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Lorena could hardly believe what her life had been like the last few months; it all seemed like it never happened. She was sure that any minute the phone would ring and she would be brought back to reality, that she was simply absorbed in some story written on the Internet. When the phone did ring, however, it was Nick calling just to talk.
Before this past year, Lorena had been on a plane twice, but now it seemed just about every other week she was on a plane flying down south to visit Nick. It was a wonder that she was able to hold on to her job and still make some decent money to take the many trips she took. When she didn't fly to see him, Nick would show up in Colorado and spend a few days with her.

Despite their worries, nothing had happened to either of them. They were happy, and it was starting to worry Lorena. Why were those memories so persistent in their minds if they were meant to spend this life together blissfully? Each day that passed and nothing happened to either of them, the more worried Lorena got. All her friends told her she was being extremely pessimistic about the situation, but they didn't know the whole story; she never told them about the memories.

Wringing her hands together, she shouted at the person knocking on her door to come in.

"Lorena, are you here? I meant to get here sooner, but there was a traffic jam."

"It's all right, I'm in the living room," she yelled at her guest.

"So what are you up to?" her friend Karin asked as she plopped down on the couch.

"Nothing much, just thinking about life," was her reply.

"Are you gonna tell me about that guy that has been making you so sickly happy lately?"

Before she could answer, the front door flew open and then slammed shut. They heard sounds of someone quickly running to the room they were in. Lorena froze and sat staring at the entrance to the living room.

"I'm here!!" a girl shouted as she pretended to jump on Karin on the couch.

"LINDSEY! Shit, girl, you scared the shit out of me," Lorena yelled as she threw a pillow at the new arrival.

"What'd I miss? Huh? Tell me."

"Nothing, Karin just asked me what was up."

"So you didn't reveal anything about your boytoy?"

The three girls sat talking for hours about what was going on in their lives and who Karin and Lindsey were dating.

"Hey, Lorena's avoiding what we want to know," Karin finally brought up. "We want to know about her guy, and all she's doing is talking about us."

Looking away from her friends, she could feel her cheeks become bright red.

"Oh, we embawassed our widdle fwend," Lindsey said, getting up off the couch and sitting in full view of Lorena. "C'mon, you know that's why we came over today. I wanna know, tell me!"

Sitting in closer to Lorena, Karin joined in with the pestering. "You know you want to tell us."

Chuckling, Lorena decided to finally tell her friends. "Yes, I have a guy, but you knew that. You wouldn't believe me if I told you who I was dating, so it doesn't matter."

"Yeah, um, okay, who are you dating? Heath Ledger? Hugh Jackman? Nick Carter?" Karin looked at Lindsey and both of them started laughing.

Not joining in their laughter, Lorena coughed to get her friends' attention. "Actually, it is Nick Carter."

Both her friends just sat staring at her. "Bullshit," Karin and Lindsey yelled at the same time.

"I told you, you wouldn't believe me. Can we talk about something else?"

*****

A.J. couldn't stop the nagging feeling that he had been feeling the last couple of months. He felt there was something he had to be doing, but couldn't quite figure out what it was. Ever since that dream he'd been feeling quite strange; he wanted to talk to the other guys about it, but was sure they would treat him differently.

He had to confront Nick; he had something to do with how he was feeling, A.J. was certain of it. Nick, who had been reading that book on past lives, who he had overheard on the phone talking with Lorena about memories of past lives. Nick knew something that was going on, and if Nick didn't know, he would get it out of Lorena. She had to know; she was in his dream.

*****

Stretching after a full night's sleep, Nick woke up smiling. He had dreamt of Lorena, and it was a memory from this life and not a previous one, so it had ended happily.

He was still smiling when he got in the shower; humming to himself, he knew he would enjoy calling Lorena that afternoon. He quickly jumped out of the shower when he had finished and toweled himself off. Grabbing at his pants as he tried to dry his other leg proved difficult when he ended up losing his balance and landing on the floor. He was still rubbing his leg when a knock at the door came.

"Yes?" he asked.

"I need to talk to you," a familiar voice said.

"Can you give me a minute to finish getting dressed? I should be done in a few."

"Sure," the voice on the other side answered.

Nick found a clean shirt and tossed it over his head. He started to wonder what this person could want to talk about at this time in the day. It wasn't early, but they liked to sleep and it was before noon.

"Okay, I'm ready to talk," he said, throwing open the door to be met with a sack over his head and something hard meeting with his head a few seconds later.