“Bob? Who’s there?” Jane asked as she approached the door, wrapping the pink robe around her body.

“It’s okay dear, just Brian bringing Aaron to our room. Aaron’s sick.”

Jane pushed past her husband to get to her young son. She immediately placed an arm around Aaron’s shoulder. “Are you okay honey?”

Although sweaty and pale, Aaron managed to pipe up, “I’m fine Ma.”

Jane glanced up and down the hall and then fixed her gaze on Brian’s face. “Where’s Nick?”

Sensing that Jane wasn’t very pleased with the fact that Brian was the one to bring Aaron to them, Brian tried to think of a good excuse that would keep her from blowing up. “Well, Nick isn’t feeling too well himself and I insisted that he stay in his room.”

“What exactly is wrong with Nick now?” Jane spat.

“He was getting sick too, Momma,” Aaron offered. “He told me he had the stomach flu, just like me and just like Leighanne, right Bri?”

“Bob, please take Aaron in and get him settled into a bed, I’ll be in in a minute, I need to talk to Brian,” Jane directed.

Bob exchanged a worried glance with Brian as he guided his young son into the hotel room leaving Jane standing in the hall to confront Brian. Once she decided that Aaron was out of hearing range, she started carrying on with a full scale attack.

“First off, I want to thank you for bringing Aaron down to us. He doesn’t need to be getting infected anymore than what he is already. Nick should have known better than to spread his germs on his brother. Aaron has a very strenouous tour coming up and that would be typical of Nick to just ruin it for him,” Jane stated icily.

“But Mrs. Carter, I don’t think that Nick did this intentionally, and for all we know, maybe Aaron gave the bug to his brother,” Brian stated in Nick’s defense.

Jane rolled her eyes at the simple assumption that Aaron could have passed the bug onto Nick. “No, Brian, you don’t understand. Nick isn’t in the best of health lately because of the abuse he’s put on his body. I’m sure you can see that, you’re a smart boy.”

Brian narrowed his eyes at Nick’s mother. “I don’t follow you.”

Throwing her hands up in the air, Jane let out a sarcastic laugh. “He’s getting fat and the only thing that goes with gaining weight is lack of exercise and proper eating habits. Fat people are prone to getting sick and so it’s clear to me that Nick made Aaron sick.”

Brian’s became flushed with anger. ‘How could she be so cold and callous? She was talking about her own flesh and blood, not something that had a price tag attached to it!’ he thought to himself.

“I’ll admit that Nick has put on a little weight---”

”A little? Oh Brian, it’s more than a little, he looks like he could be five months pregnant! That’s more than a little!”

Brian gritted his teeth and clenched his fists. “Listen, he’s your son, he needs help and he needs to hear it from you, something’s going on with him and I don’t know what, but all I know is that I think it’s something more than just bad eating habits.”

“He’s throwing his career away!” Jane cried.

“Is that all you care about? Don’t you care about your son?” Brian asked incredilously.

“Of course I care about my children, but what I’m seeing right now is a man that is becoming self centered and not taking care of himself and his looks are paying for it dearly,” Jane countered.

Brian tried his best to keep calm, but was losing the battle more and more each time that Jane opened her mouth with accusations about Nick. Unbeknownst to the them, Nick was in the hall, standing behind a potted plant, listening to every word that was exchanged between the adults.

Self centered, getting fat and not taking care of himself, stung Nick’s heart. How could his own mother make such judgements and accusations? Worse was how could his own mother accuse him of making his brother sick? Now she was verbally attacking the only friend in the world Nick figured he had at this point.

”THAT’S ENOUGH!” Nick bellowed in the hall, causing a quick halt in the heated conversation that Jane and Brian were having.

Jane whirled around to face her oldest son’s voice, her mouth agape. “Nicky, don’t yell in the hall,” she admonished.

Summoning up the courage to state the next phrase was an easy task for Nick since he was filled with so much rage and hatred towards his mother at that exact moment, he said something to her he never had said to her, let alone in front of her in all of his life:

”FUCK YOU!”

As Nick turned away from his mom and best friend, he had the permanent memory of the shocked look on her face etched into his brain - forever. He didn’t care either.

“Nick!” Brian called out.

Nick kept walking, ignoring the footsteps that were Brian’s rushing up to him.

“Leave me alone, there’s nothing more to say,” Nick ordered as he kept walking towards his room.

“That’s no way to talk to your mother,” Brian scolded.

Nick stopped and his shoulders sagged. “No mother would say the words she spoke,” he stated bitterly. Without any more words, Nick slipped the card into the slot and pushed his way into the room and slammed the door shut behind him, not allowing Brian in.