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Brian and I sat reflecting about the old days. Him on the bed next to his sleeping child and me on the floor looking up at them. This was a week of reflection. Everywhere we went, reporters and the like would bring up old stories about us. Some good, some bad, some funny, some downright embarassing. A subject that kept creeping up was how bad my temper was in the old days. I really wish I had never done half the things I did growing up. Too late to take them back.

"Hey Brian"

"Yup"

"I just wanted to apologize" He looked up at me with a worried expression on his face.

"What for?" He stared at his baby as if I would have done something to him.

"For being a jerk when I was younger" He seemed confused. I had that effect on lot's of people.

"I'm not following you" he still looked puzzled.

"I know. I mean when I was younger, I used to get angry and take it out on you guys"

"Oh, that? Don't be silly. You were a kid. Don't let the reporters get to you like that"

"No really, they were right. I was violent sometimes" He sat up making Bailey stir in his sleep.

"Well, you aren't anymore. Besides you never took your frustration out on me. I was ususally spared" He stood up and cradled Bailey in his arms. I didn't want them to leave. It felt good having Brian to myself again. If even just for a moment.

"I gotta go downstairs and finish getting ready. Thanks a bunch for watching him. I owe you one" I stood up and shook his hand. I wanted to hug him but the baby was in the way.

"You know what? Let's just call it even" He pat me on the back before exiting out the door.

I smiled and nodded my head before making my way back to the bed. I know I probably should have continued to get ready like everyone else was, but I found myself a little blue thinking back on those days. The days that I was so angry at the world. My band brothers where the only things holding me together but yet I kept pushing them away....
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I paced the floor of the rehearsal space trying to calm myself down. Cussing under my breath. I was out of sorts for several reasons. The biggest being my mother cancelling out on a visit yet again. It seemed that whenever she was supposed to make an appearance, something would come up that prevented her from getting here! I was a little sick of it. I threw myself on the floor and started to pound the ground with my fists.

The other guys just looked unsure of what to do. This was the first time that I managed to show a full fledged temper tantrum. I mean, I lost it every know and then but this was a tantrum. I was even surprising myself.

"Kaos, get up off the floor"

"Go to hell Kevin" I yelled at him. He took another step forward. "Come on Nick you are being childish and immature. None of us have our families here and we aren't acting like this"

"Well, I guess that makes you perfect doesn't it?" I said dripping sarcasm. He walked away.

"Nick we need to get back to work here!"

"Go to hell Fatima!" I wanted to take that back. I looked up at her with an apologetic expression on my face. She was angry.

"Sorry" I whispered to her. "I didn't mean to say that to you" I stood up dusting my pants off before resuming the rehearsal.

It was another one of those very long days. Hell days. We woke up at five am and had been running around ever since. The schedule was starting to turn us all into darker halves of ourselves. Even Howie walked around grumpy. It was too much to handle. I was having the hardest time. Well AJ and I. We had to do school work on top of everything else. When the rest of the guys had free time, AJ and I had to hit the books. I called my mom and begged her to let me drop out of school. If I really needed to somewhere along the road, I could always shoot for a high school equivelency diploma. She said absolutely not! At this point I don't see why she disagreed. I was barely passing anything. I just didn't care anymore.

"Watch where the hell you are going!" AJ said when I accidentally stepped on him. Instead of apologizing and moving on, I pushed him and the force of the blow knocked him to the floor.

"Hey what the hell did you do that for asswipe?" I jumped on top of him and started to pummel him in the stomach. The other guys rushed over to me and picked me up off of him. Kevin was holding me from behind. I was kicking at his legs so he would drop me but he only held on tighter.

"Let me go asshole!"

"No! You little shit not until you calm yourself down!" I continued to struggle in his grasp.

Howie and Brian went to AJ's aide and helped him over to the chairs. He passed by me giving me a death glare. "Asshole" He uttered to me under his breath. I tried to break free from Kevin's hold again. I tried something new. "Ow, Kevin you're hurting me"

He let go of me immediatly. I turned and ran for AJ full force knocking him off the chair and onto the ground. Kevin quickly following behind me. He tackled me while I was on top of AJ. I'm sure we looked ridiculous. Of course who comes in at that point?

"Hi gentlem...what the heck is going on?" Lou asked when he saw the triple decker BSB sandwich happening. His voice made us all stop in our tracks and fall to the floor in a neat row. Kevin quickly stood up, excuses brewing in his head i'm sure.

