Brian’s rented Jeep was right where I had left it. I pulled the keys out of my pocket and climbed inside. AJ hopped on the seat on the passenger side. I started the car and followed the arrows to visitor parking. It was quiet in the car as both of us were deep in our own thoughts. After driving around the parking garage for a few minutes trying to find somewhere to park, I felt like I was being watched. I looked over to AJ and sure enough he was gazing at me intently. Before I could ask him why he was staring at me he spoke.

“You really care about him, huh?” He asked. I couldn’t read his face because it was dark and he was still wearing his sunglasses.

I nodded without saying anything. I wasn’t sure I could trust my voice yet.

“I can see it in your eyes. And I know that it’s not just the experience of seeing this happen to Brian that made you so upset.” He told me.

I nodded again and cleared my throat. “I know we only met today, but it doesn’t seem like it. We just sort of clicked. When we were hanging out I didn’t feel like I was with a famous Backstreet Boy. Just a good friend.” I tried to explain.

“That is who Brian is. He is so normal, he kind of grounds the rest of us. He must really think a lot of you if he confided in you.” he added.

“How did you know he confided in me?” I looked at AJ blankly.

“You told the doctor about Brian telling you about his doctor appointment here.” he reminded me.

“Oh yeah.” I muttered, feeling dumb.

“He doesn’t like to talk about his heart problem at all. He barely even talks to us about it. I think he is scared to death about all this, but is trying to put up a brave front for us. Especially for Nick. He doesn’t want us to worry about him.” Said AJ, shaking his head. “Hey! There’s one!” He pointed to a parking spot at the end of the aisle we were on.

I pulled into and turned the ignition off. I left the radio on though. It was turned way down, but we could still hear it.

“I don’t want to go in just yet, but I suppose we should in case something happens with B-Rok.” said AJ quietly.

I thought for a moment. “Well, we could probably stay out here for a few minutes. Kevin will call us if anything happens.”
AJ leaned back against the headrest. “I’m not much of a fan of hospitals.”
I chuckled. “Neither is Brian.” I paused. “You know, I could tell he had a hard time telling me about it. All this, I mean. He needs to realize that it is okay to lean on others sometimes.”
“Try telling that to Bri, though. He is so stubborn about that. He managed to keep it from us that he sick for about a month. Finally he couldn’t hide it anymore.” AJ sighed.

“He mentioned something about that. At a concert? When he found out about the hole?” I asked.

AJ nodded. “That was a baaaaddd night. We had a concert that night. It was pretty obvious that something was wrong with Brian. He looked awful and he was exhausted. It showed in his performance too. I’m not sure if the fans picked up on it, but we did. After it was over we headed for our dressing room. We had to walk down a long hallway to get there and I was walking by Brian. About halfway to the dressing room he started to stagger a little bit. It caught my attention and I started to ask him if he was alright. Before I even got the words out he started to fall. I grabbed him around the waist before he hit the ground. I yelled for Kevin who had already made it to the room. He came running out, followed by Nick. We took him into the dressing room and laid him on the couch. I put my hand on his forehead and he was burning up. He said he was dizzy and his chest hurt. Nick was freaking out and Brian, I guess trying to calm him down, said it was nothing new. That this had happened before. Kevin was like ‘What?!’ and Brian confessed that he had had several episodes like that in the past month. No energy, fevers, chest pain, dizziness, and on...Boy, I thought Kevin was going to wring his neck! He was like ‘Man! Why haven’t you said anything to us?!’ Brian said that he didn’t want us to worry. By now he was getting chills and looked pretty bad. Kevin called the hospital and explained what was going on. They said that considering Brian’s history that he needed to come in. He was so weak that Kevin had to carry him. We were there for most of the night. They ran all kinds of tests on him. At about 3am the doctor came in and said that they got the results back and did Brian want us to leave so he could give him the results. Brian said no, he wanted us there. Then the doctor told Brian he had a new hole in his heart and he would probably need surgery. He said a few more things and then left. None of us said anything at first. Then Brian, sitting there in the middle of his hospital bed, started crying. It was so sad.” AJ stopped. He took a deep breath and continued. “Nick started crying too. Kevin went over and put his arms around Brian and just kept saying everything was going to be okay. Then we called Leighanne. Brian wouldn’t let us call her before because he didn’t want her to worry until we knew what was going on. She came right up. She was really mad at us for not calling right away when we took him in. She made him promise not keep stuff like that from her anymore. She had a really hard time going to Europe, but Brian insisted. Ever since then we have been watching him like hawks to make sure if anything happens we could do something about it right away. He sneaked out this morning and he must have turned his phone off.” He stopped again and let out a long sigh.

“He’s lucky to have friends like you. Do you think Nick is alright? He looked like he was in shock or something.” I asked him.

“Wouldn’t surprise me. That boy is attached to Brian’s hip. He looks up to him so much. This has got to be tearing him up.” AJ said, frowning.

“Ready to go back in?” I looked at AJ.

“Not really, but I guess we should.”
Brian’s cell phone chirped, making us both jump. I picked it up and looked at the lit screen. It said Train. I punched talk. “Hello?”
“Ellie, where’s AJ? He’s not answering his phone.” Came Kevin’s voice.

“He’s right here. Hold on.” I handed the phone to AJ. “It’s Kevin.”
“Hey. Yeah.” He pulled his own phone out of his pocket. “I turned off the ringer.” Pause. “He is?!” Pause. “Oh. Okay, we’ll be right there.” He flipped the phone shut and handed it back to me.

“Come on, darlin. They’ve got him stabilized and they are moving him to a room in ICU They’re going to let us see him.” He said as we got out of the car. We rushed back in the building trying to prepare ourselves for what was next.