Howie sighed a long, ragged sigh as he stared off into the darkness. The water from the black, murky body below him splashed up alongside the docks getting his feet wet as they dangled over the edge. In the light it looked so much different. He couldn’t seem to tear himself away from the scene near where the accident had been. The others may not care, as he could tell that they really didn’t. They were going about their lives as if nothing had happened, Kevin doing his best to protect their image by any means possible, which meant lying through his teeth to any officer who had further asked questions. Jordan had taken it upon himself to apologize to the still nameless women without even being asked to try and save the Boys’ name before they possibly pressed charges. No, none of them even cared that they’d almost taken two innocent lives because of Nick’s once again stupidity and lack for common sense. But he did care for some reason. He didn’t know if it was because he felt guilty or if it was simply because he couldn’t sleep, just as he’d predicted he wouldn’t be able to earlier. Pretty much the only thing he’d found out was that one of the women was alert. As for the other one, she hadn’t been mentioned. He hadn’t decided yet what that small fact meant.
It had been two days since the accident. Nick was still pretty shaken up over the small chance that he could end up in jail and the fact that is expensive boat, his pride and joy, had some very minor damage to the front of it which was hardly visible unless one really looked hard for any imperfections. He hadn’t touched a drop of any form of alcohol since to try and clear his system of it. Howie had a feeling that Nick was safe from the press and that they were all safe from having their reputation smeared through the mud.
Sometime during his deep thoughts, Howie felt something brush up against his shin. He looked down distracted, seeing a medium sized piece of something floating along with the now gentle waves. He felt his stomach churn as he became physically ill, deciding that it was a piece of debris from the other small boat that was finally washing up to shore. Most of the pieces were lost at sea forever; some of them had been cleaned up. This piece had found him and he thought it to be a sign that he was supposed to be tortured and reminded of what had happened. He felt as if for some reason, he was now being punished, and all he’d done was wonder if the women were okay.
“Why are you such a moron, Nick?” Howie questioned aloud, confused about how he felt. This whole mess had even him worried and as much as he wanted to think that he cared about the anonymous women, Kevin had his stomach in turmoil about the five of them. He wasn’t sure if he was worrying for the right reasons or not, which left him angry and extremely confused.
“Figured I’d find you here,” a voice called out behind Howie. He looked back and saw Kevin standing there. His eyes had adjusted to the dark enough to be able to tell that there was something on Kevin’s mind, “I’ve been wondering the same thing about Nick,” he chuckled bitterly, “Why’s he such a moron.”
Howie shrugged, turning back to the deep waters. Kevin came closer and sat down next to him. He didn’t say anything for long moment and neither did Howie, who was wondering what was going on. He knew that it was something, or else Kevin wouldn’t have searched for him. After a few minutes of complete silence, Howie couldn’t take it any longer.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
Kevin sighed, “We’ve got a problem,” he sounded more disgusted than anything else. Howie looked at him expectantly, waiting for more of an explanation, which Kevin was hesitant to deliver. With one last sigh, he finally began to speak, “Nick received some photos in the mail…or rather photo-copies of photos. They’re of the collision…Nick stumbling out of the boat, obviously plastered with his bloodshot eyes. AJ and Brian helping him to the car. The list goes on, including one of them arriving back at Nick’s home.”
Howie’s eyes widened in disbelief, “How did…what…how…?” he stuttered, trying to make sense of it all.
Kevin shrugged, shaking his head in annoyance, “I guess someone else was out there on the waters and decided to take advantage of the situation. There’s always someone else out there. We must have missed them.”
“So now what?” Howie asked
Kevin shrugged, “Management believes it would be best for us to visit the women in the hospital…to suck up and make nice with them…get on good terms…to try to save us.” His lips were set in an unpleasant scowl. It was all that they needed to get into tabloids and big name magazines with the ordeal. That, he knew, was the point of the photographs. If they visited the girls before too much time passed, he knew that there was a chance they could still save themselves.