"Uh hi Lou we were wrestling" He smiled. Kevin not Lou.

"Yes, I see that. The question is why would you be doing that? Unless it's part of the dance routine" Nope Lou wasn't amused at all.

"I'll tell you what they were doing" Fatima uh-oh she definetly wasn't going to cover our asses. Not after what I said to her. "They were fighting, and I am not here to play babysitter to these boys. Call me when you grow up!" Her tone was soft but firm. I was hurt.

When Fatima left the room, Lou gathered us all around him. "You mind telling me why the best choreographer in this business just walked out the door?" They all looked at me.

"It was my fault. Sorry" He approached me.

"I figured as much" Ouch that hurt. Why would he figure as much? I rolled my eyes at him.

"Young man, you need to grow up! What happened today will NEVER happen again. Do you understand that? I am deducting Fatima's fee from your per diem" He said pointing at me. I looked down at the floor. "That would be two days worth of spending money for you" I started to grind my teeth to keep from attacking the man.

"Now because Fatima left, I guess you have some free time although you don't really deserve it. I suggest you go back to the bus and take a nap. Think about what just happened here boys. Believe me when I say that this is the last time. I will not be embarassed this way again" He stormed out of the room leaving the five us there to stew in our own frustration.

"Way to go Nick!" AJ said threw clenched teeth. "You have serious issues you know that?" I was just about to go after him again when Kevin's booming voice made me stop.

"HEY! ENOUGH!" We turned to see him standing over us looking even bigger than he already was.

"You need to cool it down now! The both of you. Christ didn't you just hear what Lou said to us? I am not a babysitter either. If I wanted to be a babysitter I would have stayed at Disney World!" He walked out the door. Brian and Howie followed him. Before leaving the room Howie turned to us "If you guys want to kill each other go ahead. We are going back to rest" That being said he walked out.

AJ slowly and quietly got up to leave. "Are you coming?" He asked me. I refused to answer him. "Suit yourself" He said walking out and leaving me in the room alone.

I laid on my back staring up at the tiled ceiling wondering how I could explain to my folks why I wanted to quit. This wasn't fun. Too much work and I was so tired. Mom would understand. Or would she?

She made it clear that with dad being laid off from his job, they depended on this money. The family was counting on me. The main bread winner. So I sucked it up. Put on my poker face and joined the guys in the bus.

They had already dispersed to their bunks which I was quietly thankful for. I didn't feel like apologizing to anyone right now. I knew those would have to come later. I was sorry for beating up AJ. I'm not even sure why I went after him in the first place. He was just there I guess. I went to the back and landed with a thud on the couch.

"Wanna talk about it?" Brian's voice so soft, scared the crap out of me. "No not really" I said hoping he would just go away. He didn't. He pushed my legs aside to make room for himself. I sat up to allow him to sit down next to me.

"Look Nick, I know something is bothering you. Is it just your mom not coming?" I nodded. "Yeah" I don't think he believed me. He was still in interrogation mode.

"Are you sure? Because you were pretty upset earlier today" I shook my head. "No..really?" He looked hurt. I tried to refrain from the wise ass remark but couldn't.

"Does it make you feel better to hurt your friends?" He asked raising his voice. God please go away Brian I am not in the mood for a very special episode moment.

"I'm sorry, I have issues" I thought it would be a nice touch to mimic back the words that AJ spitted out to me in anger. Brian laughed.

"Yeah I guess you do, but what fifteen year old doesn't?" I loved Brian for saying things like that. No matter how outlandish my behavior, he always made me feel like somewhere it was acceptable.

"If you need to talk.."

"I know, I will" He smiled and left for his bunk.

I watched tv for awhile before dosing off on the couch. I awoke to hear Howie and Kevin talking about me in the kitchen area of the bus and tried my hardest to listen in. I muted the television.

"Yeah I know what you mean 'D. This is a horrible schedule for him. He is so angry."

"All the time" Howie added.

"I know. It doesn't help that his good for nothing mother is always a no show. He's only a kid for God sakes!" That hurt. I knew Kevin didn't like my mom. She wasn't wild about him either. I didn't like to hear it. I know to a stranger, it probably looked as if my mom was a pushy bitch. She isn't though. She just wants to help me pursue my dreams. I heard plates rattling and felt my stomach growl. I wondered what time it was. I decided to make my presence known and walked into the kitchen. An immediate silence greeted me. Both men smiled.

