Brian paced about, slightly disturbed. Nick had missed rehearsal that morning, which was very uncharacteristic of him. He loved to sing and dance. What frightened Brian more was the fact that none of them could contact or locate him. All four of them were sick from worry.
In actuality, Brian had been upset and worried since they parted at AJ's party. True, he was unhappy seeing his girlfriend in another man's arms, but he should have been calmer about it.
And he could see that the guilt was eating Kevin up as well. Ever since Saturday, Kevin had locked himself up, refusing to talk to anyone. He regretted hitting Nick. Even more so, he regretted the words he said to Nick.
Suddenly, Kevin ran into the dance studio. Brian immediately jumped at his cousin. "Does Katie know where he is?" Brian was too upset to call Katie himself.
"She wouldn't pick up her line either," Kevin replied, wrinkling his forehead.
"Where could they be?" AJ blurted. Everyone was sick with worry.
"He wouldn't just be still hostile from last Saturday, would he?" Howie suggested, hoping that that were the case.
"No!" Brian cried out. "It's not like Nick. I'm afraid that . . . "
"Stop!" Kevin yelled out too. "Let's think more positively. I mean, he's a strong kid. He wouldn't hurt himself just because we got into a little argument, right?" Kevin paced about furiously. He didn't want to think of Nick being hurt.
"But what about Katie also being missing?" Howie noted.
"Should we tell his mother?" AJ digressed. "Maybe she knows something of it. Ya know, maybe, he went back to his mother." The other three immediately nodded in agreement.
"Yes, let's call his mom!" Brian agreed. Kevin didn't need to be told twice. He took out his cell phone and called Jane.
"Hello?" Jane's sweet voice called out at the other end.
"Hi, Jane. This is Kevin." Worry was ridden in his voice.
Jane immediately became alarmed. "What is it? Is something wrong? Is it Nick?" Her heart began to thump wildly.
Kevin's heart sank. "We thought that you might know. He's not at rehearsal today. Well, we haven't seen him since . . . um . . . well, we had a sort of argument on Saturday and . . . " Kevin hesitated. The memories were haunting. He hadn't slept well since his exchange with Nick.
Jane's face paled. "He hasn't called me since." Usually Nick would call her if he was upset. But then again, after being shot by those two maniacs three months ago, he withdrew from her. Of course, he would call, but he would mask his pain and only focus on the happy stuff. Jane longed to be with Nick, but he had told her that he preferred to be alone for a while, so she did not push it.
"I'll take the earliest flight there," Jane told Kevin and hung up.
The guys didn't need any explanation. Jane didn't know where Nick was! All four of them gazed at each other. Everything seemed like a haze. Brian tried to hold back his tears. He shouldn't have let Nick go that night. He should have asked him to stay, at least to explain their situation.
They sat in the dance studio, quiet and pensive, waiting for Jane's arrival. It wasn't long-just a few hours, but to them, the wait was an eternity.
Jane bursted into the dance studio. Her eyes were swollen. "What exactly happened on Saturday to make him so upset? You promised me that you would take care of him!" Her voice wavered.
All four guys didn't know where to start. Her words shamed them. Kevin was the first to speak up. "It's my fault. I . . . I was angry at him for embracing Brian's girlfriend. They were holding each other and their bodies were close. I mean anyone would think that they had some sort of romantic feelings for each other."
"And he was trying to protect me from being hurt," Brian interrupted. He didn't want Kevin to take all the blame. "I guess the way Nick held Katie was kind of provoking. . . umm . . . it just seemed like they were . . . well . . . you know."
Realizing that Brian and Kevin were just taking the blame on themselves and not really explaining the situation to Jane, AJ decided to move the story along. "Brian has this girlfriend named Katie that he brought to Nick's place one night. We had dinner with her. The next night, we invited her to my barbecue as well. But ever since they met, Nick and Katie kinda acted a little strange towards each other. Well, Kevin and Brian found them holding each other pretty tightly at my house."
AJ paused and looked at Kevin to let him know that he didn't really blame the older man for what happened. However he needed to tell Jane. Kevin nodded and AJ continued. "Kevin got a little angry and hit Nick in the face. After that, Nick and Katie left the party and no one has seen them since. Nick was pretty upset."
"Who's this Katie?" Jane asked for the first time, the worry written all over her face. Throughout her life, there was only one Katie which she would never ever forget.
"Katie Castellana, my girlfriend," Brian answered softly.
Jane's face paled even more. She shook her head in disbelief. All four guys immediately noticed her change of expression.
"You know her?" Howie asked.
