Howie Dorough walked out of the meeting with the boys feeling desperate. Why couldn't they just all come together? It really wasn't that hard was it? He wanted the meeting to continue, hoping it would reach any other outcome but the decision they had ultimately come to.
Go on an open ended break.
He felt like his break had been long enough. He got to do so many constructive things while on hiatus. So many things for his sister. He was going to make conquering Lupus his main goal. If nothing else, he would make sure that he accomplished that much.
But now he was ready. Ready to get back to business. He had actually marked off the days on the calendar. Anticipating the day that they would all come together again as The Backstreet Boys.
So, when he had heard everyone so eagerly agree to this open ended break he was heart broken. Why hadn't this group meant as much to them as it did to him?
When he signed on to do something, even in elementary school, he would put everything into it. Even when other kids would make fun of him, like the time he decided to take home economics, all the other boys who had decided to take that class along with Howie, had all dropped because of constant teasing. Not Howie though, even though he would be called everything from a sissy to a momma's boy, it didn't matter because he was in it for the long haul.
That's how he was.
He just wished that the other guys felt the same way. Didn't they hear how when people referred to the Backstreet Boys, they would always use past tense? Didn't they hear that they were being categorized with the music businesses biggest failures? Didn't they hear the boos from the same kids that used to cheer for them?
They were running out of time.
It didn't seem to matter though, the other guys seemed to be doing just fine. Howie, however felt like something was missing.
He tried to fill the void with work. Just exchanging interviews and press junkets for charity cruises and real estate ventures. He had been highly successful at both.
But yet something was still missing.
He tried to fill the void by spending extra time with his family. Helping his Mom and dad around their house. Taking his brother on a vacation to Spain, agreeing to baby sit his nieces and nephews so that his sister and her husband can have some one on one time. He also spent a lot of time with Caroline's kids. Hoping to fill the emptiness that her death had caused them.
Something was still missing.
It ate him up at night when he should have been resting comfortably in his beautiful condo overlooking the ocean. He would close his eyes to the sounds of the waves crashing against the shore. Sounds that he hoped would help him rest.
Nothing helped anymore.
He had insomnia. He always suffered from it, which is why he so easily fell asleep during the day at the drop of a hat. The boys teased him about it. They thought it was pretty funny that he could sleep through anything. They didn't know it was because he was too thoroughly exhausted to stay awake.
Ever since he had been deemed a failure by the music industry, the insomnia intensified. He would lie in bed, his body exhausted from a day of running from one event to the other, but his mind would wander once the lights went out.
What could I have done to make things different?
That's usually the first question that popped into his head. Followed by a whole list of jumbled thoughts or ideas. If he were more set in his ways, if he were more of the leader then a happy follower, if he were more direct and forceful. If he were more persuasive, then maybe things would be different. He wasn't though and neither were those things.
Everything remained the same.
So, he would rise with the dawn, take a long bath while listening to calming rain forest sounds in his headphones and start his day. Trying no to think about the huge mistake they were making. Trying not to let it get to him so much.
All he wanted was for things to go back to the way they were....
