamed. Kevin took that as a sign to interfere.

“You were sleeping, weren’t you?” He questioned, close to my face, “You know when you should sleep? …AT NIGHT!”

“How’d you get here?” I asked AJ, trying to make Kevin get out of my face.

“Kevin picked me up, when he finally figured you weren’t going to.”

“Oh.” I was sorry, I really was. I’d promised AJ and the others to pick him up from the rehabilitation centre when he was dismissed, but I must have forgotten it in all my haste.

“Look, AJ. I’m very sorry, I was just…”

“Save it, it’s alright. At least there’s always Kevin…” My shoulders slumped. He made me feel irresponsible.

“Oh Howard, there’s something else too,” Kevin called.

“Now what?” I really wasn’t ready for more critiques.

Kevin looked at me and pulled a newspaper out of his back pocket. With a sweep, he landed it on the coffee table.

“Does that headline sound familiar to you?” He questioned, his dangerous eyebrows furrowing together.

I scanned the paper and inhaled sharply, immediately knowing what he was getting on.

                Backstreet Boy gets emotional at hospital.

                Backstreet Boy Howie Dorough was spotted Thursday January 8th at Livingston General Hospital, New Jersey. For the first time since band-mate Brian Littrell was admitted there, reporters have been able to get some information out of the band. Some. Dorough refused to say what had happened exactly, claiming he didn’t know. He revealed Littrell was alive, but comatose and hasn’t regained consciousness up till this point. When asked if the speculations about a suicide attempt were true, he refused to answer and got particularly angry when a member of the press asked if he and his music partners were trying to find out what happened. According to bystanders Dorough got aggressive and tried to start a fight with the questioner, but got pulled away when things got heated. Presumably he fled through one of the backdoors of the hospital.

                Cautiously, I looked up from the paper and saw Kevin and AJ both staring at me with a questioning look, demanding an explanation.

“This is not fair, you should have heard what that asshole said!” I defended weakly.

“You see, I expected something like this from AJ, sorry Aje,” he apologized to AJ who’d looked up suddenly, hearing his name, “and from Nick, but from you…” Kevin watched me closely, trying to see if maybe the answer was written on my forehead.

“He made me angry. It was his fault. He asked if we were even trying to find out what happened or if we didn’t even bother caring about him,” I spat, my anger returning. I saw Kevin looking to the ground and AJaverting his gaze. “While… what is it I’ve been trying to do these past few weeks?”

“Look, I know you care Howard, I know you care a lot about the investigation. But they don’t know that. And I’d like to keep it that way. They don’t need to know what happened before we do.”

“So you’re okay with them making us sound like a bunch of selfish bastards? Like we’re just a few pained animals that can’t keep their emotions in check?”

“Well, can you?”

I scoffed and glared at the oldest member, hold on, ex-member of our group. “Yes!” I snarled, “I just won’t let myself being accused of not caring about what happened!”

Kevin sighed and didn’t answer, probably because he knew how much it hurt me that someone would say that I didn’t care about this whole thing, while I’d put so much energy in finding out what happened.

“Look,” AJ spoke up, “I just thought we agreed that we wouldn’t let the press know anything until Brian got better.”

“I didn’t have much choice, they were surrounding me. You should have seen it, they were like vultures, just waiting, hoping for one of us to come out, or in.”

I saw Kevin nod, deep in thought. “You know, that’s what Nick and I have been talking about. If we don’t throw those reporters a bone soon, they’re gonna storm in here and they’ll have more than they wanted after all. We’ll have to give them something.”

AJ nodded as well and I noticed them both looking at me. I shrunk back a little. “Like what?”

“Well, we can’t reveal your little investigation until you’ve got some hard proof. I thought that we’d just go with the obvious…” he spoke slowly and I raised my eyebrows.

“You don’t mean…”

“We don’t have much choice.”

“No! That will ruin his name!” I exclaimed, shocked that Kevin would even consider such a thing. Revealing Brian’s urge to kill himself, while I was getting pretty sure that that wasn’t the case, sounded appealing even if it were true.