Jane didn't seem to hear his question. "How could she-how is it possible? She disappeared. Why would she want to come back to haunt Nick? What does she want with him? Wasn't everything settled six years ago?"
Her string of questions alerted all the guys even more. Brian jumped at her words. "What do you mean? Are you saying that they knew each other?"
Jane didn't answer his questions. She had questions of her own. "Did she say anything to him? Did she tell him anything?" Jane asked them. She began to panic. For six years she had tried to veil the truth from Nick. She didn't want him to look upon his past with fear. And Katie's disappearance was perfect. After Katie left their little town, Jane moved as well, taking Nick away from the horrid events that surrounded his hospitalization.
"We don't know. They just acted kind of strange around each other," Kevin answered. He started to become nervous.
"All right, hold on here, Jane," Howie stepped in. "If you want us to help you interpret all the things that have happened, you'd better start giving us some info. What exactly happened between Nick and Katie supposedly six years ago?"
Jane slowly calmed down and grabbed the nearest chair for support. Kevin ran to her side to support her as well. He eased her onto the chair and the rest of them waited patiently for her response. Jane's eyes were wet by now. She wiped the tears away in frustration.
"Nick had known Katie for many months. Well, Nick claimed that she approached him one day while he was studying at the park, and they immediately hit it off really well. After a few weeks, she spent every afternoon tutoring him. Of course, at that time, she was already in college.
They were very happy together. At first, she was like a big sister to him. So I'd let them hang out together. Sometimes, I would worry because Nick would come home late with her. And when I asked him where he was, he would say 'out shopping' or 'studying at the library'. I mean I was happy that he was enjoying the time he spent with her, but after a few weeks, weird things were happening, and I was afraid that she was taking advantage of him. But whenever I broached the subject, Nick would get angry at me for thinking such things.
But I'm digressing. Well, one night, it got windy and cold. And there was a thunderstorm. I was afraid that Nick would get cold so I drove my car to the park. But he wasn't there. I finally returned home, hoping that he had run home by then. Then I got a phone call from him, saying that he was at Katie's house, which I didn't really like, but at least he wasn't out wandering the streets. He sounded, I don't know, a little worried. He told me he would come home when the storm subsided.
The storm subsided, but he never came home. And I never got a phone call from him. It was nearly morning by then, probably 4:00 a.m. when I decided to pick up Nick myself from Katie's place. So Nick's father and I went to the Katie's place ourselves to bring Nick back home. I was ready to ground him for the next 6 months. He worried me sick.
As we neared the house, we noticed lights flashing from her house. And when we were only a few blocks away, that's when we noticed the police cars everywhere. My heart sank. I knew something was wrong. My Nick was in trouble. I ran to the house, but the police grabbed me and told me not to go inside. I asked them what was going on.
They told me that the daughter of the owner of the house-that would be Katie-came home after the storm to find blood all over the floor of her bedroom. But no bodies were found. Shards of glass were strewn on the floor. The police had questioned her and she told them that earlier, she had brought Nick home and left him at home with her father, which she thought was a little drunk, but was harmless.
When the police asked her where she had been, she told them that she had forgotten something at her workplace and that she had to go back and get it. And when the storm subsided, she came home to find blood all over the carpet. She called the police immediately."
Jane paused, trying to collect her thoughts. All the guys had lumps in their throats, knowing where this story was heading. Kevin felt hurt the most. He hadn't realized how much pain Nick had gone through. His argument with Nick resurfaced in his mind, but he tried hard to shrug it off, trying to pay attention to the rest of the story . . .
"They finally found Katie's father. He was making a run for it. He never even made it close to the state border. The police stopped his car, but when they looked in the back seat and in the trunk, they didn't find Nick's body anywhere. They questioned Katie's father and it took him 2 whole hours before he gave in and told them that he had dumped Nick's body in a nearby river. I was wailing by then.
The police did find Nick's body. His body was wrapped in a garbage bag and flung into the river. Luckily, his body didn't sink. It got caught on the rocks. Still, the thought of him being tied up in the bag was sickening. I wanted to rip out that man's throat right there. When they took Nick's body out of the garbage bag, his face was deathly pale. There was blood all over his head, which was cut in many places.
I had never seen him so pale. They thought he was dead, but they sent him to the hospital. Thank goodness, his heart was still beating, but extremely slowly due to the coldness of the river. And the doctors said that that might have saved him. He could have bled to death, but the blood in his head had clotted. His skull had a linear fracture, which they said was not bad enough to kill him.
But the most disturbing news was when they told me that they did a total examination of Nick's body and . . . " Jane found it hard to continue. All the guys waited patiently for her while she took in a huge breath of air to continue. " . . . and found semen in his rectum."
