“What happened?” Nick came rushing into the waiting room with Brynn hot on his heels. They had been down in the cafeteria getting some coffee when Nick had gotten the page. “Is it Aaron?”

The doctor shook his head. “No. It’s Katelin, actually.”

Brynn could’ve sworn she saw Nick’s face go completely white. “Is she okay?” he asked, barely recognizing the fear in his voice.

The doctor nodded. “She’ll be fine. She just had a bad reaction to the anesthesia. She’s resting comfortably right now.”

Nick felt the breath escape his lips in a huge sigh of relief. When the doctor had said that something was wrong, he had felt unmistakable fear grip his heart. Of course his first thoughts were that something terrible had happened to his son. But then his mind had shifted to her. And he didn’t know what he would’ve done if something had happened to her. Yeah, she had been gone for three years. But he knew she was out there somewhere. If something went wrong and he lost her forever, he didn’t know what he would do.

“And what about Aaron?” Brynn asked, taking notice of how scared Nick had looked when hearing that something had happened to Kate.

The doctor smiled, comfortingly. “He’s doing just fine. They should be finishing up within the next two hours.”

“Can I see Kate?” Nick asked, just needing to make sure she was really okay. The doctor nodded and led Nick down the hall to her private room, leaving Brynn alone in the waiting room.

They reached Kate’s room and the doctor left Nick alone outside. Nick peeked inside the room and saw Brendan sitting next to her bed. He softly knocked and walked into the room. “Hi,” he whispered. “How is she?”

Brendan looked up quickly. “She should be fine. She’ll probably sleep for a while. How’s Aaron?”

”Still in surgery,” Nick answered. “They should be finishing up soon.”

They sat uncomfortably for a moment before Brendan stood up. “I’ll leave you alone for a little bit. I’m going to run and make a phone call.”

Nick nodded and inwardly cringed as Brendan leaned over and brushed Katelin’s hair out of her eyes before leaning down and placing a light kiss on her forehead. Brendan turned around and walked out of the room, leaving Nick alone with his wife.

He looked at her. Finally, in all of the time she had been home, he got a really good look at her. She looked different than he had remembered her. Skinny. Pale. Especially laying in the bed with tubes attached to her body. She looked so frail. He grabbed her hand in his. It was so small that his almost completely enclosed it. “What happened to us, baby?” he whispered, knowing that she couldn’t answer him. “Why did you fall out of love with me? Why did you leave me?” He glanced down at her hand in his. She still had her rings on. The huge diamond engagement ring and the diamond and platinum wedding band. He ran his finger over the top of the band and then turned her hand over to follow the diamonds all the way around. And that’s when he saw it.

“Hey,” Brian greeted Brynn as he and AJ entered the waiting room. “Any news on Aaron?”

She shook her head. “Not yet. He still in surgery.”

“Where’s Nick?” AJ asked, noticing that his friend was not in the room with his girlfriend.

“With Katelin,” she answered, noting the looks of surprise that crossed their faces. “She had some bad reaction to the anesthesia or something. She’s okay now but she’ll be out of it for a while longer."

Brian sat down next to her while AJ left the room in search of a vending machine. “How are you holding up?” he asked, taking her hand in his.

“I’m fine,” Brynn replied. “I’m just worried about Aaron. And Nick.”

“That’s not what I mean,” he clarified. “I know this must be hard on you. With Katelin back and all.”

She nodded slowly, her eyes filling with tears. “It is, Brian. I love him so much. And I’m terrified that I’m going to lose him.”

She looked at him, desperate for some reassurance but she knew that he didn’t have any. He had no idea what was going on in Nick’s head. He knew that he cared deeply for Brynn but he also knew what Nick had with Katelin. And he didn’t think that Nick would ever feel that way about another woman again.

***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****

He stared at it at first in disbelief, hoping that he was just imagining things. He squeezed his eyes shut but it was still there when he reopened them.

Grabbing the other hand, what he saw brought tears to his eyes. There was one there, too. He ran his finger over it, feeling the bumps as tears slipped from his blue eyes. He dropped her hands as if he had been burned, as he backed away from the bed.

Suddenly, he felt sick to his stomach and darted from the room into the nearest bathroom, emptying the contents of his stomach into the toilet.

Both Brendan and AJ, walking from opposite ends of the hallway, saw Nick run from the room. They caught each other’s eye and quickly ran down the hall, Brendan into Kate’s room and AJ into the bathroom after Nick.

“Nick!” AJ hollered, entering the men’s room. He could hear the wretching noises and checked under the first stall door, seeing Nick’s feet. A moment later, the toilet flushed, revealing a flushed Nick with a tear-streaked face. “What happened? Is it Kate?”

