Chapter 24

            He just stood there, unsure of what to say, avoiding eye contact at all costs.  His actions were inexcusable and what he was going to tell her would break her heart. 

            “Nick?” she asked again, her voice rising with emotion.  “Did this really happen?” 

            “Yes, it did,” he said flatly, never looking her in the eyes.  She sat in the bed, staring at him, trying to bring herself to believe what he had just admitted to her so callously.  As his confession sank into her mind, humiliation and anger overwhelmed her.  She needed to know when, and why this happened, not that it would really matter in her decision to leave him. 

            “When did this happen?” she inquired forcefully.  She continued to stare at him, getting more and more pissed off that he would not look at her. 

            “After the meeting at the hotel before I went to Mood,” he told her, still avoiding eye contact with everyone in the room. 

            “How could you do this?” shouted Caryss, the tears that had previously been absent now pooling in her beautiful eyes.  She took her blanket and pulled it up over her face as heartbroken sobs poured out of her emotionally fragile body.  “I hate you,” she spat at him from under the blanket.  “Get out!”

            For the first time since the confrontation, he looked at her, only to see her hiding under the blanket.  “Please, Caryss let me explain,” he begged, walking to the side of her bed in a panic. 

            “GET OUT NOW!” she screamed as loud as she could, throwing the blanket down so he could see the fire and rage in her eyes.  He tried to reach for her but she started flailing her arms at him, slapping him every chance she got.  Liz ran over to the other side of her bed and held her, calming her arms and her shaking body.  AJ grabbed Nick from behind and pulled him away from Caryss’s bed and into the hallway. 

            “Don’t,” scoffed Nick as AJ opened his mouth to talk once they were out in the hallway and AJ had released him.  He wiped the side of his face with the back of hand, a small amount of blood smearing onto his hand.  Caryss had gotten a few good swipes at him, one of them with her nail to his cheek.

            “Man, I would be a hypocrite if I tried to say anything to you about cheating on her, so I’m not going to.  I’ve fucked up to, so I understand.  But I think you need to leave.  She’s not ready to listen to your reasons or justifications and honestly she may never be.  But if you love her like you claim to and you still want a future with her, wait for her.  She’s going to want answers, and she’ll come looking for them when she’s ready.”  AJ patted his friend on the back and Nick nodded his head in understanding.

            “How am I supposed to keep her safe now though?” he asked, tears filling his bright blue eyes. 

            “I’ll keep you posted.  For now, just go to the hotel and get your stuff out.  I’ll call you when she’s discharged.”

            “Thanks man,” sniffed Nick.  He hugged AJ quickly then turned around and walked away.  He walked out of the hospital to his car and climbed in.  He started the engine and slowly pulled out of the parking lot. 

            I can’t believe I fell for it, and now I’ve ruined the best thing I’ve ever had, he thought to himself as he rolled to a stop at a red light a few blocks from the hotel.  I should have never believed that she just wanted to talk, and I should have been stronger and resisted her.  “I am such an idiot!” he screamed out loud as a few stray tears rolled down his cheeks.  The light turned green and he stepped on the accelerator, squealing his tires and he sped down the street towards the hotel. 

            He zipped into a parking space and turned the engine off.  He laid his head down on the steering wheel, frantically thinking of a way to get Caryss back.  He stayed that way for almost thirty minutes without realizing it, and without realizing that Trevor had walked into the hotel twenty minutes earlier and was now hiding in Caryss’s suite, waiting for her to get there. 

            “Car-bear, I’m so sorry,” whispered Stacie and she wrapped her arms around her forlorn friend.  “Nick loves you so much though, it’s so obvious, there has to be an explanation.”

            “You think there’s an explanation for him cheating on me?” Caryss shrieked, pulling away from her friend’s embrace.  “You think there’s a reason that’s going to make him fucking some whore on the beach okay?”  AJ entered the room at that moment, and Caryss turned her fury from Stacie to him.  “Come on AJ, you know Nick better than anyone; does he have a reason?  Are Backstreet Boys allowed to screw anything with tits and then justify it later?”  She was screaming at this point, hatred and degradation in control of and at fault for her erratic outburst. 

