Brian Littrell was still in bed when his phone rang. With a sigh, he reached over to his bedside table and picked it up to see who was calling. He didn’t recognize the number on the screen, so he set it down and rolled over, letting the call go to voicemail.
“Who was that, babe?” his wife Leighanne asked without bothering to open her eyes.
“I dunno - no one I know,” replied Brian, burrowing back under the covers.
“You should’ve answered it. What if it was about an opportunity for Baylee?”
“Then hopefully they’ll leave a message or call back.” Brian had just closed his eyes again when he heard the phone beep to let him know someone had done the former. With a groan, he grudgingly rolled back over and reached for the phone again. He pressed a button to access his voicemail box, entered his passcode, and put the phone to his ear to listen to the message.
“Hi, Brian. This is Danica Logan, calling from Lower Keys Medical Center in Key West. Will you please call me back at this number as soon as you get this message? It’s concerning Nick.”
Brian’s heart sank when he heard Nick’s name. Of course it was concerning Nick; Nick was the only one he knew who regularly vacationed in the Florida Keys.
“Please call as soon as possible,” the woman said again, then rattled off a phone number and repeated it. “Thank you.” The message ended with no further information.
Brian sat up, feeling sick to his stomach. Normally, his first reaction to a call about Nick coming from Key West would have been, What kind of trouble has he gotten himself into now? But if Nick had been arrested again, the call wouldn’t have been coming from a hospital. The fact that it had meant Nick must be hurt… or sick… or dead. Brian’s heart began to hammer. He put his hand on his bare chest, feeling it beat against his palm.
“Who was it?” Leighanne asked again. As she opened her eyes and looked up at him, her curious tone turned to one of concern. “Husband? Is everything okay?”
He shook his head. “It was someone calling from a hospital in Key West,” he said, his voice cracking. “Something happened to Nick.”
“Oh no…” She sat up too, tossing back her tangle of long, blonde hair as she turned to face him. “What happened? Is he all right?”
Brian swallowed hard. “I don’t know. She didn't say.”
Leighanne bit down on her bottom lip. “Do you want me to call her back and find out?” she offered.
“No, that’s okay. I will.” Brian’s hands were shaking. He fumbled with the phone, finally managing to find the callback button. He pushed it with a trembling finger and put the phone back to his ear.
It rang twice before someone answered. “Lower Keys Medical Center. How may I help you?”
Brian cleared his throat. “Hi… my name’s Brian Littrell,” he began uncertainly. “I just got a call from y’all about my friend, Nick Carter?”
“Oh, of course! I’m actually the one who called you,” replied the young woman on the phone. “Thanks for calling back so quickly.”
“No problem,” said Brian. “So what’s going on with Nick? Is he okay?”
“I’m so sorry to have to tell you this, but Nick suffered a medical emergency early Friday morning. He’s in the intensive care unit, in stable but critical condition.”
Brian’s heart skipped a beat, then began to race again. “Oh my God. What happened to him?”
When he said that, he felt Leighanne grab his leg and glanced up to see her looking at him with wide eyes, clearly wondering the same thing. What?? she mouthed at him frantically, but he shook his head, wanting to concentrate on what the woman on the phone was saying.
“I’m afraid I can’t give you any more details over the phone - it’s against hospital protocol,” the woman apologized. “But he could really use your prayers right now.”
Brian was frustrated by the lack of information. “Is his wife with him?” he asked, wondering why he hadn’t heard anything from Lauren.
“No… it’s my understanding that they’re separated.”
“Separated?” Brian frowned. “Since when? Where did you hear that?”
“Nick told me.”
Brian’s thoughts were racing even faster than his heart. He wanted to question her further about Lauren, but he decided to keep the focus on Nick. “So he’s awake? He’s talking?”
“He was, but he had a major setback this morning and hasn’t regained consciousness yet.”
Brian sighed, his frustration growing. “So you can tell me that, but you can’t tell me what the hell happened to him?”
“I’m so sorry,” said the woman. “I wish I could, but I’m not allowed to give out any more medical information over the phone.”
“What if I was there in person?” Brian asked, annoyed. “Could you tell me then?”
“Yes.”
Brian didn’t hesitate more than a second before making a fateful decision of his own. “Fine, then I guess I’m coming down there. What hospital did you say he’s at?”
“Lower Keys Medical Center,” the woman replied. “If you let me know what time your flight gets in, I can send a driver to pick you up at the airport. The weather’s getting pretty bad, so you may have a hard time finding a ride when you get here.”
