Chapter 1

-5 years later-

It was mid-afternoon by the time Brian finally decided to roll out of bed. He awoke that morning as every other—void of all feeling, numb.

Ever since that fateful day in September of 2001, Brian had more or less made a hermit of himself. He holed up in his Atlanta, Georgia home and kept the rest of the world at arms length; everyone, including his fellow Backstreet Boys—especially his fellow Backstreet Boys.

Lately, the phone hadn’t stopped ringing. Nick, Kevin, AJ and Howie had decided among themselves that it was time to make a new album. Five years had passed since he had walked away from the Black and Blue tour. He had decided that day that there was nothing left to sing for and in the five years since, nothing had changed his mind of that fact. He had told the others that he wasn’t going back, that he wasn’t a Backstreet Boy anymore, that he wasn’t ever going to be a Backstreet Boy again. He had told them to go on without him, but they continued to call.

Kevin argued that he needed to move on with his life.

AJ argued that while Hayden had died, he hadn’t and that he owed it, not only to himself, but to Hayden and to his unborn baby to make the most of the cards that he had been dealt.

Howie argued that Hayden would want him to be happy.

And Nick. Well, Nick argued that he was a Backstreet Boy before Hayden, that he had met Hayden because of the Backstreet Boys and that he will be a Backstreet Boy until he dies whether he liked it or not.

None of their arguments changed the fact that he just didn’t believe in it anymore. He didn’t believe in the songs that they sang. He didn’t believe in love and being together forever and soul mates. Once those ideals get stamped into your head and you finally find what you think you’ve been waiting your whole life for, it all gets taken away in the blink of an eye. Brian just didn’t believe that if there was this all encompassing, compassionate, loving being out there, something that was supposedly greater than them all, that this great loving person would have taken away everything that was important to him. He had always been a good man and it just wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair.

Brian listened to his stomach grumble and sauntered into the kitchen to find something to eat. The red light on his landline telephone was blinking, signaling that he had a message. Knowing that it was probably from one of his former band mates, he let it continue to blink as me made himself a sandwich. The red light continued to catch his eye until finally, he gave in and pressed play.

The tape clicked over and Kevin’s familiar voice filled the empty room. “Hey Brian, it’s Kevin. I know that you’re purposely ignoring all of our calls, but I had to make one last attempt. You’re sick of hearing people tell you that life goes on, especially people that don’t understand what you’ve really lost, but whether you want to hear it or not, I’m going to tell you that you aren’t being fair to Hayden’s memory. She didn’t get to live, Brian, but you did and to lock yourself up to just pass the time until you finally die, too-- it isn’t fair. It’s not fair to those that love you and are still here worrying about you everyday and it’s not fair to Hayden who didn’t get to live the life that you have the opportunity to live today. Anyway, I know that you’ve heard those things before and that it probably hasn’t changed anything. I just think that you need some help. You need to move on. It’s okay to do things that you love doing. It’s okay to be happy. So, be happy again Brian. Join us in New York tomorrow and do what you love to do. Sing.”

Before Brian could stop himself, tears were pooling in the corners of his eyes. He didn’t want to disappoint the people that cared about him. He didn’t want to make the lives of the people that cared about him harder than they had to be. But he just didn’t have the passion inside of him anymore. The record player inside of him had stopped a long time ago. All that was left was static. The music was gone. The song was gone.

He hit the delete button on the answering machine, threw his newly-made sandwich into the garbage and climbed back up the stairs to his bedroom. He closed the shades, climbed back under the covers and recoiled into the darkness. Sleep was his only retreat. It was the only time that the emptiness of being alone finally went away. It was the only place that they were still together. It was the only place that he was happy.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As Alexa Owens completed the climb to her tiny fifth story New York City walk-up apartment, she groaned to herself miserably. Taped to the door was a yellow eviction notice, there for the world to see. She sighed to herself and snatched the notice from the door before slipping her key into the lock and letting herself in.

Alexa dropped her large Coach knock-off purse onto the couch and read the notice aloud to herself. “You have 30 days to pay the total amount due of $1,431.34. If you do not pay this debt in full by the end of the 30-day period, you will be lawfully evicted from the premises and any and all appropriate legal action will be taken against you in order to secure the funds that you owe.”

Alexa groaned again and plopped down onto the lumpy, thrift-store couch. This isn’t supposed to be like this, she thought to herself mournfully. She looked down onto the coffee table and was brought close to tears by the piles of stamped envelopes that were accumulating and couldn’t help but to think back to the days when things were simpler.

