She had told him thirty-thousand times not to be so reckless on stage. Always jumping off high platforms and pretending to stumble and fall. He would literally break a leg one day, she had warned, and maybe, she had said, that would be the only way for him to learn.
Because he didn’t listen, he liked being reckless. He’d always assured her that he knew precisely what he was doing. No worries.
Yeah right.
And although this might not be the same, she still should have seen it coming. But she hadn’t, she didn’t.
She had all but freaked out when Nick had called in the middle of the night. Not only because Nick never called in the middle of the night –he actually didn’t call period- but mostly because of the fact that he had asked her, of all people, if she knew where everybody else was. He’d said something about a stupid prank, but it was too late. She was already in a state of panic.
If she could have, she would have flown to Orlando right after the call. But God, try to find a flight and babysitter at two-thirty in the morning. So she had waited, for excruciatingly long hours she had waited.
The phone didn’t ring until daylight had broken through. Kevin had sounded so broken, it had made her shiver. But I wasn’t his voice that made her freak out.
It were two, almost insignificantly small words.
Come quick.
That had been the moment for all other thoughts to fly out of her mind. She had packed her stuff in a mad haze, not caring or thinking about anything else until Baylee had come downstairs with a confused frown. He’d eyed her for a moment, like only twelve year olds could eye someone. With that bored, unsympathetic expression all pre-teens seemed to master. He’d asked what she was doing after five minutes and she had stood up, sighing, and told him to go to Raymond’s house down the street.
If it were only that easy.
The questions had started. Why was she being so stressed out? Why couldn’t she just tell him, for once in his life, what was going on? What? Did she think he was five? He could tell something serious was up, he could handle it. Did someone get arrested or something?
Did anyone die?
Oh, twelve year olds and their sense of drama.
She knew she did a poor job of assuring him that everything was fine, that there was nothing to worry about, but that she needed to go and that she would call his grandparents to come pick him up. Until then, she told him, it would be great if he could crash at Raymond’s. He was friends with Raymond, wasn’t he?
He had narrowed his eyes, which clearly told her that he was going to tell his Dad about all this. He had a way of saying that just with his eyes. And he would do it too. And Brian would take his side, no matter what.
But right then, that didn’t matter in the least.
He’d gone out the door without another word, obviously pissed. She had taken a deep breath, realizing she hadn’t handled that conversation very well. But Baylee would get over it… eventually.
Only three and a half hours after Kevin’s call, she was in the waiting room. She had gotten mad. Why had they decided to take a single bus, in the middle of the night, through a Godforsaken thunderstorm? Did they have a death wish? And where was that doctor? Weren’t they supposed to get an update once in a while? She’d fallen silent when she’d gotten a good look at their faces. They looked like they had gone to Hell and back.
Howie and AJ looked ready to pass out from exhaustion and Kevin had eyed her with a weary, defeated look on his face. The only one who seemed relatively unharmed didn’t dare looking her in the eyes. Nick decided to leave not long after, heading back to the hotel with his wife.
He couldn’t deal, he was a coward.
And now she waited. She’d gone in just briefly, right before they would take him off the terrifying machines and bring him back to life. She’d had a hard time believing it was him though. He’d seemed like a strange, lifeless copy of the man she’d been married to for fourteen years. This was a joke.
She wanted her husband back.
Of course, she’d done her best to talk through the tears, telling him about Christmas in two weeks, because he liked Christmas, didn’t he? It hadn’t come to mind to say goodbye. Goodbye was for people that went away. Goodbye was forever. Just the thought was nearly unbearable. In the seventeen years she had known him he had scared the hell out of her a great couple of times, but he was always fine.
But this…
They had ushered her out pretty quick. He’d reached the temperature they had been aiming for, which was good, they assured her. They would go get the doctor and they would get him off CPB. That was the plan. She hadn’t protested, she’d let them lead her out of the room, looking back only once at the great pile of blankets.
But she knew.
People on CPB weren’t actually alive per say, it was just a technique to keep them a little further away from death. She’d done the homework, back in ’97. She had wanted to be prepared then; she had dug up any and every complication that could accompany open-heart surgery. It had been a bad idea; it had only made her more anxious, of course. And it had been completely unnecessary too. But she had wanted to know what would happen if anything and everything would go wrong.
And now she knew.
She’d been put in the waiting room again. Kevin and Kristen hadn’t moved, clinging at each other for invisible comfort. She felt so alone. She should have brought someone; what was she thinking coming here all on her own? If anything happened, she would have no one to lean on besides three Backstreet Boys and their wives.
“Did they say how long it was gonna take?” AJ asked in a gruff voice, his tired and bloodshot eyes fixed upon her face.
She shook her head numbly. In her mind, and surely in his mind too, it took forever. She watched Howie attempting to read a magazine, but could tell from his posture that he was just as tense as the rest of them.
Jen the Manager- Leighanne could never remember her last name- had come and gone a couple of times, always on the phone. She seemed busy, talking in a rapid and urgent voice to God knows who. Her voice echoed through what seemed to be the entire hospital and it gave Leighanne a headache. Didn’t Jen realize that this was not a right place to take care of management business?
Just when she was about to say something about it, Jen silenced and Leighanne turned to see the aged doctor standing in the doorway with what could only be described as a serious, but fairly surprised expression.
And although it seemed highly irrelevant, Leighanne couldn’t help but remember all the thirty thousand times she had told her husband not to be so reckless on stage.
Chapter End Notes:
I'm kinda stalling, aren't I?
Next chapter is better, I promise.
Next chapter is better, I promise.