“That’d be great,” said Brian, warming to her some. “Can I call you right back after I’ve booked a flight?”
“Of course.”
“Thanks.” As they both hung up, Brian took a deep breath and let it out slowly. When he looked up, Leighanne was still staring at him.
“What in the world was that all about?” she asked. “Is Nick okay or not?”
A lump rose in Brian’s throat as he shook his head. “It sounds like he’s in bad shape, baby. The woman on the phone wouldn’t tell me what’s wrong with him, but she said he’s unconscious and in critical condition.”
Leighanne gasped, covering her mouth with her hand. “Oh God... I’m so sorry, honey.” She kept her other hand on his leg, giving it a squeeze. “So you’re flying down there?”
He nodded. “I feel like I have to. I don’t think anyone else is with him; she said he and Lauren are separated.” Frowning again, he added, “Did you know anything about that?”
Leighanne raised her eyebrows. “No, but I’m not surprised.”
“Really? Nick and Lauren always seemed like they had a pretty strong marriage to me.”
“Maybe, but grief changes people. I knew it was a bad sign when he went back on tour without her after they lost the baby,” she said, shaking her head. “If you had done that to me, Husband, I don’t know that we would still be married right now.”
Brian nodded. “I tried to get him to take some time off. He wouldn’t do it. But y’know, me and Nick are two different people; I’m a homebody, and he’s always been more at home on the road. I think he needed to go back to work for his own mental health as much as Lauren needed to stay home for hers.”
Leighanne sighed. “Poor Lauren. I should call her.”
“Don’t,” said Brian. “Not yet. Let me get down there and find out what’s going on first.”
“Don’t you want me and Bay to come with you?” she asked.
Brian considered her offer for a second before shaking his head. “Nah, y’all should just stay here - you’ve got enough going on here, with Baylee’s birthday and the holidays coming up. I don’t know how long I’ll have to be down there. It may be awhile,” he warned her. As much as he wanted to be with his wife and son, Brian felt it would be better if they weren’t with him this time. He’d always had a hard time finding a balance between his family and his friends, which was what had driven a wedge between Nick and him in the first place. Their friendship wasn’t what it had been back in the beginning, before Brian had gotten married. But now Nick needed him, and Brian wanted to be there for his former best friend. He knew the only way he would be able to focus fully on Nick was if he went to Florida by himself and left his family behind.
He could tell Leighanne didn’t like that answer, but she knew better than to push the issue. She packed Brian’s bag for him while he went online to book a last-minute flight.
On his way to the airport, Brian tried calling Nick’s phone, but it went straight to voicemail. He left a brief message:
“Hey, Frack, I heard you’re in the hospital. I don’t know if you’ll hear this anytime soon, but if you do, call or text me back if you can. You’ve got me pretty worried about you, bro. I’m on my way down, so I’ll see you soon. Hang in there, all right?”
Then he called Howie.
Out of all the Backstreet Boys, Howie Dorough was the closest to Nick - not only personally, but also in proximity. He was the only one of the five who still lived in Florida. If there was anyone who would be able and willing to meet Brian in Key West that afternoon, it was Howie.
“Hey, man,” Howie answered his phone cheerfully. “What’s up?”
Brian took a deep breath. “Hey, have you heard from Nick lately?” he asked, trying to stop his voice from shaking.
“Yeah, I talked to him last week,” replied Howie. “Why?”
You’re a better friend than I am, Brian thought guiltily. He hadn’t spoken to Nick in at least six weeks, not since he’d gotten home from the tour in mid-September. If he had, he might have known that Nick wasn’t home, but hanging out in Key West. “Did he sound okay?” Brian asked, avoiding answering Howie’s question directly.
“Not really. He seemed depressed. I think he’s been drinking pretty heavily again,” Howie admitted with a sigh. Brian’s heart sank. He’d had no idea Nick was having such a hard time, which made him feel even worse. “Why?” Howie asked again. “Do you think we need to stage another intervention or something?”
Brian swallowed hard. “Howie, something happened to him. He’s in the hospital in Key West. I got a call from a woman who works there; she said Nick’s in critical condition, but she wouldn’t tell me why.”
“What?!” Howie gasped.
“I’m gonna fly down there,” Brian continued, still trying to keep his voice steady, “and find out what the hell’s going on. I’m on my way to the Atlanta airport right now, and I should be in Key West by three this afternoon.”
“You want some company?” Howie offered. “I can come down too.”
