Chp 33
AJ grimaced as an intergalactic fighter pilot fended off cat aliens and navigated through galaxies on the TV before him. Elena, who had her head resting on his lap and the rest of her body twisted about on the sofa, had been dozing off for most of the movie. But during those few moments where she was awake, the scenes that unfolded left her in utter confusion.
"What the hell just happened?" Elena hissed as a spaceship disappeared into a swirling tunnel of light beams and bright white sparks.
"I think he jumped a star."
"Well what does that mean?"
"I don't know."
"But you've been watching the movie!"
"Yeah and you've been sleeping! Why did you make me rent this? It's terrible!"
"Freddie's in it, that's why! How was I supposed to know that the plot would be straight out from one of Nick's video games!"
AJ shook his head and stopped the tape. "That's it. I'm turning this shit off. I'm never watching anything with the words Wing or Commander in the title ever again."
"Oh come on, it wasn't that bad" AJ shot her a death glare. Elena chuckled and shrugged her shoulders. "Ok then, maybe it was. But Freddie's hot."
"I'm hotter," AJ snorted smugly.
"Hmm" Elena playfully gave him the once over. "True. But he's a better actor."
"Uhhh, no, he's not."
Elena thought about that statement for a moment and sighed in surrender. "You're right again."
"Damn straight. Ow ow ow, I'm getting a cramp in my leg. Honey, do you mind lifting your head up for a sec so the blood could circulate through my thigh again?"
After letting out a small giggle, she yawned and then lazily sat herself up on the couch. "What time is it?" she asked as her head tiredly fell to rest against his shoulder and her eyes sleepily drifted closed.
AJ glanced at his watch. "It's almost a quarter to one."
"Damn."
His mind began to wander to the events that had occurred last week. Brian's wedding had taken place in a huge, gleaming church in his hometown of Lexington. Brian's older brother Harold was the best man. The wedding party consisted of ten couples. Elena had tried to abdicate her position of bride's maid because she felt that she would look ridiculous in the royal blue off-the-shoulder princess style dress she would have to wear in her state. But Jen wouldn't hear of it and nagged her into staying. Now Elena was glad she did make her stay. Her walking down the aisle with AJ right by her side made her imagine she was at her own wedding again. She saw Brian's nervous blue eyes twinkle and smile as he anxiously awaited his beautiful wife to be. AJ had expressed that very same look not too long ago. Jen truly resembled royalty as she made her grand entrance through the magnificent arch festooned with white and pink roses intertwined with sliver tendrils. Her bridal gown was grand and gorgeous, with tiny rhinestones strewn at the upper portion of the bodice that collected into a twinkling band at the waist and decreasingly scattered at the skirt and a train fourteen feet long. Upon her head, a delicate silver tiara encrusted with diamonds sat and a sparkling sheer twelve foot long veil cascaded down her back and flowed gracefully behind her. They had hired a live band to play the usual matrimonial ballads and Brian even wrote and performed a song for her. AJ could still recall the tears of joy that trickled down his friends' happy faces as they embarked on a new journey together. He had shed those same tears.
"Brian's wedding was really beautiful, wasn't it," he murmured, speaking his thoughts out loud.
"Mmhmm," Elena replied not opening her eyes.
"You don't regret not having a big wedding like that right?"
"Of course not. Their's was great, but I have to say that I honestly thought ours was better."
AJ laughed. "Well of course you have to think that!"
"No I don't. I don't think you need to have a lot of glimmer and glamour to make a wedding beautiful. Just having the people you love there with you is enough for me. I'm very easy to please."
He smiled and kissed the top of her head. "Only one of the many reasons I married you. Any other girl would've expected me to pull a diamond the size of my fist out of my butt."
"You don't have a butt," Elena scoffed knowing very well that it annoyed him when people made fun of his buttlessness. AJ pouted and gave her the sad puppy dog eyes.
"Why are you so mean? You know that's a very sensitive subject for me. You will never know how much it hurts to fall on your ass when you have nothing to cushion your fall."
"Hehe, it's ok. I never married you for your ass anyway. I married you for your money and sex."
"Oh that is so cold."
"Just kidding, shnookums."
"Umm" AJ had reminisced about the past ten years for the last couple of days and had done some serious thinking. "Elena, I have to tell you something" It wasn't just some capricious thought that had come to him out of the blue. He had been thinking about it for a long time now, it had just been pushed to the back of his mind. But his long time dilemma had resurfaced when he learned that he would soon be a father.
"What is it, hon?"
He swallowed hard and released the breath he didn't even realize he was holding. "I'm leaving the group."
Elena's eyes immediately snapped opened and she whipped her head up and faced him. "What?!"
"I-I can't do this anymore. It's going to be entirely too much pressure on me to be both a Backstreet Boy and a family man."
"B-b-but what about the other guys? What about your fans? What about you?! You love performing!"
"I do love performing but I love my family more! I want to be there for our child. I want to be the father that I never had. How am I supposed to be that if I'm half way around the world most of the year!"
"B-but---"
"I've thought this through, Elena. I've ran it over and over in my mind. I've tried to come up with an alternative that would work, but only one solution becomes clear. There is so much more I want to do. I can't let the Backstreet Boys prevent me from doing it."
"But why now?! Why did you decide to do this now?!"
"I've been wanting to do this for a long time, but then something would happen that would keep me in. But it's finally come down to the point where I'm positive about what I want and where I want to be. You made me see it. When I'm with you, I can be myself and my whole world changes. Being with you made me realize that there is more to life than just music. Music will always be a part of me, but it can't be all of me anymore."