“You’re joking,” Howie stated as his naturally tanned face turned pale, his stomach becoming sick at the thought of coming face to face with the women. He wasn’t sure if he could do it…see what they’d done to them. He figured that there was really was no getting out of it though, and he now shared Kevin’s same worries, as well as the rest of the group, about their reputation. He knew that they were all down to earth, but they loved their careers, and their careers were on the line.
“It’s the last thing that I want to do, too,” Kevin sighed, misreading Howie’s intentions, running a hand through is dark hair in distress. “We know they’re alive, that, I believe, is enough. I wish could just move on and forget the whole thing ever happened and put it behind us.” But now they had to kiss ass to save their reputation, even though it may already be too late. It didn’t hurt to try though if it even made a difference, before the world found out everything.
Savannah winced in excruciating pain as she was put back in to her regular hospital bed in her room. She’d just returned from a series of x-rays to see where her condition stood. As soon as she was situated in her bed, she was left alone after being given another small dose of pain-killers to cut down on the aching of her body from the events from the past hour. Savannah sighed, trying to get herself situated in a comfortable position without moving too much. It wasn’t working, as another series of harsh stinging shot through her entire body. She tried to muffle an intense scream she could feel coming, but it still escaped her lips in a pitiful cry. This was torture. It was beyond cruel punishment and didn’t know what she or Rhiannon did to deserve this.
“I wish I could personally torment each and every one of those five cowardly assholes.” Savannah mumbled to herself bitterly. “They deserve to suffer slowly…” her voice trailed off as her breath caught in her throat as another jolt of throbbing soreness shot through her. She continued to think of ways for them to die, unable to even tolerate the music of her once favorite vocal group. It made her ill and caused her to hate the selfish, unfeeling men even more.
Savannah sat still however, too afraid to move. It had only been three days since what had happened, however things were not getting any easier. If not, they were getting harder, as she was beginning to realize she was completely helpless, and would be for who knows how long. She still wasn’t suited enough to have the multiple surgeries she’d learned that she needed, and she was getting the impression that there was more to things than what the doctors were telling her.
With a sigh, Savannah reached for the remote, which was right at her fingertips. She stretched them out, finding victory with the small task when she barely grasped it. Flipping on the television, she flipped through the channels before settling on the movie Pearl Harbor. She wished she had her notebook and a pen so she could write, but didn’t have either. She was so bored without Rhiannon to talk to, but she didn’t know when or if that would be happening.
Rhiannon was still unconscious most of the time and barely spoke when she was awake, which was probably for a total of a half hour per day if the mere minutes were all added up. It was obvious by the way she breathed that she had severe pain in her chest. She was experiencing chills and suffering from high fever. She was being treated with antibiotics, but Savannah had learned that the pneumonia was the least of her friend’s worries.
The CT scan had found some swelling in her brain and was being monitored around the clock to insure that it did not turn serious and was being given several medications to try to keep the swelling down. If things got too serious, surgery would be necessary to remove some of the fluids. It wasn’t known yet if that would be necessary. As for how severe the brain injury was, it wouldn’t be known for at least a few more days, if not weeks or months. The only answer she could get was “We’ll have to wait and see.” No matter what, she’d be recovering for quite some time…years to come even. She was attached to several machines including an Intracranial Pressure Monitor.
It was not known if a shunt would have to be inserted, however it was looking as if that were likely to. The only positive thing about the injury was that it didn’t appear to be life threatening or a type of severe brain damage that would leave her a vegetable for the rest of her life. Rhiannon should be able to recover to almost one hundred percent of what she once was. It would just take a lot of time. As for the severe burn on her shoulder and arm, it turned out to be a second-degree burn that also needed treatment to minimize the scarring as much as possible, although it was still unknown of what had caused it.
“My poor Ann,” she mumbled, shaking her head sadly. She still hadn’t seen her friend, but was told about her condition every so often whenever she would feel it was necessary to ask. She needed to be updated to keep her mind at ease, if that was even possible.