Brian knew he could count on Howie. “Yeah, man, that’d be great if you could,” he replied with a sense of relief. Whatever he found when he got to Florida, it was nice to know he wouldn’t have to face it alone. Up until that moment, he had been regretting telling Leighanne to stay home, but now that he had Howie on board, Brian felt better about his decision.
“I’ll look for a flight now. Let me put you on speaker,” said Howie. In the background, Brian could hear him filling his wife Leigh in on what was going on as he booked his flight to Key West.
“Did y’all know Nick was down there?” Brian asked during a break in their conversation.
“Yeah, I told you I talked to him the other day,” said Howie. “He’s been there the whole break.”
Brian frowned, feeling guilty again for being a bad friend. “So is it true he and Lauren are separated?”
“I don’t think they are in the legal sense, but it sounds like they might be heading that way,” Howie said sadly. “She’s still in Vegas; Nick hasn’t seen her since the end of the tour. He told me she hardly speaks to him.”
“She’s still grieving,” said Leigh. “I’m sure he is too.”
The furrow in Brian’s brow deepened as a troubling thought that had been in the back of his mind since the beginning of the conversation came to the forefront. “Howie, you said he seemed depressed. You don’t think he would deliberately do something to hurt himself, do you? Like overdose, or…?” He trailed off, leaving his last thought unfinished because the other possibilities were too horrific to put into words.
Howie and Leigh were both silent for a few seconds. Finally, Howie said, “No... I don’t think so. Not Nicky.” But he sounded as uncertain as Brian felt.
Neither of them had considered the possibility that Nick was not just depressed, but literally broken-hearted. They hadn’t discussed Nick’s heart condition in a long time, for it hadn’t seemed to affect him much in the last decade. As far as Brian knew, it was a thing of the past, just like his own congenital defect. He never imagined Nick’s heart problem would come back to haunt him. Instead, it was Nick’s history of substance abuse that weighed heavily on Brian’s mind the whole way to the airport.
***
It was raining when Brian landed in Key West.
He was not normally a nervous flier, but he had spent the better part of the flight praying, first for Nick and then for the pilot and all the passengers on the plane, including himself. As they'd made their turbulent descent through the thick storm clouds, he'd kept his hands clasped tightly together and his eyes squeezed shut, silently begging God to get them safely to the ground. After a bumpy but successful landing, Brian took a few deep breaths before he unbuckled his seatbelt and prepared to disembark the plane.
Waiting for him at the gate was a heavyset man in a suit, holding a sign that said LITTRELL. “Hi, I’m Brian Littrell,” Brian introduced himself as he approached him. “The hospital sent you, I take it?”
“That’s right,” replied the man. “You ready to roll? Any checked bags?”
“No, just the carry-on,” said Brian. He had packed nothing but a few changes of clothes and the essentials into his small suitcase, not sure how long he would be staying or what else he would need.
“Good deal. Right this way, then.” The driver led him out of the small airport, producing a black umbrella to protect them both from the pouring rain as they walked to the lot where he was parked. By the time he popped the trunk of a silver sedan, the bottoms of Brian’s pants were soaked from splashing through puddles, but at least his head was dry.
Brian waited until they were in the privacy of the car to ask, “Do you know how my friend Nick’s doing?”
“No, sorry, sir,” said the driver, as he started the engine. “I don’t have any patient information. I just drive.” He checked his mirrors before backing carefully out of the parking space. “I’m sure his doctor will fill you in once you get to the hospital, though,” he added, putting his windshield wipers on high as they pulled out of the lot. “Do you want to head straight there or drop your stuff off at a hotel first?”
“You can take me straight to the hospital,” said Brian from the back seat. He had booked a room at a hotel, but didn’t want to waste time checking in before he found out what had happened to Nick. “Thanks.”
“You got it,” the driver replied, taking a left turn onto the A1A.
As they drove up the coastal highway, Brian watched the waves roll over the stormy sea outside his rain-streaked window. He didn’t notice the other car pull out behind them, and he never saw what caused the driver to slam on the brakes, but suddenly, he heard the squeal of tires on wet pavement and felt his body flying forward, his forehead smacking the back of the seat in front of him.
Before his brain had time to react to the first blow, Brian felt the impact of something heavy crashing into the back of the car and heard the sickening crunch of metal - or maybe bone - as his head struck the seat a second time. It was then that his whole world seemed to implode, the gray clouds collapsing upon him as the angry sea swelled, swallowing Brian into a black hole of oblivion.
***