            She grabbed the nurse call button hanging from her bed and pushed it repeatedly.  A few seconds later a nurse came bounding into the room, her face flushed a little from the run down the hall.  Caryss still had the call button in her hand and had not stopped pushing it yet.

            “What’s wrong sweetie?” the nurse asked as she walked over to Caryss’s bedside and gently pulled the call button out of her grasp.  Caryss stared straight ahead, her eyes blank and cold, her face expressionless. 

            “I’m ready to leave.  Please get my discharge paperwork ready,” she stated matter-of-factly without blinking or moving her gaze.  The nurse stared at her for a minute, and then looked back at the three other shocked and upset faces in the room, trying to figure out what was going on. 

            “I’ll have to check with the doctor and see if he is ready to discharge you,” the nurse stated quietly as she grabbed her Caryss’s wrist to check her pulse.  Caryss pulled her hand away from the nurse and shifted her stare from in front of her to the nurse’s eyes. 

            “Get my discharge paperwork ready, or I am leaving without it,” she snarled as she flipped the blankets off her legs.  She swung her legs over the side of the bed, grimacing in pain as she moved her injured leg too quickly.  The nurse, Stacie, Liz and AJ all jumped quickly towards her.  “I’m fine!” she snapped, looking at all of their worried faces.  “Everyone get out so I can get dressed.  And you,” she said, looking at the nurse once more, “go get my discharge paperwork.” 

            Everyone backed out of the room slowly, different thoughts going through their minds.  The nurse was wondering what she should do, AJ was trying to figure out how to comfort Caryss and make sure she doesn’t hurt herself more, and Liz and Stacie were wondering who that person in the room was, because it certainly wasn’t the Caryss they knew. 

            When everyone was out of the room, Caryss untied her hospital gown and slipped it off; throwing it on the floor once it cleared her body.  She reached onto the windowsill and grabbed her shorts and tank tops.  She pulled the first tank top over her head, then the other.  Caryss always liked to layer and create a cute look, but at the moment, she couldn’t have cared less. 

            Now comes the hard part, she said to herself as she contemplated how to get her shorts on.  She carefully slid her injured leg into the appropriate leg hole of her shorts and gently pulled them over her brace.  She then bent her other leg and shoved it into the other leg hole, pulling them up until she couldn’t anymore while sitting.  She struggled to stand up, trying to balance on one leg while medicated and steady herself with her hands all while trying to keep her shorts from falling down.  She lost her balance and was about to fall, but a pair of strong arms caught her from behind. 

            “I’ll hold you up while you button your shorts,” AJ said softly as he held her steady.  She quickly button and zipped her jeans shorts without saying a word. 

            “Done, thank you,” she mumbled.  Still supporting her like a crutch, he moved around her body until he was face to face with the beautiful, broken creature.  His eyes saw through her, the soulful chocolate irises breaking down the recently built fortress around her heart.  All the stress and emotion that had built up inside her released at that moment, and she collapsed into his strong arms and cried, heaving and sobbing so forcefully that his body shook right along with hers. 

            “I know you can’t believe it right now,” he said into her ear, soothing her as best he could, “but you are going to be okay.”

            Liz and Stacie stood in the doorway, watching Caryss and AJ.  “Do you think she’s going to be okay?” Liz asked quietly, her voice cracking slightly as she said it. 

            “All the other options suck, so that’s what I’m hoping for,” replied Stacie frankly.  The nurse walked up behind them with some paperwork in her hand. 

            “Here are her post-ER instructions,” she said, handing the papers to Liz.  She looked at Caryss and AJ in the room and swallowed hard.  “You ladies will be around to look after her right?”  Liz and Stacie nodded their heads in confirmation and the nurse gave them a week smile before turning away and walking back to her station. 

            Liz and Stacie paced into the room, but before they could tell Caryss she was discharged and able to leave, AJ’s cell phone rang.  What they heard next made their legs go weak and their stomachs turn. 

            “Rick, slow down, I can’t understand you!” AJ screamed into the phone.  “Oh my God!  Is Nick hurt?  I’ll be there as soon as I can!”  He flipped his phone shut and thrust it in his pocket while at the same time shoving Caryss’s crutches at her and throwing Liz Caryss’s purse.  “We have to go, now!” he yelled.  “There was a shooting in Caryss’s suite.”