Savannah looked down at her scared arms and legs from all of the cuts she’d suffered from. She could tell that the majority of them would not scar badly, but there were a few that would leave nasty permanent gashes as a reminder of this whole thing. She was bruised on top of it over a lot of her body, however at least those would disappear completely with a few weeks time. The doctors were still waiting for the swelling of the complete shoulder dislocation to go down before they could relocate it. Once she was ready for the procedure, she would be given a dose of anesthesia. She’d learned that because of the injury, she’d be prone to future dislocations because of the ligaments healing too loosely. It hurt like hell though and the muscle spasms she was experiencing were not helping at all.
After the procedure was all said and done though, she’d have to go through rehab to get back the range of motion in her shoulder. Yes, it was definitely easy to say that she and Rhiannon both had a long road to recovery ahead of them, and that neither would ever be completely normal again. They may be close, but impossible to go back in to time and make either of them what they’d been less than a week ago. The thing was, Savannah was beginning to have negative thoughts, thinking that the long recovery would never bring either of them anywhere, and it hadn’t even really begun yet.
“If I could make them hurt just a quarter of what I am feeling, I will have completed my goal in life.” Savannah said to herself, knowing that her friend would feel the same if she was awake and able to comprehend what had happened to her for more than three minutes at a time.
Then there was Mr. Jordan Fitz. She was beyond angry with him too, as she’d dismissed him from her hospital room without allowing him to really say anything more after her telling him that the Boys could “burn in hell”
She hadn’t changed her mind, and as far as she was concerned, Mr. Fitz could go right down and burn with them. He’d had some nerve traipsing in to her room as if a simple apology she knew none of the Boys had even thought about delivering could make everything all right. She wasn’t planning on pressing charges anyways, but knew that rightfully, she could. She knew that karma would come back and bite them in the ass at some point in their life as payback. She personally couldn’t wait to hear about it when it hit newspapers. She’d be waiting, grinning and enjoying every word of what had happened to them.
Shaking her head, Savannah turned her attention back to her movie that she’d been sidetracked from in her thoughts. The Backstreet Boys were the absolute last thing that she wanted to be thinking about. She needed her strength and positive energy focused on getting better. She didn’t need to wear herself down with negative thoughts on what might have been if they hadn’t made a stupid judgment and destroyed her life.
Savannah figured she must have fallen asleep, for she found herself awakening in a hazy fog as she attempted to come back to earth and reality. There was a doctor standing before her with a grim look on his face. Her heart hammered in her chest as she stared at him, expecting to hear bad news about either her or Rhiannon.
“You’ve got visitors,” he explained, his expression never changing, “If you’re feeling up to it, would you like me to send them in?”
Savannah gulped and nodded slowly as her heartbeat slowly returned to normal. Visitors…she couldn’t believe it. She was however excited, expecting to see her Momma and stepfather. She put on the happiest face she could muster up, knowing that if they weren’t going to worry too much, she’d have to pretend everything was okay and that she was fine.
The doctor disappeared for a second, although she could hear him talking lowly to the people in the hallway, most likely preparing them for what they were about to see. Her heart hammered in her chest, wanting to see the familiar faces of her family. The people who walked through the door just moments later definitely were familiar faces, but they were the five familiar faces that she wanted to see least, if ever again in her entire life.
Savannah’s smile fell and turned into a sour scowl as they entered further with nervous looks on their faces. She wondered what they were doing there, but knew that it had to have been because they were forced into it against their will. It sickened her to see them all walk in completely unharmed other than a scratch or two on a couple of them from their body’s falling to the floor of their boat when the collision happened, which was probably hardly a small jolt to them. God was definitely in favor of the rich and famous in this situation.
“Oh damn,” Savannah muttered, although her voice came out crisp and clear, although dry and full of venom, “I guess my prayers weren’t answered. You didn’t die tragically after all in the past few days since you ruined our lives.”
