Chapter 24

Nick sat in the flight departure waiting room as he waited for his flight number to be called. He started to get restless as the time slowly passed by. He then looked at his ticket to find the departure time and by looking at his watch, he came to the conclusion that he still had 45 minutes until take off. He sighed heavily as he rose to his feet and made his way towards the small airport gift shop.

As he walked through the entrance, the magazine rack caught his eye and he made his way towards it; hoping to find something he could read to calm his nerves during the flight. A magazine cover which had a picture of five smiling young men came into his view.

Nick quickly ran the back of his hand over his blue eyes to wipe away the tears which suddenly sprang to the surface of his eyes. He took in a deep breath and slowly exhaled to calm his now shaky nerves.

Without even really realizing it, he quickly walked out of the shop and sat down in the first seat that was available. He held his blond head in his hands as thoughts raced through his now confused mind; he still couldn’t believe that he was running away from his problems.

After quiet a few minutes more of trying to sort through his thoughts, Nick was brought back to reality by a voice that came over the intercom announcing that the flight to Los Angeles was now boarding for departure.

Nick got up and walked towards the woman who was checking tickets. She took a quick glance at his ticket and nodded at him as she motioned for him to walk through the tunnel that lead to the interior of the plane. Nick quickly found his seat and said down; pulling his baseball cap down further to cover his eyes.

The sudden jolt of the plane rolling down the runway a few minutes later again jolted Nick from his thoughts. As the plane prepared to lift off, the tears again came to his eyes as he hoped everyone would forgive him and understand why he did what he did, but the real question was: would he ever be able to forgive himself?

Chapter 25