“Listen, you said yourself they were like vultures! What do you suggest we do?”

“We can be cryptic, right? We don’t have to tell them anything really. Just enough to get them off our backs and keep them satisfied for a while.”

“How do you figure we do that?” Kevin asked with a frown.

“Let me handle it, okay? I’m the one who got this mess started after all,” I suggested and noticed it worked. Kevin seemed to consider my proposition, wondering if he trusted me enough for this.

“How far is your investigation?” AJ asked suddenly.

I looked at him, momentarily forgetting what he meant. He looked much better than he had three weeks ago. He always did when he just got out of rehab.

“Oh!” I yelled when I remembered something, “That’s what I came here to ask you guys! Anyone heard of a Peter Robins?”

Kevin rolled his eyes and sighed. “How many times do I have to tell you that I don’t know of any Peter! And now you’re asking again!”

“I only just figured out his last name!” I replied defensively.

“Still doesn’t sound familiar!” Kevin claimed.

“Wait? Robins?” AJ seemed to thinking hard, “Peter Robins?”

My eyes got big when I realized AJ might be on to something. “Yeah! You know him?”

“Wasn’t that one of Brian’s friends like… way back?” he made a vague gesture with his arm.

My mouth dropped open instantly. AJ often didn’t remember half of our lyrics when it came to it, but this he recalled? Nevertheless, I couldn’t be more thankful that he was back.

“When?” I asked eagerly, hoping we were talking about the same person.

“Back in, what was it, 99?” he looked at Kevin for confirmation, but the taller man just shrugged. “Yeah, I think it was 99. At our height.”

I thought furiously, thinking of any close friends of Brian at that time. But there were too many, and they all seemed to blur into one to me. I’d never really cared much about who we’d been hanging around. But AJ and Nick had always been closer to Brian than me, so it made sense AJ would remember.

“What happened?” I asked, cause Brian and Peter obviously weren’t friends anymore, hadn’t been for the longest time.

“I’m not sure. But I’d always assumed it had something to do with Nicky. He’d confided in me that he thought Brian and Peter were getting too close. I think he was just jealous and scared Pete away at some point.”

I nodded slowly, cause yes, that did sound like something Nick would do. I’d have to ask Nick.

“Wait, it doesn’t make sense! Nick said he didn’t know any Peter.”

“That’s Nick we’re talking about. He doesn’t even know half of the people he hangs around with. I’m sure that if we refresh his memory a little, he can tell us what happened.”

I smiled, cause somewhere along this conversation, I had dragged AJ, who’d been refusing to help Brian all along, into my investigation. Still, I noticed Kevin watching us sceptically.

“So what? You’re saying some Peter he knew seven years ago did this?”

I rolled my eyes, “I’m not saying anything, but it’s worth looking into.”

“Do you even know how many Peter Robins’s exist on this planet?”

“No, but AJ looks pretty sure, and I don’t think Brian knew more than one Peter Robins. Let’s go talk to Nick!”

Finding Nick wasn’t the hardest thing to do, because he was where he usually was. It was just a matter of time really before we had to drag him towards a rehab. Bringing AJ to a bar wasn’t the brightest idea, so I left him standing outside while I would go and grab Nick out of the stinking hole they called a bar in Livingston. It was smoky and if you didn’t already have asthma, you’d get it in here. It took me a few minutes to locate my band mate and when I did, I stalked towards him, determined, and ceased the back of his collar. He lost his balance and would have fallen off of the barstool if I hadn’t  been there to catch him.

“Jeez, Howie!” He exclaimed, irritated.

“Come on, we gotta talk to you.” I informed him frankly and started pulling him towards the exit.

“Whoa, whoa, hold on, who’s we?” He asked, suddenly stopping.

“AJ and I.’’ I yelled, excited.

“Cool! AJ is back!”

“Yeah, and we got a name!”

“What, that Peter guy again?” Nick said exasperated. I noticed AJ walking towards us. Nick and he hugged and then let go, at which AJ immediately started his interrogation.

