~ The Boy in the Bubble~
The crispness of fall started to mesh with the briskness of winter as it got closer and closer to our first semester’s end. Funny how time goes by so fast when you are living in a bubble and by around November, I realized that was what being away from home felt like; living in a bubble.
To say winter wasn’t brutal my first year of college would be a flat out lie. By Thanksgiving it had already snowed a total of three feet. Not all at once mind you but enough to be a huge pain in the neck. I did use it to my advantage though. When Howie called me and asked when exactly I planned on coming home for Thanksgiving break I kind of lied and said because of all the snow we weren’t really going to HAVE a break. Just Thursday and that was all.
I don’t know why but I couldn’t go home yet. Maybe because I liked my little bubble just fine, enjoyed my life as I liked to think it was going. Probably because in the few months that I had been away from home I had substituted my old family for a new one. I felt bad for lying to him because I think he was really looking forward to me coming home. I’m almost positive he knew I was lying too but I still stood firm in my decision and opted to stay in Boston.
As my stay in Boston lengthened, my attitude changed. I went from being completely homesick and wanting to see Howie all the time to barely even letting myself think of him or anything that had to do with home. I guess it was easier for me that way, by not thinking of home I was able to make all the problems that awaited me there disappear.
I felt better knowing that Sarah and AJ had invited both he and my dad to their house. So no more guilt on my part. Everyone went home and looked at me kind of strange when I said I was staying. I lied and said my parents were going to be away in Paris. I’m sure that’s when they started to sense maybe Sunny Nicky wasn’t so sunny all the time. If they did they didn’t tell me.
The real reason I stayed behind, well one of them anyway, is because Amy was also going to be up there all by herself. She didn’t tell me why and it would be a long time before we opened up to each other about stuff but I could tell she did not like the idea of staying in the dorm all by herself for a holiday.
When I told her that my plans had been thrown out of whack she smiled and hugged me.
We ordered a pizza and watched The Man With Two Brains. It was fun and anticlimactic but it kept us both in our bubbles.
I knew I would have to go back home eventually because we weren’t allowed to stay on campus during the winter break. I guess it made sense but still I wasn’t ready to move back to Bethlehem. Go from sunny Nick to poor Nick.
Howie called me just about every day but I seldom returned his calls. Not that I didn’t love him, but I don’t know…I didn’t want to deal with reality. Not yet anyway. The last message he left me was cold, “If you ever decide to call me back I need to know when to come pick you up unless you plan on hiding in the dorms for the rest of your life”
It was kind of harsh but I guess I deserved it. So I finally called him and told him that my last day of school would be the 17th. I lied of course because it was almost five days before that but I didn’t want to go home.
Kenny went home the second he was done with exams, we exchanged numbers and he said he’d call me a lot especially to escape the parents. Amy hung around until a few days before I left. That’s when I finally got to meet her roommate.
We were at lunch sitting at a table with one of the more annoying guys on our floor, Rob. This guy was one of those twenty five year old freshman types, annoying in every way. He also had a little crush on Jill, so when Amy said Jill was coming to lunch with us he all of the sudden jumped at the chance to tag along.
We sat around the table and for the first time I noticed what Amy was talking about when it came to her roommate. Jill was a beautiful girl not as drop dead gorgeous as I had pictured her but still very nice looking. She had sex appeal, dripped it actually and boy I think we guys were able to smell it from a mile away. By the time we had eaten our lunch and went for the hot beverage, there were six guys sitting around our table. Six guys and not one was even looking Amy’s way.
She tried to act like she wasn’t thinking about it, but I could tell by her body language she was embarrassed. I felt bad for her, but it was Rob that kind of summed up what to her was probably her bane of existence. He leaned over to her as the guys ogled Jill and said, “That probably happens all the time and you are always left out huh?” She gave him a half smile and I wanted to punch him but it was the truth. He didn’t mean to be a jerk by saying it either.
As we left the cafeteria I pulled her aside, “I still don’t think she’s anything to write home about” I licked my ice cream and she smiled at me, “Nick can I ask you a question?”
“Yeah”
“Why are you hanging with me?”
“Because you’re cool and I like to hang with the cool kids” I winked at her and she pushed me, “No…I’m serious. I mean it’s just kind of odd. I mean I love hanging out with you but I was just wondering” I felt bad, like suddenly she thought that maybe I was being dared to be seen with her or something.
“Why do you hang out with me?” I asked her now on the defense.
She smiled and blushed, that made me feel good. “Because you are the brother I have always wanted and never had” I have to admit, it wasn’t exactly what I had thought she was gonna say. The man in me was waiting for ‘because I want to jump your bones you stud!’ but I guess after my ego had time to digest what she said I took it as a compliment.
We hung out together that night in her room with Jill and her little entourage of males wanting to get into her pants. Watched some South Park and then called it a night.
It wasn’t until I got back to my empty dorm room that I became Nick Carter again. It was an odd transformation. I hadn’t been this guy since I stepped foot in this place and now all of the sudden all of the things I had worried about most when I had lived at home came hitting me all at once. Thoughts about dad and seeing him again. Thoughts about Howie and trying to pretend I don’t know how unhappy he really is. Thoughts of the graveyard and living so near all of the people who have died in my life.
