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Chapter 99


AN: Haha, once again… a huge thanks to Bianca for her help and reassurance with Chapter 99. You’re forever my hero, UBR! b^__^d
Oh, but don’t worry… no big bad shocker moments for Nick this time around. ;)


On the long plane ride to Sweden, Nick took Veronica’s advice. He opened up the notebook he always carried around to doodle or jot down song lyrics in and started writing. He didn’t read over his words as he was writing them, didn’t pause to organize his thoughts or form them into eloquent phrases, didn’t concern himself with spelling and grammar and all of that. He just wrote, plain and simple. Any of his thoughts were fair game; he knew that the only way for this to be truly therapeutic was if it was all natural, honest, and from the heart. And so he made it so.

When his thoughts finally slowed, and with them, his pen, his eyes drifted back to the top of the page, and he began to read what he had just written.


I guess maybe I should have seen the signs way before I came home that day and found her note. Two weeks before, she told me she was going to be staying at her parents’ house for part of the week. She said it was because of her dad, and I know he was a part of it. But sometimes I wonder if she was already wanting to move out then, and this was just a gradual way for her to do it. Maybe the whole break-up was more gradual than I realized. She’d been acting different for weeks. When her dad had his heart attack, she called Jamie before she called me. Maybe I should have realized I wasn’t the one the wanted to be with. But I didn’t.

I was in the dark about a lot of things, and even now, it’s not all clear to me. I asked her – or accused her really, I guess – if there was something going on with her and Jamie, and she always swore there wasn’t. But then what’s she doing with Jamie now? She also told me it wasn’t my fault… but if it wasn’t cause of Jamie, I know she left because of me. Because she couldn’t handle me not being around. Same damned reason celeb couples never seem to last – they’re just too damn busy, and the long distance thing… it never works. But I always thought Claire and I were something different, something special. If any couple could have worked through it, we could have. Sometimes it pisses me off – why didn’t she try harder?

I kept up my end of the bargain, for the most part. Maybe I wasn’t always there, but she could have been here. I was always offering to fly her out to visit, but she never would. Not even for a weekend. She had a valid excuse – her job – but come on. Love’s about sacrifice. And if anyone knows anything about fucking sacrifice, it’s me. I’ve made sacrifices for things I care about. I gave her everything, or at least tried to. Couldn’t she see that? Why wouldn’t she keep up her end of the bargain, instead of just throwing it out altogether?

All these questions… never any real answers. That’s just how it is. My last break-up with Leah was so straightforward, but this one isn’t. Maybe it’s cause I wasn’t the one who did the breaking up. Except I don’t think Claire fully understands it either. I know she’s been going through a rough time lately… or was then at least. I used to think she just wasn’t in her right mind when she did it and might come back to me when she came to her senses. But now I know that’s not going to happen, at least not anytime soon. She’s got Jamie now. (So technically that part about her not still having a thing for Jamie wasn’t true.) And except for the fact that he’s a total dick, he’s everything a woman like her could ever want. People have always told me I could get any chick I wanted, ever since we became famous, but it’s not true. I can’t compete with a guy like that, not in Claire’s eyes at least. She doesn’t give a shit about my fame; that’s never done it for her. Whatever she saw in me went beyond the celebrity thing.

I wonder what changed in that picture for her. When did she start seeing me differently? When did whatever she had seen in me disappear?

I’m in the dark about this; I don’t think I’ve changed all that much since we started dating. And if I have, it’s been for the better. Claire made me a better person. I just don’t understand. She had feelings for me before I ever had them for her, and now it’s totally changed. The one I want doesn’t want me. And I don’t really get why. Women are a mystery. I guess I’ll never “get” Claire as well as she got me.

I’ll always love her though. Even if I do move on, with Veronica or whoever else might come along, a part of me will always love her. I can’t help the way I feel any more than she could. I guess that’s why she said it wasn’t either of our faults. Her feelings changed while mine stayed the same, and neither one of us could help it.

I hate feeling helpless…


When he reached the end of his reflection, Nick closed the notebook and stuffed it into his backpack, never intending it to be read by anyone else.

***

The next day, tired from jet-lag and still stiff from the long flight, Nick sat in a lounge inside Maratone Studios in Stockholm, Sweden, waiting for his turn in the recording booth to add his vocals to the track they were working on with Max Martin. While he waited, he doodled absently in his notebook, sketching funny little caricatures of the other guys, Max, and whoever or whatever else came to mind.

AJ came in, popping the tab on the can of soda he had just bought. He took a long swallow and sighed in refreshment, then came over to Nick. “Whatcha drawing, Nicky boy?” he asked, flopping down onto the couch next to Nick. Wordlessly, Nick handed his notebook over to AJ, who nearly snorted cola out of his nose when he started snickering at the sketch on the top page.