Elena never thought she would be hearing this. She knew that when he said that she had unknowningly helped him in his conclusive decision to quit the group, he meant that she helped him improve his life and see things how they really were. But her point of view was completely different from his. She saw herself as being the downfall of a group she had always loved and cherished. And it angered her to know that AJ was sacrificing everything for her and a child that probably wasn't even his.
"What about Brian, Nick, and Kevin?! Have you even given them a second thought?!"
AJ was taken back by her apparent opposition. "Of course I have! It isn't like I just woke up this morning and decided that I didn't like my day job anymore! I've been struggling with this decision for nearly five years! I love the guys and I would never intentionally hurt them, but this is something I have to do!"
"You know that if you leave, the group will fall apart! You know that!"
"They can go on without me!"
"No they can't!" Elena cried out urgently. She felt her chest tighten and her insides twist and turn. "You know they won't! It's hard enough when you were only four members in the band! Just three guys is just damn right impossible!"
"No it's not! LFO did it!"
"Yeah and where the hell is LFO now?!"
"They can replace me!"
"Did they replace Howie?! The five of you were the Backstreet Boys! The four of you
are the Backstreet Boys! There's no way around it! AJ, you guys are like brothers! Do you really want to risk losing each other?!"
"I can't let that fear run my life! And it wouldn't be fair to them to have someone in the group whose heart isn't really into it and who would always rather be somewhere else! I know it's not going to be easy for them, it wasn't easy for me either, believe me! It has been the most agonizingly long and painful decision I have ever made in my entire life! But I have to do it!"
Elena felt the tears brim her eyes and a lump form in her throat. "No you don't! We can work something out when the time comes!"
AJ couldn't understand why she would oppose his decision so fervently. He thought she'd be ecstatic and grateful to know that she meant more to him than his career, that he wanted to spend every waking moment with her. He never anticipated such animosity from her.
"Elena, why---"
"AJ, please," she begged him. The guilt was becoming too much to bear. She couldn't stand the thought that she had ruined his life. "You're making a huge mistake! This isn't something you can fix after you really think it over and realize that you're wrong!"
"I'm not wrong!" he insisted vehemently, shooting up from his place beside her on the couch. "God, this is hard enough as it is! Why are you making it even harder?! I'm not only doing it for me, Elena! I'm mostly doing this for you! I thought you'd want me around more! I thought you'd want me to take care of our child! I thought you wanted us to be a family!"
Elena couldn't take it anymore. The sharp pangs of guilt repeatedly stabbed her heart like a dagger. She could almost feel her tattered heart bleed inside of her. Why did he have to be so unconditionally loving and caring?! Why did he have to be so noble?! Why was she the bad guy?! Why did she continue to lie to him when she knew damn well that the longer she played this charade, the harder it would be to keep it up?! All these questions raced through her mind and made her head spin. Why did she have to love him so goddamn much?! It would've been so much easier if she hated him. God, how she wished she could hate him at that moment. How she wished that she wouldn't care when she saw the great anguish in his eyes and when she heard his heart shatter into a million pieces the moment she told him the truth. But all the wishing in the world would not make it a reality.
"I thought you would support me. You've supported me in everything I did all this time and when it came down to the most important decision of my life, you shoot me down completely." Elena couldn't ignore the hurt in his voice. "I'm doing it for us, Elena. I don't know why you can't see that." She choked back a sob and squeezed her eyes shut. She tried desperately to block him out of her mind, but his poignant words continued to painfully penetrate into her very soul. "I'm doing it for me and I'm doing it for you. But most importantly, I'm doing it for our baby who I love and adore without question and will love even more when I first hold her or him in my arms."
The emotion was too great. Elena felt that her heart would burst at any second now if he continued to talk about "their" child as if it was already born and raised. He talked about it as if it was his. She couldn't contain it inside any longer. It had drained her immensely to keep concealed the secret that threatened to destroy both their lives. She had no strength left. "AJ, it's not yours" she whispered weakly not really expecting him to hear.
"What?"
Now there was no turning back. Elena took a deep breath and let it out raggedly. "It's not yours," she said a little louder, her voice quivering.
A look of confusion spread over his features. "What's not mine?" he asked her slowly. He prayed that he had heard her wrong. At that moment, Elena just lost it.
"THE BABY GODDAMMIT!" she screamed as the flood of tears came rushing out. "IT'S NOT YOURS!!!" She then covered her face with her hands and began to bawl mercilessly.
AJ suddenly felt like the wind had been knocked out of him. He found it hard to breathe. "What?" he croaked out clutching the arm of the sofa to prevent himself from collapsing.
Elena roughly wiped the tears from her face and sniffled. "When I went to see the obstetrician to learn how long I had been pregnant," she explained shakily, "he told me that I was near the end of my first trimester. I was two and a half months along." AJ still couldn't comprehend. "AJ, I was pregnant before you and I" Her voice rose with emotion and a loud sob racked her body. "There's almost no doubt that this child I am carrying within meis Nathan's."
It was too much. AJ grunted and clutched his chest as a paralyzing pain pierced his heart. Elena became alarmed and reached out to him. "Are you ok?!"
"Get away from me!" he barked at her. Elena immediately recoiled and stared at him wide-eyed. She could see the fury burning in his eyes. "You lied to me."
Elena shook her head. "AJ---I---please---"
He took a step back and continued to scorch her with his searing fiery gaze. "You lied to me. You made me believe that that was my child. I gave up everything for you. All I've ever shown you was love and devotion and this is what I get?! Lies?!" He slowly was backing up toward the front door.
"AJ, please!" she pleaded, pawing at him and choking on her sobs.
He put his hand up to silence her. "No," he growled slipping his fingers around the knob and pulling the door open. "No, don'tJust don't." He turned around and just walked out the door, slamming it behind him.
Chp 34
Chp 32