She and her sister, Brooke, were raised by their single father, Wesley Owens, on the Upper East Side of New York City. She had grown up in the lap of luxury and had taken it all for granted. One day, without any notice, it was all gone. Her father, an investment banker on Wall Street, had made some risky investments and had lost everything. He had tried to hide their financial woes from his children as long as he could. He worked day and night to rebuild his portfolio, but eventually the strain became too much for him to handle. Before Alexa and Brooke even knew what had happened, there was a fateful phone call from the New York City Police Department. Her father had killed himself in his office late one night. In the blink of an eye, the only stable adult she had ever had in her life was gone.

Her feelings about her father’s death ranged from guilt to anger. At times, she felt terrible knowing that her father had killed himself because the agony of knowing that he could no longer care for his children was that overwhelming. Then, the anger would set in over the selfishness of his act. He had not only left Alexa and Brooke without anything; he had left them without anyONE. He had opted to take the weak way out instead of admitting his mistakes to his daughters.

That summer, Brooke had gone away to college on scholarship as planned and in lieu of being thrown into foster care, Alexa was allowed to stay with the family of friend and classmate, Jenny Murphy. After high school, Alexa was unable to afford college. Instead, she exhausted all of her connections to finally secure a job at Jive Records as the executive assistant to president of the company, Ben Silverman.

After five years of hard work for the obsessive-compulsive Silverman, it was hard for Alexa to believe that she hadn’t been promoted, or at the very least paid enough to be able to afford her dingy little apartment in Brooklyn. She was unqualified to find any worthwhile work in the City; instead, she stayed where she was, learned as much as she could and hoped to someday move up into the Artist and Repertoire (A&R) Department at Jive. She regularly brought her boss samples of music from new artists and nine times out of ten, she was dead-on about how the public would react. However, Silverman both failed to acknowledge her development talents and was too used to Alexa knowing how to deal with his compulsive ways. So, she was stuck in her lousy, dead-end position at Ben Silverman’s side.

Alexa was suddenly snapped out of her self-pitying reverie by the vibrations of her Jive-issued Blackberry. She rolled her eyes when she saw Ben Silverman’s name flashing across the screen. She pressed the green receive button and said, “Hello.”

“Alexa, there is a proper way to answer all calls coming into this phone and a simple, ‘hello’ is not it.” Ben skipped over all pleasantries opting instead to dive right into his criticisms.

“Ben, I knew that it was you. It’s late. What can I do for you?”

“I don’t care what time it is and I don’t care if you knew it was me or not. Please answer properly.”

Alexa waited to make sure that he was serious and then sighed for what seemed like the thousandth time that night. “Hello, you’ve reach the executive assistant of Mr. Ben Silverman. How may I help you, this morning/afternoon/evening/night?” She smiled as the line stayed quiet. You could almost feel heat radiating off of the tips of Ben’s ears though the phone. “What can I do for you tonight, Ben?”

“I know that you were joking, but next time, just do it right the first time.” He paused again and then continued. “I have an important client meeting first thing tomorrow morning. I need you to make sure that you get to Bernard’s Bakery ahead of the lines tomorrow so that you get the freshest, warmest bagels possible. I’ll also have a coffee order that I’ll e-mail to you.”

Alexa’s face twisted in confusion. It was 10 o’clock at night and she had just left Ben’s office an hour ago. Now, he was asking her to be up at the crack of dawn to retrieve fresh bagels from Manhattan’s most fashionable bakery. “Ben? Don’t you think that I’m a little over getting coffee and bagels. Isn’t that what you have interns for?”

In a swanky luxury apartment downtown, Ben rubbed his temples in mock-aggravation. “I really wish that you could do just one thing that I ask of you without talking back to me. You are my executive assistant, no?”

“Yes.”

“Well, now, I’m asking you to assist me. These are important clients. They kind of fell off the face of the Earth at their peak and-“ Ben stopped in mid-sentence and huffed. “Why am I even telling you this?”

“Okay, Ben, don’t have a meltdown or anything. I’ll go get your bagels and coffee bright and early tomorrow morning.” Finally satisfied, Ben hung up leaving Alexa more mentally exhausted than she had been prior to their short conversation. She threw the phone down onto the coffee table and rolled her eyes.

“How did I get here?” She asked herself, feeling both frustrated and helpless. Knowing that she had an early morning the next morning and that she should probably get to bed, Alexa picked herself up off of the couch and ran her hands through her dark, brown hair. She showered quickly before finally climbing into bed half an hour later. Sitting on her bedside table was an old picture of Alexa, her father and her sister, smiling in front of a backdrop of snow-capped mountains. The picture could have been a painting. They all looked so happy. It was one of the last vacations the family had ever taken together.

She flicked off the light, closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. “Daddy,” she whispered softly, before finally drifting into a semi-peaceful sleep. “I’m begging you to send me a miracle.”