It was a cartoon of all of the guys in a recording booth together, singing. Nick had drawn himself in the middle, behind the mic, strumming a guitar and singing with a “sexy” smirk on his face. On either side of him, the other four were portrayed as exaggeratedly doing the characteristic things they did as they sang on stage: Howie was winking, while pointing ahead with a cheesy smile; Kevin was clapping his hands high above his head, as if urging the non-existent audience to clap along; Brian had his eyes closed tightly, a constipated (Brian would prefer “passionate”) expression on his face, his right hand over his heart while the left one was raised, index finger pointed up; and AJ was…

“Hey!” AJ shouted suddenly. “I haven’t done that stage-humping move since, like, ’98!”

“You should think about bringing that one back for this tour, J. The chicks dig it,” Nick replied, his face dead-pan.

“Ha ha,” AJ chuckled humorlessly, rolling his eyes.

“What’s so funny?” Kevin asked, as he strolled into the room. Before waiting for his question to be answered, he added, “Nick, you’re up, bud.”

“Nick thinks he’s funny,” said AJ, as Nick stood up. AJ tossed his notebook to Kevin, who smirked in amusement at the doodle.

“How come you drew yourself looking all suave?” Kevin asked Nick before he could walk out of the lounge.

“’Cause I am,” Nick joked, showing Kevin his “sexiest” magazine pose. “I’m not the most popular for nothin’, ya know. I only draw the truth.”

Kevin chuckled. “Oh, is that so? Well, you must have missed part of the truth. The part where you sing like this…” In an imitation of Nick, he scrunched his face up, making his eyes go all squinty, and started moving his mouth with a pained expression, looking like he was about ready to either cry or crap his pants.

Nick giggled at the impression, then slugged Kevin in the shoulder on his way to the recording booth.

***

After a session in the recording booth, Nick and the guys left the studio for lunch, choosing a restaurant down the street that they’d been going to since their first trip to Stockholm over ten years ago. It was always nostalgic for them to come here; Stockholm held so many memories of when the five of them were young and just getting their feet wet in the business. Those were happy times, even if, looking back, they were merely at the beginning of a road filled with trials and tragedies, as well as fame.

They reminisced over lunch, and as he sat at the center of their table, wedged between Brian and Howie and looking across at AJ and Kevin, Nick was struck by a strong feeling of gratitude for his four brothers. How thankful he was to be here with them, away from all the shit that had been going on in his life back in the States. This was how it would be once they started touring in the fall, and he couldn’t wait. If anyone was going to pull him out of the slump he’d been struggling with ever since Claire left him, it would be these guys. They were everything to him, especially now.

He was in an especially good mood when they returned to the studio, and his spirits were only lifted higher when he sat down with the guys to listen to some clips of the material they’d recorded that morning. The vocals were good, even better than the demo. Nick felt a soaring sense of pride and excitement. This album was going to be good. Much better than their last. And it needed to be. After everything they’d been through in the past few years, and even since the last record, they needed to come back strong.

“Have you seen Max? He should listen to this,” said Michael, the man who was supervising the sound boards.

They found Max in the lounge with his half-eaten lunch, looking at the sketches in Nick’s notebook, which had been left laying open on a table. Nick saw that the page had been turned; Max was laughing at a doodle of himself that Nick had done first thing that morning.

“I always love your drawings,” he told Nick, smiling fondly at him. Nick smiled back. Max had been a close friend to the entire group since their first album; his songs had put them on the charts. They’d kept up a relationship with him ever since, and he’d never let them down. His songs were always among the best they released, instant catchy classics. Over the years of working together, he had become not just hit-creator for them, but a friend and mentor as well. They’d learned a lot about music from Max Martin.

“I have some inspiration for a new song,” Max told the guys later that day, before they left the studio for the evening. “I will get to penning some lyrics tonight, and if they come out good, I will bring them into the studio tomorrow. You might have interest… I think this will be – how do you say? – right up your alleys.” Though he used the plural form of “alley,” Max looked directly at Nick as he said this. Nick cocked his head to the side, perplexed, but did not ask. He nodded along with the others as they expressed their interest in Max’s project and decided he would wait and find out what Max was talking about tomorrow.

By the time he crashed in his hotel room that night, however, Nick had forgotten all about Max’s rumored new song.

***

Bright and early the next morning, Nick was following his four bandmates through the doors of Maratone Studios once again. They crossed through the lobby and made their way to the studio in which they had spent the better part of the day yesterday recording. There, they were met by Max Martin, who had a look of anticipation upon his face. Clapping his hands together, he said, “Good morning, boys. How are you all?” The five guys chorused that they were doing fine. “Good, good. Excellent,” Max went on. “Before you begin the recording, I have something to play for you.”

