Part 2: Wet Wings; Exit 1

There was no thrill like the thrill of the crowd, the sound of applause, the rush of excitement before and during performing. It would become Nickolas’s drug, and he took his first hit of it on a cool April day in Orlando. Nick had always loved Sea World, so he found it only appropriate that the first performance with the group would be there.

He had taken a deep breath as he signed his name on the contract; the contract that would bind him to the other four boys for the rest of his life. If they made it, that is. But something in Nick told him they would. If they worked really hard, they would. The problem was that Nickolas wasn’t really sure if that was what he wanted deep down inside. He really only just wanted his mother to love him no matter what. But her drive transferred to him and here he was, with a man supporting them who could get them a contract, get them heard, get them known. And so, after only a moments delay he signed. No one else noticed. The only person that saw it was me.

But now, moments before his first performance, he knew that he wanted to do it. He knew that it was right, even if it felt a bit strange. Nick felt real for the first time ever.

It was one of the choices he had written for himself. One of the paths that he would choose once he got here. And the path that he chose would take him in polar opposite directions. I nodded my head when he signed. There was something in me that knew he would choose this one. That’s the way his spirit was. He would share his life theme with the world.

Things went quickly for Nickolas. In a world where he was pretty much a loner, he suddenly was thrown together with four very different people from himself. They teased him a bit, but also seemed to watch him carefully and keep an eye on him. And before Nick knew it, the five of them were at SeaWorld in Orlando, all dressed in the same cheesy costume, jittery for their first performance in front of a crowd.

Jane tugged at Nick’s costume, straightening him. “You can do this, honey.” She told him, distracted, and planted a small kiss on his cheek. Unlike most boys, he did not turn away from the kiss. He welcomed all affection quite openly, especially his mother’s.

“I love you, Ma.” He said earnestly. But she really wasn’t listening. It may as well have been her going out there to perform. Most of this was, afterall, her dream.

It was not at all that Nick didn’t enjoy singing. He loved singing. He had loved it the first time he had opened his mouth and notes came out. And actually, he really liked the guys, always wanting to get attention from them, trying to impress them. He was learning so much about them and he was thankful to be part of the group, both physically and socially. The problem was that Nick didn’t like the pressure. His manner was easy-going and carefree. But this life was strict and stressful and it just didn’t feel like him. He just wanted to sit and play video games or go outside and ride around on the boat his dad had fixed up for him. Yet he was in rehearsal so much and drove back and forth from Orlando to Tampa every day, he didn’t even have hardly enough time to eat an sleep much less be a kid. And school was over. He had started with a tutor along side two other of the guys, Brian and AJ.

And before Nick knew it, he was running onto the stage for the first time with the rest of the group. An intense vibration reverberated through his entire body and it almost knocked him down. So this was what it was like?

I felt it in my own spirit as well, the feel of the crowds thoughts and emotions on him, the sound of the yells and the excitement that reverberated through every part of my being. When he sang, he did so from his heart, with so much emotion and exuberance that the energy flipped right back over and onto the audience.

I wanted to feel what they were feeling, see what they were seeing, and so I walked proudly through the crowds of people who did not see me, waved to some of their guides that were there that I knew and they gave me the thumbs up sign or smiled or pointed to Nick. We were all so proud, everyone back home was. We were proud of his passion and they way he put all of himself into it even though it wasn’t quite what he had imagined.

I looked at the stage and suddenly his eyes met mine. He saw me out there. I smiled and waved and he looked confused for only a moment and then he smiled back.

****

It wasn’t until just before Nickolas fell asleep that night, on the drive home from Orlando, when the movement of the car lulled him and his mother’s 80’s music played lightly, that he realized he had seen a face in the crowd that he recognized from somewhere. In that small twilight between awake and sleep he couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but pictured the girl standing there, long dark brown hair and the largest, almond shaped eyes that looked at him as if they knew every inch of his mind and heart. Her skin was a deep olive and she had worn a green sleeveless dress made of an almost transparent flowing material. She had looked out of place in the crowd, but something inside of him had told him that she was right where she belonged. As he finally succumbed to the sleep that was taking him a single word came into his head and it flowed through the blood in his veins as he slept, echoing the send of his heartbeat.

Aurora.

*****

I had never seen Nick so outgoing, heard Nick talk so much, seen him play so hard as when he was with the other Backstreet Boys. When he was with them he was really a boy, one with four older brothers whom he studied and emulated and learned so much more than he realized from. He wouldn’t actually realize how important they were until years later.

The five of them had drive, all five of their spirit guides agreed on that. We were all at the Hall of Mirrors one day, meeting about them, when we concluded. I had taken to going most places with Brian’s spirit guide, Mala, a tall black man with a moustache and Islamic markings on his face. I loved Mala. He had actually been my spirit guide for many of my own lives. He was much less serious than some of the others, especially Kevin’s spirit guide, Quanta, an old Cherokee woman who was quiet and calm and always watching.

Mala and I were joking about some of the antics that Brian and Nick had been pulling on their tour buses while in Germany, when I suddenly got an odd feeling in the pit of what would be my stomach. Mala put his hand on my shoulder. It was time for Nick’s first exit.

*****

Usually, we would have met on top of a large mountain and looked down at the path of their life during an exit choice. But Nick had all but completely closed Home out of his mind. And thus, I went to him, as he slept, the only place where he would even let me in remotely, and whispered in his ear. I knew what he was dreaming about.

He was at home with his father on a big boat. They were fishing and the dolphins were all around them. He gasped when one of them sprang forth from the water and leaned his head onto the deck. A small blue butterfly landed on tip of his snout and Nick reached out and felt its smooth wings. And in the whisperings of the wind, Nick heard a whisper that said, “First exit, the last white van, 8:00 am.”

He shivered and the butterfly and dolphin went away and suddenly the boat was speeding down a concrete street. Nick awoke quickly. When he did, he could have swore he saw a shadow of a woman with long dark hair just disappearing. He fell back asleep almost immediately.

*****

The next morning, without even knowing he was making the decision, Nick declined the first exit.

The boys stood in front of three white vans that would take them to the airport that would bring them home to the United States. Fans of crying adolescent girls surrounded them. Nick wasn’t quite used to all of that yet. He wasn’t sure if he ever would be. Usually, he just tried to block it out, not letting it affect him positively nor negatively. His large bodyguard, Q, was going to put his luggage into the third white van. But Nick didn’t want to go in the van alone, and the other four guys were going into the first two. It would be a tight squeeze, but Nick didn’t mine. “Hey Q,” he said quietly, “put my luggage into the second van. I’ll go with Howie and Brian.”

Q did as he was told and Nick rode to the airport with his band mates. It ended up being Brian and Kevin in the car instead, and Nick and Kevin ended up getting into a fight along the way on why Nick could not pay attention for more than five minutes. The younger member crossed his hands in front of his chest, telling himself he should have just gone alone in the other van.

As Nickolas sat brooding, he had no idea that at that very moment, the driver of that van, while still sitting at the hotel they had been staying at, had chosen his own exit of a heart attack, and died quite peacefully behind the wheel of the parked vehicle. If Nick had been in the van, they both would have been on the road to the airport and would have exited together.

I knew Nick wouldn’t choose that first exit. I had a feeling he wouldn’t leave until the fifth.

*****