Brian's, Kevin's, AJ's, and Howie's eyes all widened. Brian started breathing heavily, not being able to believe what he was hearing. Jane nodded.
"Yes, he was sexually molested by Katie's father. And what was more disturbing was the trial." Jane cried even harder.
"I remember the expression on Katie's father's face. It wasn't one of guilt or repentance. He laughed! He laughed at Nick's suffering!" Jane's voice now sounded bitter and wrathful.
"He had laughed at Nick's pain. I can still hear his voice. We didn't know whether Nick was going to live through the ordeal. The doctors said that they could repair the vessels, but they didn't know how much blood Nick lost. He did lose a lot of blood from his head and they believed that his being hit on the head might have damaged Nick's brain. Worse, they didn't think Nick would make it. He had a 15% chance of surviving, but it looked like he was going to be brain dead.
And when Katie's father heard the doctor's testimony on Nick's condition, he laughed even more. And do you know what he said?" Kevin, Brian, AJ and Howie all shook their heads, not even wanting to hear what Katie's father had to say. But Jane continued.
"He said that Nick had whined and moaned like a girl who had just lost her virginity throughout their little 'session'." Jane clutched her chair until the blood drained from her hands.
"It didn't take the jury long to give him the guilty verdict. 10 years was what he got. Only 10 years! And the doctors were so sure that Nick was not going to make it. He still hadn't woken from his coma, when we were shocked with more news. After the trial was over, we received a call from the hospital. Nick had gotten a serious bacterial infection and he suffered from a septic shock. I didn't know what that meant, but the doctor had given up on him.
They told me that there were too many complications from the surgery, and that initially they thought that they would put him on a respirator to stabilize his condition. But his body suddenly gave in and became weak. I came to the hospital and they had tubes in almost every part of his body. I couldn't help it. I had a nervous breakdown right there, and rather than saving my energy to take care of him, I became ill myself.
It was at that time that Katie just disappeared. None of us knew what happened to her. We didn't notice that she was gone until Nick finally awoke from his coma months later. He did survive it after all. My boy was strong-willed. The doctors had tried to convince me to take him off the respirator because they had no more hope for him. But I disagreed. I fought for him. . . and he didn't let me down."
Jane smiled sadly when she remembered that part of the story.
"He lived! But he lost his memory. I didn't care. He was alive! I kissed the ground when I found out. It was as if I was reborn."
Jane became silent all of a sudden. The guys were speechless. AJ and Howie didn't know what to say. They didn't know if any words that would comfort a worried mother.
Kevin became restless and started pacing again. Everything that Jane said had only made him more guilt-ridden. He had probably made Nick suffer more than the little kid had to. Kevin felt like flinging himself into the waters or pounding his head against the wall. How could he have been so inconsiderate to Nick? Why did he lash out at Nick when he knew that Nick was going through hard times.
And what force of evil had urged him to say those horrible words to Nick. He closed his eyes at the memory. He had known before he said those words that they would hurt Nick deeply. Yet why did he say them when he really didn't mean it. And even if Nick did have something going on with Katie, he would still love the kid like a brother. He would be angry, but he would never stop loving Nick.
Kevin started crying. As much as the slap hurt Nick, it had torn Kevin's heart as well. Even after two days, he could still feel the heat on his hand from the impact with Nick's soft, ruddy cheek. He felt so low. If anything were to happen to Nick, he would never be the same man again.
Brian stared at his cousin, his own mind burning with guilt. Whenever Nick was scared or anything, he would always crawl into Brian's room, especially when they were on tour. He was so child-like and pure. Brian cursed himself for ever doubting Nick. Somehow, he had let love get in the way of their friendship. It was all wrong.
As much as he loved Katie, his history with her was not as long and as meaningful as with Nick. He and Nick had shared so many beautiful memories. How many times had they laughed with each other, worked together, and even fought? How many times did they go around playing pranks on all those around them, making other people laugh as well?
How could he have forgotten how Nick would do anything to emulate him. Nick had looked up to him all these years, and rather than being a good brother, he clogged his mind with dark thoughts of Nick. Brian's face had become all wet. The tears were falling freely now.
He now remembered his conversation with Nick a few days ago. Nick had confided to him about his amnesia and had told Brian about the disturbing images. It made sense now. Nick was starting to remember his past! And meeting Katie must have been a trigger for him! Poor Nick. Why hadn't he been more sensitive? Why did he let his jealousy surface? Why did he not trust Nick? He began to cry, longing for Nick's return.
.