He led them over to his keyboard and sat down. “I did some writing, as I promised, last night. Tell me if you like this.” Nick stood with the other guys, gathered around Max, and watched as his fingers began to move over the keys. The tune he played was simplistic, yet catchy, the way all of his hits were. It was driven by a single repetitive phrase, more rhythmic than melodic in nature, though its rhythm was simple. Quarter, quarter, quarter, eighth-eighth, quarter, quarter, quarter, eighth-eighth…

“This is great; I really like it,” Nick was the first to say, nodding his head in time to the punch of the motif. He noticed the other guys were bobbing their heads too; it was sort of impossible not to. The mark of a good song, thought Nick. “You got lyrics for it yet?” he asked.

“Here’s the chorus,” replied Max, still playing. He let three consecutive chords resonate, then started to sing as he continued playing. “My heart did time in Siberia… was waiting for the lie to come true… ‘cause it’s all so dark and mysterious… when the one you want doesn’t want you too.”

God, I hear that, Nick thought, instantly connecting to the words of the song as he thought of Claire.

Max took his hands off the keyboard and twisted around to look at them. He met Nick’s eyes first, then panned across to the others, searching their faces for a reaction.

“That was beautiful,” said Kevin. “‘My heart did time in Siberia’… I love that!”

“I do too,” Nick chimed in. “It’s really… powerful. So how does the rest of the song go?”

Standing up, Max dug into his pants pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper, which he silently handed to Nick. Nick unfolded the slightly crumpled sheet of looseleaf and found himself looking down at a full set of handwritten lyrics. He started reading them out loud and didn’t stop until he reached the stanza immediately after the bridge. “When I came back, she wasn’t there,” he read. “Just a note-“ All of a sudden, his eyes bugged out of his head as they processed the rest. Just a note left on the stairs. If you wanna talk, give me a call…

He looked up slowly, dumbfounded, meeting Max’s eyes as if he’d just seen a ghost. The guys looked momentarily confused, but then they, too, appeared to realize the startling similarity between the song lyrics and what Claire had done to Nick.

“H-how did you know?” Nick asked Max quietly.

“Howie told me what happened with your fiancée,” said Max. “I hope you’re not angry. The song never has to be played again if you don’t want it to; I just thought…”

“No… no, I’m not mad,” Nick replied slowly. He wasn’t surprised that Howie had filled him in on Claire. Although it was common knowledge that Nick and his fiancée had split up, only a few people knew what had actually happened, but Max was a close enough friend that Nick didn’t mind him being included in this small circle. What surprised him was how well Max had articulated his emotions, in these simple, yet powerful song lyrics.

“God, you’re a frickin’ genius, Max,” he said. “These lyrics… you got it perfect, man. The way I felt… you just knew.” He was still awed. Max had put it more eloquently and poetically than Nick ever could, but he got it. The pain, the confusion, the emptiness and the loneliness and the coldness...

Siberia… it was a perfect metaphor.

Max shifted his weight, suddenly looking awkward. “I must say a confession. Yesterday, I… saw something… private. I was looking at the drawings you laid out, and I found your writing. I didn’t intend to read it… I should not have… but…” He trailed off, shrugging apologetically.

Nick realized instantly what he was talking about: the narrative he had written on the plane, about Claire. He blushed, embarrassed at first; he didn’t like for his private thoughts to be read. But then he looked down at the piece of paper he was still holding onto and saw what Max had done with them. The songwriter had turned them into a beautiful set of lyrics, complete with a unique, captivating melody, the kind that was sure to get stuck in your head. That was hit material right there, he realized.

He looked back up at Max, then around to the guys. “We should record this,” he said at once. “For the album. What do you think?”

He watched as the other exchanged glances. “If you’re okay with it,” Kevin said finally. “I think it would make a great track… but it does hit close to home. Are you sure you-?”

“That makes it even better,” Nick interrupted him with a nod of defiance. “Let’s do a demo this week, before we fly back to the States. Max, you think you can get some instrumentation recorded on such short notice?”

Max Martin smiled. “I would not show you the song if I didn’t think it is possible,” he replied.

“Awesome. We’re gonna do this. Take it back to the record execs and see what they think,” Nick stated, his voice sharp with resolve. “I can’t wait for them to hear it.”

As Kevin, Brian, AJ, and Howie responded with enthusiasm, Nick smirked to himself, thinking of another person he couldn’t wait to hear the Siberia song…

***

Nick and the Backstreet Boys were recording vocals for the demo of their new song two days later, when, six hours behind them and an ocean away, Claire was just waking up.

She was oblivious, of course. She didn’t even know where Nick was and wouldn’t hear the song for months. Her only thought upon waking up was that she needed to get out of bed because she was supposed to pick Amber up in half an hour for their first kickboxing class. After months of saying they were going to start working out together, the two women had finally decided to act on their vow and signed up for aerobic kickboxing.

