He fell asleep on the beach. Waking up with the salty taste of sand on his tongue. He wasn't sure how long he had been sleeping but the intense heat of the sun whispered that it was around noon. He slowly sat himself up, closing his eyes to trick his hangover into believing that he was still asleep.
The people passing him by could have mistaken him for a homeless person.
That's how disheveled and messy he was. His hair sticking straight up on his head, some matted to his drool stained face and some knotted with sand.
He still had no desire to go home though. He sat and faced the waves and smiled as he watched two kids about six years old running away from the water as it slowly approached their feet.
Had he ever been that young? That innocent?
Stretching his long legs out in front of him he noticed the bruises left behind from another night of endless partying. Maybe he was ramming into furniture, maybe he was wrestling. He couldn't remember. All he knew was he was sore. Of course sleeping on the beach didn't help either.
He stood up and shook some of the sand off of his clothes. He would be finding sand on and in him all day. Sand and bad press, the two things that stuck with you forever, no matter how hard you tried to get rid of them.
He laughed at how deep that was. A deep thought from Nick Carter yet, no one there to hear it. He walked away from the small crowd and concentrated on a tuft of land off in the distance.
He wondered how long it would take for him to make it to that place. If it was closer then it appeared or just out of his grasp.
It seemed like everything was just out of his grasp.
He decided to go for it anyway and began the walk to the unknown little green mirage that waited for him. Why not? He had nothing better to do.
On the way he passed by a few patches of people. Most were families, some were by themselves. None of them noticed him. If they did, they kept it to themselves. He kind of liked that though.
Anonymity.
Blending in just like everybody else, normal kid. Normal life. He wondered what it would be like to share an apartment with a few regular guys. If he would be the cool one or the one that no one wanted to hang around with. He seemed to come off that way to people.
A nuisance.
Even those closest to him couldn't profess to understanding what went on in his head. People were easily put off by his immaturity, his hyperactivity and his stupidity. He bowed his head down and smiled. If Kevin had heard him refer to himself as stupid he would have been bat upside the head.
But Kevin wasn't there. No one was.
So Nick just kind of went about being a free, misunderstood spirit. He didn't mind it actually. To him it felt like it added and air of mystery. He made it a joke in the long list of things he had decided to let slide off of his back. Things like that were not going to get him down. No way.
He was able to make out the thatch of land he was moving closer to. From where he was when he first started walking, it looked like it was at the end of the beach, but now that he had moved downslope a bit, he was able to see that it was clear in the middle of the water.
He laughed out loud.
Just out of his grasp.
Turning, he headed back the way he came. Squinting because of the blinding sun. He needed to go home and go to bed. It was too bright for him today. He needed to rest up for tonight. Maybe he would have another party. It would give him an excuse to not be alone and that was something he was not very good at.
Truth is there were too many things he was not very good at to even keep track of. He placed his hands in his pockets and kicked at the sand as he walked. He felt like a failure. Not just now, on days when he was too hungover to think but all the time.
Yes, he decided as he watched a crab fight it's way out of the ocean onto the sand, tonight would be another night for celebration...