“Nick! We need to talk!”

“I know, Howie said something like that earlier,” the youngest of the group replied dryly.

“Remember Peter Robins? That one big guy you used to be jealous of?”

“Who?”

“Peter! He and Brian were friends, and you couldn’t stand that so you shooed him away!”

“The hell are you talking about? When was that?”

“About seven years ago!” I piped in. I suddenly remembered the tall, black haired giant AJ was talking about. He’d always seemed a little intimidating, but then again he’d always been nice to me and the others and Brian had seemed to like him. I found it quite unbelievable he could be our guy.

“You guys expect me to remember something that happened seven years ago?” Nick questioned, but I could see he was hiding something. That he remembered Peter too, but didn’t want to talk about it.

“Stop lying Nicky,” I said sternly and noticed AJ looking at me with a frown.

“I’m not lying!”

“What happened?”

“I told you I have no idea what you’re getting at. I don’t remember that Canadian dude, alright?”

There was a brief pause when he realized he’d said too much and I grinned wickedly.

“I never said he was Canadian, Nicky,” I commented smartly.

“Alright, look, I’m not allowed to talk about it, okay?”

“Oh, let me guess, because you promised B-Rok?” I suggested sarcastically.

“YES, because I promised him!”

“Alright, I don’t know how to get this through that thick skull of you guys, but I figure Brian’s determination to make you and Harry and me, keep quiet about all this, has gotten him in this mess in the first place!”

“But this was seven years ago! It has nothing to do with it!”

“How can you be so sure?”

Nick stayed silent after that, but I kept looking at him, forcing him to admit everything. “Because Peter was a good guy. It was Brian and me that forced him away.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look, I admit that I may have been a bit jealous, okay? I mean, Brian was, is, my best friend and Peter just came along. I’d always told Bri that Pete was just looking for fame, that he wasn’t a true friend. Brian had gotten mad at me and asked whether there was anybody left out there that he could trust then. ”

I nodded. So far I could understand it. I remembered Brian’s issues with trust right after we got nailed by Pearlman and company. Hell, we all felt like we couldn’t trust anybody anymore, but Brian had taken it the hardest. Probably because he had been the one to find out about the whole scam.

“Why did he get rid of Peter then?” I asked, though I could almost picture myself why.

“Cause, I guess, somehow Brian did believe me. A few weeks after our argument, he’d ended his friendship with Pete. Maybe Robins was out for a little fame after all, and Brian had found out that he was only using him to get higher up. Or maybe he couldn’t get my words out of his head and took everything Peter did as a sign of corrupt friendship. You know what he was like during those days. ”

Yeah, I knew. Before, Brian used to see only the good in people, that they were innocent until proven guilty. But after Lou, he’d taken that mantra the other way around. Guilty, until proven innocent. Of course, Nick’s incitement had gotten him even more suspicious.

“Still, it doesn’t make sense,” AJ commented after a long silence. “Why would Brian have made you promise not to talk about it?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t ask,” Nick frowned. “Maybe because he knew as well, deep down, that Peter hadn’t done anything wrong, really? That he didn’t deserve to be put down like that?”

I sighed, frustrated and mumbled an obscene curse in Spanish. I wasn’t much of a swearing type, but I couldn’t believe we could possibly be back at square one.

“Still, it doesn’t hurt to check out Peter, right?” I suggested with a desperate tone.

“What?” AJ looked disappointed as well, “you suggest Pete has decided to take revenge after just, oh I don’t know, seven years?”

I glared at him, but only because I knew how stupid it sounded.

“All I’m saying is that Peter is our only lead up until this point. We should just try and find out what he’s been up to these past seven years.”

The youngest Backstreet members nodded slowly.

“There’s just one problem you’ve overlooked, Howie…” Nick began.

“What?”

“We’re not police. We don’t get in on those records.”

“I might know someone who does,” AJ spoke up. I looked at him, surprised. In this three hours, he’d been more help than ever. “You know. Being in rehab gets you more dark connections than you wish for.”