”Oh my God, Jay,” Nick hiccupped, wiping at his eyes. “She…she…her wrists.”

And that’s when AJ knew what he was talking about. He had seen them too. The night he had found her in New York. But he had never asked about them, knowing that Nick should be the one to know and that Katelin should be the one to tell him.

They walked out of the bathroom and back into her room, where Brendan was, again, sitting at her bed side. He glanced up at Nick, who could barely even look at his wife. “What’s wrong?” he asked, noticing the fact that Nick was a mess. “Did something happen with Aaron?” He hoped not. That would literally destroy her, knowing that she couldn’t help save her little boy.

Nick shook his head, taking a deep breath. “What happened to her, Brendan?” He walked over to the bed and lifted up her arm, revealing the nasty scar on the inside of her wrist. “Why the hell would she do this to herself?”

Brendan sucked in his breath. He had to tell Nick everything. He knew that Katelin never would. He knew she couldn’t relive that nightmare all over again. He wasn’t even sure that he could. “Let’s go for a walk, man.”

Nick glanced at AJ, who nodded. “I’ll let you know when there’s news on Aaron.” Nick nodded and he and Brendan walked out of the room and down to the hospital courtyard.

They sat down at a picnic table as Brendan delved into Katelin’s nightmarish past, Nick listening intently. “It all started our sophomore year in college. Before you even knew her. You remember Rob, right?” Nick nodded, clenching his fists. If he could only get his hands on the guy who used to use his girlfriend, Nick’s wife, as a punching bag.

“Well,” Brendan continued. “When that was going on, only a few people knew. Brooke, Ashley, and I. And we all saw the change. She put up a great front. Most people, besides us, had no idea that anything was going on. Hell, her parents never even knew. They still don’t.”

“She started seeing a shrink not too long after she met you and they diagnosed her as manic depressive. Put her on all sorts of meds. And she took them everyday for two years and no one had any clue, except me.”

“What?” Nick asked, quietly. How could he not have known? How could she not have told him? He was her boyfriend, for god’s sakes. And he never had any idea.

“She didn’t want to tell you, Nick,” Brendan told him, answering Nick’s silent question. “She was afraid you’d look at her differently. She always said that a Backstreet Boy would never want a whack-job like her as a girlfriend so she refused to tell you.”

“And then she started getting better so she began to wean herself off of the medication. And then the attacks started coming.” Nick looked at him funny so Brendan continued, clarifying his meaning. “Panic attacks. Don’t you remember all of her sleeping problems right before we graduated?” Nick nodded. “That’s when she went totally off the drugs. And she had panic attacks all of the time. But she even learned how to deal with them so they didn’t occur as much either. And then she came down here with you and everything seemed perfect.”

Nick leaned his head down, everything hitting him full force. And the hell he must have put her through after his brother had died and while she was pregnant with Aaron. And then again when he had walked out on their marriage. Albeit briefly but she must have been a mess inside and no one ever knew it.

“I wasn’t around when she was pregnant with Aaron,” Brendan spoke softly, again, seemingly reading Nick’s mind. “And she doesn’t really like to talk about it so I don’t bring it up. I know she started seeing a shrink again and, still, no one had any clue. And then when you walked out on her, she broke down again. That’s why I was around so much. I knew she needed help. Especially with those kids. And that’s all I wanted to do. And when you came back to her, I thought that she’d be getting better. But then she lost the baby, and, I swear, Nick, it almost killed her.”

Nick had tears in his eyes and he wasn’t even really sure if he wanted to hear the rest. Bu the knew that he had to. “Why the hell didn’t she come to me instead of running away?”

“She felt she had no choice, Nick,” Brendan began to explain. He got emotional just thinking about it. The whole time, he watched his best friend slip further and further away. And there had been nothing he could do to stop it. “She was a total wreck after she lost the baby. And one day, you apparently told her that she was scaring you and she wanted nothing more than to stop hurting you and the children. So, she tried to pretend that everything was okay and that she was doing better when the whole time, she was just getting worse and worse.”

“Finally, she came to me and confessed that she couldn’t do it anymore. I thought she was finally going to go to you. But instead she told me she wanted to leave. Not that she wanted to but that she absolutely needed to.”

Nick shook his head, tears forming in his eyes as he remembered everything about that time in his life. The heartbreak of losing his fourth child and from seeing his wife in so much pain. The fights they used to get in because she refused to turn to him. And the way his heart shattered when he realized she had left him and wasn’t coming back.

“I tried to talk her out of it, Nick. I swear I did. But her mind was made up and she refused to change her decision. So, instead of letting her go and deal with it alone, I made up my mind and followed her to New York.” He sighed, his breath shaky. “She was sick. So sick. And I needed to make sure that he got help. So I made all of the arrangements and, one day, after everything was settled, she up and left. I followed her a few days later and we’ve been there ever since.”