Claire was looking forward to their first workout. She’d done Tae-Bo in college, when it was all the rage, and thought it was pretty fun, as far as exercise routines went. Her sister-in-law was less enthusiastic. “I don’t know about this,” Amber confessed as she climbed into Claire’s car that morning, dressed in a t-shirt and fitted workout pants. “I’m probably going to look like a huge, clumsy pig huffing around out there. I wish we’d signed up for something a little… slower.”

Claire laughed. “Oh, puh-lease. You don’t look like a pig, Amber; you look like a woman who had a baby. And you’ll catch on; it’s not bad once you’ve done it a few times. Just take it slow at first. The instructor will know we’re beginners; she’ll understand. I promise, you’ll like this more than some lame Richard Simmons’ ‘Sweatin’ to the Oldies’ crap.”

“I dunno… if we had that Richard Simmons tape, I could just do the routine in my own living room and not worry about looking like a fat-ass.”

Claire shook her head. “It’s better that we’re paying for classes… trust me. You know if we just bought a tape, we’d never have the willpower to keep up with it for more than two weeks. I wouldn’t, at least.”

Amber laughed. “You’re probably right. I’ll take your word for it.”

When they got to the rec center, the two women went inside and found their kickboxing class. Much to Claire’s chagrin, the instructor looked like a Barbie doll – with the arms of G.I. Joe. She was dressed in spandex shorts and a matching sports bra that showed off her powerful thighs, toned abs, and muscular arms, not to mention a deep tan. Her peroxide blonde hair was pulled up into a high ponytail and bounced as she talked, for she was the type who spoke animatedly, head and hands flying every which way as she did.

Claire and Amber exchanged wary glances. “I take back what I said,” Claire whispered to her. “With her in the room, I’m gonna look like a dumpy pig too.” Amber laughed.

“Come on in, ladies!” called the Barbie I. Joe, clapping her hands together. Now she reminded Claire more of a cheerleader… on steroids. “I’m Keeley, and this is cardio kickboxing,” she said when they got closer, enunciating all the hard K sounds.

“Kill me,” Amber whispered to Claire when Keeley was not looking, stressing her hard K too. Claire clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle.

They found a place in the back corner of one of the large mats that filled the room; Amber was adamant about not wanting to attract too much attention to herself. Luckily, most of the other people in the class didn’t look like Keeley. They looked like regular people, just like Claire and Amber, although, granted, some appeared to be in better shape, having already taken kickboxing classes for awhile.

Class began promptly at ten o’clock with a warm-up. “This isn’t bad,” Amber murmured to Claire as they stepped in place, jabbing first with their right arms, then with their left.

Claire chuckled. “This is only the warm-up. Just wait.”

“Claire!” Amber hissed. “You said this wasn’t going to be bad!”

“It’s not! I’m just saying, it’ll get a little more… intense… than this.”

Amber groaned, but kept up. Claire knew that despite all her complaining, she wanted to do this; she wanted to take off the rest of her baby weight and get back the figure she’d had before she got pregnant with Kamden.

Meanwhile, Claire just wanted to get herself back into shape. As they moved from the warm-up into the cardio session, she was more aware than ever of how much her stamina had decreased since before she’d gotten cancer. Not long into the main part of the workout, she was already running out of breath and knew she was going to have to tone down her movements if she wanted to last the entire class.

This is harder than I thought it was gonna be, she admitted to herself as she struggled alongside Amber, trying in vain to keep up with the rest of the class. By the time they finished the cardio part and moved to the cool-down, Claire found herself totally winded and exhausted. Her heart was racing, and as soon as she slowed down her movements, fatigue quickly set in.

She felt light-headed at first, then dizzy. Just breathe, she coached herself, but trying to suck in a deep breath was difficult when she was completely out of it. It just made her chest tighten and ache, her lungs screaming for air. Her pounding heart felt as if it were beating out of control.

I need to sit down, she thought, but she didn’t. She needed to cool down gradually, to give her heart time to slow down, not stop moving all at once. That was what she had always been told, anyway. What she was not used to was the way her heart seemed to be palpitating, erratically. It scared her, which made her feel even more light-headed.

She paused and turned to Amber, trying to see her sister-in-law through the black mist that seemed to be closing in on her vision. But the minute her legs stopped moving, her knees buckled, and she felt herself sliding helplessly to the ground, the room seeming to spin around her.

“Claire!” she heard Amber cry out, but her voice sounded faraway and oddly distorted, as if she were speaking through a tin can. Claire saw Amber’s face swimming before her blurry eyes briefly, before it was shrouded by the dark mist.

For several seconds, she was gone to the world, as it blackened and faded around her.

***

Lyrics: “Siberia” by the Backstreet Boys