I wanted to forget it all, but it would be coming back at me full force when Howie came to pick me up. I even tried to conjure up some schemes in my head. Ways that I could maybe get away with staying up in Boston during the break. Did I know anyone with an apartment? Just a few people but none of them well enough that I could stay.
Maybe I could stay at a YMCA? Or a hostel, there were a ton of those in Boston that barely charged any rent at all. Maybe I could hook up with one of those. I felt a tear fall from my cheek and I was kind of surprised. Was I that upset about going home that I was crying? That made no sense to me. I had escaped these feelings. I put them all away when I left that place.
It’s only for a month Nick, it won’t be that bad, I tried to tell myself avoiding the mirror as I walked into the bathroom and splashed water on my face. Only for a month and you’ll get to see your old friends and your bothers. You miss them you know.
I pretty much kept that frame of mind when Howie finally knocked on my door to take me away from my new life. He seemed annoyed when he entered. I don’t blame him I hated when people blew me off and it seemed like that is all I had done to him for the last month. “Hey D” I said grabbing him in a hug.
“Hey Nicky…ready to go?” I nodded, “Just let me go to the bathroom” I walked in there and took a few deep breaths. I heard him turn on Kenny’s TV.
“Is there a lot of traffic?”
“You don’t want to leave do you?” I wasn’t expecting him to open with that even though you would have to be pretty dumb to not read that in my face.
“It’s not that I don’t want to come home but…”
“I know” He said and tried to smile at me, it wasn’t a real one though. I could tell he was hurt.
I sat down next to him and placed my head on his shoulder, “You know I love you Howie” After I said that he placed his arm around my shoulders, “I know”
“I like my life here, I feel normal here Howie. It’s different at home that’s all”
“I know that too”
“Sorry I have been so distant”
“You don’t have to apologize, just don’t phase me out of your life Nick”
I had heard him say the same exact thing to Kevin once when he thought I was sleeping. I was still kind of young and I fell asleep in his bed. It was a little phase I went through in my tweens. I hated my room, there was something about it, something dark that I still to this day don’t much think about. Anyway when I would get anxious I would climb into his bed but only if he wasn’t in there. That was something he always found amusing. “You just like my bed better, I have nothing to do with that at all” He had teased once.
I was lying in bed when I heard the phone ring. I always got anxious back then when the phone rang because nine out of ten times it was about Mom or dad. Mom had died already but still she was alive in my head. Howie had been sitting in his room at his desk with the light on dim reading a book, afraid to wake me. He answered the phone and started yelling at the person on the other end. I hadn’t figured out it was Kevin until I heard him mention Kristin’s name. That’s when I knew, Howie sounded hurt that night and I remember wanting desperately to know what they had been fighting about. “Don’t phase us out of your life Kevin!” He had said. Now just about ten years later I think I finally had a clue what he meant.
We were pretty quiet for a good portion of our ride back home. So different from the initial ride to college. We even stopped at the same McDonald’s but this time I went with a good old quarter pounder with cheese.
“Howie are you mad at me?” I finally gathered enough courage to ask him as he played with his yogurt parfait.
“No kiddo I’m not mad at you, just have a lot on my mind that’s all”
“Something that I can help you with?” He smiled almost like ‘how cute little Nicky wants to help me with my problems’
“Nah...it’ll work itself out I’m sure. How’s your burger?”
“Good” That was my cue to drop the conversation so I did.
I sat in the car as day turned to night and felt my bubble burst as I saw that ‘Pennsylvania welcomes you’ sign.
I didn’t feel welcomed I felt troubled.
“Nicky, the first time home from college is always the hardest” He admitted to me when I audibly sighed at the Easton toll booth.
“Do you think you are the first Carter to feel like this? I remember throwing up before I came home for the first time”
I looked over at my brother who was only a shadow to me at that point, his face darkened by the night sky but an occasional headlight shown through the window made me realize that maybe he was as troubled as I was.
“You know what I was most afraid of Boo?”
“NO…what?”
“Never being able to leave again. I was afraid that this stupid place was going to swallow me and keep me here forever” He looked over at me then as if he figured out what was going through my head. Maybe he did. I’m not sure, my mind was flooded with tons of things. None of which involved Howie feeling as miserable as me.
“Do you still feel like that?” He shrugged, “Yeah…sometimes I guess”
I urgently felt the need to change the conversation, “So, what are our plans for Christmas?” I sat up a little straighter and tried to shake of my brother’s disturbing confessions.
“Well we have a bunch of offers. AJ and Sarah want us to come to their place. Kevin and Kris invited us and so did Leigh and Brian”
“Too bad we can’t all be together” He smiled at me, “We will be”
“We will?”
“Yup, everyone decided on AJ’s place because of the baby. It’s just easier for everyone else to travel to them then them to travel to everyone else”
“Cool!” That made me excited. Maybe seeing everyone again would feel better. Not just me, a brother and a crazy father.
“It should be fun” He said but his voice didn’t say that. His voice made it seem like it was something he dreaded. I was curious but decided not to ask. I wasn't sure I wanted to know the answer. Sometimes it was so much easier being left in the dark. I wish I could have stayed there forever...in the dark never knowing the real truth about things.