“When did she do this to herself?” Nick asked, his eyes bright with tears. The past ten years of his wife’s life had been a living hell and he had no idea that anything was ever really wrong.

“About eight months after we had gotten there,” Brendan replied, feeling his heart beginning to pound in his chest. He remembered that night all too well. The pain. The terror. And the anger he felt when he thought she had given up.

“We get together for dinner every Tuesday night. It had been a ritual ever since we had gotten there. We saw each other more than that but Tuesdays were a definite. Well, she was late. We always met around six thirty and by seven fifteen, I hadn’t heard a thing from her. Naturally, I was worried. This was so unlike her. So I called her cell. No answer. Her office. No answer. Her apartment and the phone was busy. I kept calling and calling, for another hour almost. And I kept getting more and more worried. I just had a really bad feeling about something. So I went over there.” Brendan paused and took a deep breath, his eyes filling with tears. He would never forget this night for the rest of his life. He remembered feeling like his heart had literally been ripped out of his chest.

He knocked on the door. “Katelin!” Knock. Knock. Knock. “Kate? You in there?” He could hear the television blaring and figured she couldn’t hear him knocking over it. Fiddling with his keys, he used the one she had given him and opened up the door.

“Kate?” He called. His heart began pounding in his chest. He didn’t know why but, for some reason, he had a really terrible feeling.

He walked through her apartment and back into her bedroom. Hearing the water running in the bathroom, he walked over and knocked on the door. “Kate? It’s Brendan.” Still, no answer but he did notice that the door was slightly cracked. Cautiously pushing it open, he gasped at what he saw.

“Kate?!” he shrieked. He dropped to his knees next to her, immediately trying to wake her up. There was so much blood. Everywhere. How long had she been laying there?

He slapped her across the face a couple of times, trying to revive her, while at the same time, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket and dialing 911. He frantically explained to the emergency operator the situation. He quickly followed the operator’s instructions, getting hand towels and tightly wrapping them around each of her wrists, trying desperately to stop the bleeding. Quickly, he gave the address to Kate’s apartment and then hung up the phone. He had tears streaming down his face, landing on Katelin, who was laying seemingly lifeless on the ground. Her face was stark white and her lips were beginning to turn blue.

Hearing the EMT’s bang on the door, he lifted her up and ran, as quickly as he could, to the door of her apartment. The EMT’s loaded her small frame onto the stretcher and began to move back towards the elevator. “What happened?” one of them asked Brendan.

“I don’t know!” He cried. “I found her like that!”

They began yelling to each other, calling out commands and things that Brendan didn’t understand. They reached the lobby and got off of the elevator. Virtually, everyone stopped to look at the commotion. They stared at the EMT’s rushing his best friend through the lobby on a stretcher. They stared at Brendan, running behind them, his clothes covered in blood. He didn’t care about that though. All he wanted to do was cover her up. Try to shield her so none of these people could see her face. Could see that she was the one who did this to herself.

She crashed in the ambulance and Brendan thought that maybe his own heart had stopped. But they got her back. And, while he was still so scared for her, suddenly, he was angry. So angry. He wanted to grab her. Shake her. Get inside of her head and demand to know what the hell she was thinking. Why she would do that to herself. To him. To her husband who was sitting hundreds of miles away, having no idea where she was or what she had done to herself. To her children. Her family.

“She flipped out on me when I saw her,” Brendan explained to Nick, who was openly crying at this point. “At least when she finally started talking. When she first woke up, she just stared at the wall. For days. She wouldn’t talk. She ate only when the hospital staff basically forced her to. I would go there after work everyday and just sit with her for hours. And nothing.”

“Why didn’t you call me?” Nick finally asked, finding his voice. “Jesus, Brendan, she’s still my fucking wife. She needed me. I could’ve helped her!”

“I wanted to,” Brendan told him. “I swear, I almost picked up the phone many times. But she didn’t want you to know about any of that. And she was already so fragile. I didn’t want to do anything to make it worse. I even asked her doctor if I should call you but she also said no.”

“Finally, one day, I pushed her so far, she flipped out. Screaming, crying, basically hating me for saving her. And that hurt worse than anything. To hear how badly she wanted to die. That’s when I finally realized just how sick she really was.”

Nick’s cell phone rang at that point, interrupting Brendan’s horror story of what had gone on. “Yeah…really? Okay great…We’ll be right up.” He wiped his eyes. “Aaron’s out of surgery. I told them we were on our way.”

He went to turn around and walk away but Brendan grabbed his shoulder to stop him. “She’s so much better, Nick. So much stronger than she ever was before. And she loves you so much. Believe me. She never wanted to hurt you like she did. Never.”

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