Nick and Kelly:

Piece 13: Without You

Nick placed his last shirt into his suitcase and zipped it up. He looked over at Kelly as she was packing her own things and sighed. She was so beautiful and deserved somebody so much better than him . . . that's why he was doing this, or at least that's what he was telling himself.

For the first time since they'd become a couple, they would be leaving the hotel room separately and going on to the next city on separate buses. That night, they would have separate rooms. The tour would be over in four weeks, and then they would have separate lives.

"Nick, we're ready for you," Nick's bodyguard called through the door.

Nick turned to look at Kelly, who was staring down at her suitcase sitting on the bed. After this moment, nothing would ever be the same again. He wasn't quite sure what he felt about that yet. He couldn't believe he was breaking her heart like he was . . . but he knew he had nothing to give her, none of the things that she needed and deserved. "Kel," he was going to apologize, or somehow try to get her to understand again, but she cut him off.

"Don't, Nick," she whispered, fighting back her tears. "Just go."

He nodded and looked at her one more time. He knew he would never see her again, as he was seeing her now. They would go back to "strictly business" mode . . . He would never hold her hand again, or kiss her lips, or touch her hair, or make love to her. He'd given up those rights forever.

He grabbed his bag from the bed and left the bedroom and a moment later the hotel room door shut behind him. The click of the door locking behind him was the sound of finality and Kelly knew she would never again have him the way she had before. In a moment, she was curled on the bed in a heap of tears. She didn't remember crying hysterically until Jason came in to tell her it was time to leave . . . she didn't remember him practically carrying her to her bus . . . she didn't remember sitting on the bus and driving to the next city . . . or the concert that night . . . or the next day . . . or the next day. Everything passed by like it was somebody else's life, somebody else's world; it wasn't hers . . . or at least she didn't want it to be.

"I can't do it," she whispered to Alicia, Nick's guitarist, five days after Nick had left. "No matter what I forget in life, I'll never forget what it felt like to watch him walk out of that hotel room."

"Kel," Alicia sighed and wrapped her friend in a hug, "I know you love him, but you have to put this behind you. You just have to. You gotta finish the tour and, ultimately, you have to live life. If he's willing to put you through this much pain, he's not worth it."

Kelly laid her head down on the table, her tears running down onto the linoleum. "That's easier said than believed."

Alicia sat back and watched her with compassionate eyes. How could Nick do this to her? Everybody had thought he loved her so much . . . could one really do this to the person they loved? "Kel, have you talked to him since you broke up?"

"No, I can't."

"Why not? Maybe it would help--"

Kelly sat up and stared at her, her breathing labored as she tried to remember ever feeling so powerless. "I've never loved someone the way I love him, Alicia. I can hardly look at him without seeing the picture of him walking out of that hotel room over and over again in my mind. I can hardly hear his voice, or his laugh, or see his smile, without feeling my heart break five thousand times more. How can he laugh with his friends, when I can barely get out of bed in the morning?"

"Kelly," Alicia reached out to take her friend's hand, "you're stronger than this--"

"No, I'm not!" Kelly pulled away and stood from the table. "What if I'm not stronger than this, Alicia? Is that so bad? Does that make me a bad person? I am a strong person, but I love him with everything in me . . . I found the one thing I can't survive."

"You can survive it, you just have to try--"

"I have tried! And trust me . . ." she sat back down in her chair, feeling physically drained, "I can't."