"Hey kiddo, did you get any sleep?" I sat down next to Howie.

"No, not really"

"Oh, too bad. You could have really used the shut eye" He gave Howie one of those 'we'll continue talking about this later' glances. Kevin placed a plate of cold pasta in front of me.

"What is this?"

"Food"

"Thanks I didn't realize that. I mean where did it come from?"

"It's my left over's from dinner yesterday" I pushed it away. He put it back in front of me. "Eat it, you need to eat" He would make a great grand mother some day! We played keep away with the pasta until I conceded and began to munch on the noodles. It was pretty good. I picked up the pace. Kevin poured me a glass of Root Beer.

"Thanks"

"Not a problem"

"Guys?"

"Yes" They both said simultaneosly. I looked at them with love. I was so nasty today. Downright rude, yet they remained. "Sorry about today. I don't know what came over me. I really don't" Kevin sat down and joined Howie and I.

"Nick, it's really no big deal. You however can't fly off the handle like that whenever you have a problem. This is our lives" I nodded in agreement. "I think you need to call Fatima and apologize to her and then you owe AJ a big apology as well. He did nothing to you"

I moved the half eaten plate away only to have Kevin push it back in front of me. I gave him a disgusted look. He wiggled his eyebrows and I cracked up. "That's what we like to hear. A happy laughing Nicky. So much better than the angry bitter one" Howie tickled my neck. That still creeped me out. But I laughed just the same.

The noise in the bus brought the other two band members into the kitchen area. "Hey" Brian greeted while in the midst of a yawn. AJ didn't say anything just took a seat on the bench across from us. He didn't look at me and I didn't look at him. Howie gave me a gesture with his head. Motioning towards AJ. He looked ridiculous and I cracked up. This brought AJ's eyes front and center.

"J, can I talk to you for a minute" He shrugged. "I don't know Kaos can you?" God he wasn't gonna make this easy. I got up and motioned for him to join me in the living area. He reluctantly followed.

"I just wanted to say I'm sorry about what happened earlier. I was upset about things and you were there" He picked up his shirt to show me the bruises forming on his stomach. "God, AJ I really am sorry. I swear I am" He pulled me close to him and whapped me on the back. "Yeah bonehead, I know you are" He smiled. I felt relief.

"Oh by the way Nick, the next time you do that, I am hitting back!"

"Okay" I said. Together we walked back to join the others. We had a good rest of the day. We watched a video, popped popcorn and relaxed. It almost felt like a normal day. Almost.

"Hi everybody" Lou and Johnny had entered the bus virtually unnoticed. Howie turned off the tv and we moved to the floor to allow the two burly men to sit down. Lou's gaze landed on me. It wasn't a friendly gaze either. It was a threatening one.

"So I trust that you had time to think about what transpired today?" He asked me. I felt so small. Like a child being scolded in front of the class.

"Yes, sorry Lou. I called Fatima and apologized" He smiled at me. "I know, she called to tell me" He brought out the agenda again. This always made me grimace. I campare it to a child sitting in a doctors office feeling calm until the big needle appears. Then you know it's all uphill from there. I physically tensed up.

I continued to tense as Johnny and Lou took turns running down our endless schedule for the next two weeks. Only one of those days was a free day. Not even entirely free. We had a silly photo shoot in the morning but the rest of the night was ours. I blocked them out after awhile. What was the purpose. If I needed to be somewhere, Kevin would make sure I arrived. It was too stressful to know what was coming up.

"We have to leave in an hour guys so enjoy your last few minutes of free time for the day. Thank Nick for acting like a spoiled brat!" Johnny added as a joke, that no one thought was funny. The anger that had dissapated earlier was now back full force. I wanted to throw something. Anything or anybody.

"Nick"

"WHAT!" I yelled actually scaring myself. They all jumped.

"Relax, I was gonna say put the tv back on, we were getting to the good part of the movie" AJ said positioning himself on the couch between Brian and Howie. I walked out of the room and back to my bunk. I actually sensed them all looking at each other as I left. Now would be the super time to continue that conversation. You know the one where they diss my mother and call me an immature idiot! I screamed into my pillow...