The first thing I remembered the next morning was the sunlight seeping through my eyelids waking me up. I sat up sleepily in bed and rubbed my eyes. I was still tired from my late night. Last night... oh no! The horrible memory came flooding back and my heart sank. It was a night I'd rather forget.

I looked at my watch wondering how late it was. I had a college class at ten and I'd forgotten to set my alarm clock that night. I was relieved to see it was only eight fifteen. I lay down again and shut my eyes. I was tired...

Still with my eyes shut I reached over to my stereo system next to my bed and switched it on. I had the cassette version of Millennium in there so I pressed play.

"I promise you I will be true yeah, it's only you!".

The end of It's Gotta Be You. Good, I Need You Tonight, my favourite track, was next up. I couldn't live without Nick's beautiful voice.

"Don't don't want you back!".

Huh? What? Where was track five? I sat up and opened my eyes. This was weird! Maybe I'd slept through it and I'd woke up on the song after... I looked up at my bedroom walls. It gave me a huge fright. My blood ran cold and a horrible taste came to my mouth. I shivered as if the room was cold, even though it was a beautiful Florida summer morning. I was dreaming... right? This wasn't true. It couldn't be.

Nick had disappeared.

From every poster on my walls. I couldn't see one picture of him up. Sure, the other four guys were there, but every picture was just the four of them.

Freaking out, I jumped up and ran over to my CD collection. Like the posters, every BSB CD case had just the other four guys on the front. I flicked through the CD booklet to the thankyou's and again, no Nick thankyou's. He was nowhere. Not one mention of his name or picture.

"I wished FOR Nick, not for him to disappear!" I cried, feeling weird emotions like a mixture of confusion, wonder and sadness.

I heard footsteps outside my room. I opened the door and saw my brother.

"Nick's gone!" I said to him, my hand flying to my mouth.

My brother looked confused. "Who's Nick? I don't know any Nicks,".

My heart beat even faster. "You know! The member of the Backstreet Boys! The cute blond one!".

My brother laughed. "Oh you mean Brian! Why did you say Nick? And how did he 'go'?".

My eyes widened. "No, I meant Nick! You know, the youngest member...".

My brother looked oddly at me. "I though AJ was the youngest of the four,".

My mouth dropped open. "Four?! But the whole world know's there's five members!".

My brother laughed. "Luce, what are you on?! You are sooo weird this morning! Go back to bed. Maybe when you wake up you'll realize that there are only four members of the Backstreet Boys and they have no member called Nick!". He turned and went into his room.

Maybe he was right and I should go back to bed. I hoped this was all a bad dream. Nightmare. I thought the moonlit beach disaster the night before was bad enough. But this...

I crawled back under the covers and tried to get some sleep. I didn't care if I would wake up late for college. I just wanted to get out of the nightmare.

The next thing I remembered was hearing my mother's voice outside my room.

"OK, OK! I'm getting up!" I yelled back, noticing it was already half past nine. My heart sank when I looked at the walls and saw no Nick again. I didn't understand it...

"Where's my Dolphin's shirt?" I called to my mother while rummaging around in my wardrobe for my favourite piece of clothing. I had got it mainly because Nick had one the same.

"Luce, you don't have a Dolphin's shirt! What made you think you did?!".

Things were getting even weirder. "Um, what's this?" I said pulling out a shirt I didn't know I owned.

My mother appeared at my doorway and laughed. "Ha ha! What do you mean, 'what's this'?! You can't stop wearing that Kentucky Wildcats shirt, I thought today you'd wear something different for a change! It's not like you're going to run into Brian or something like you always say!".

Now things were very crazy. I couldn't get my head around it. Sure, I've always liked Brian, the other guys too, but nowhere near as much as Nick. Why did my mother think I was crazy for Brian?!

Too freaked out to think straight, I threw on a green Nike shirt and some dark blue jeans and packed my bag ready for college. I got another shock when I saw my file which I had drawn little sketches of Nick all over had my sketches of... Brian... instead.

Rushing out of the house to college I put my hands in the pockets of my jeans and pulled out my purse. I got yet another shock when I saw it was blue, not green like it should have been. Brian's favorite color, instead of Nicks... too weird. It was too much to take in.

"Luce! Hey girl wait up!".

I turned around and saw my best and only friend Roz running along the street to meet me. Hmmm, maybe I should ask her if she'd heard of Nick. I would drive her crazy talking about him so if she didn't recognise his name then I knew something very horrible was wrong...

"Roz..." I said as we walked along in the direction of college. "Do you know of any guys by the name of Nick?".

She shook her head. "Only my little cousin. Why?".

"Oh just wondering if you knew of a guy by the name of Nick Carter?".

A blank look came over her face. "Never heard of him,".

"Nick, wake up honey!".

I refused to open my eyes, I was tired. "MmmmHmmm," I mumbled sleepily. But I was confused. I was sure that voice was my mother but she wasn't on tour with us...

"Come on Nick or you'll be late!".

I opened my eyes quickly and sat up in bed. I saw my mother at the doorway smiling at me. But the room I was in was strange. I'm sure I didn't go to sleep there the last night...

"Where are the guys?" I said sleepily as I looked around the unfamiliar room. I was used to not remembering where I was when I woke up, travelling the world all the time but this was not a hotel room. It was like a normal bedroom.

"What guys?" my mother replied, looking confused. She stepped inside and pulled the curtains open for me, hurting my eyes with the sunlight.

I took another look around the room and blinked in confusion. I had no idea where I was! "Mom, where am I? This isn't the hotel I went to sleep in last night. And what are you doing here?". This was totally weird. Maybe I had gotten ill the night before and I'd been taken somewhere else...

"Hotel? We haven't been to a hotel in a long time, since vacation back in May. And of course I'm here, I'm your mother and this is our house!". She laughed to herself. "Honey, you seemed to have taken badly to that knock on the head last week! Coming out with that nonsense!".

This was our house?! But my family lived in a big house in LA and I had my own place in Tampa! This was not our house! "Mom, why aren't I with the band? What happened?". This was creepy.

"Band? What band?" she looked worried. "Maybe that knock on the head last week affected you more badly than we thought,". She put her hand on my head and nodded. "It's still there,".

Knock on the head? When had I done that? And why did she look so blankly when I said the band? I put my hand to my head and felt a pretty large bump. How did it get there?!

"I'll bring you up a nice coffee, darling. Then we'll decide if you're well enough for college today. Too bad you've already missed the first week but I'm sure you'll catch up,". She went out of the room and shut the door behind her.

College? Something was sooooo creepily wrong. Totally freaky. I must have been dreaming...

I got out of bed and walked around the room. It was decorated nicely, with posters of the ocean up and a Playstation on the table. I felt at home in there... but I had no idea where I was... how could I find out???

I put my hand to my head again and felt the bump. My mother had said I'd had a knock on the head. I didn't remember that... hey what was up with my hair? I ran my fingers through it. It felt totally different... I ran to a mirror and looked at my reflection in astonishment. It was brown, my natural color! And nowhere near as long as it should have been, it went just above my ears. What?! Apart from that, I looked pretty much like me, only I saw I was wearing a long white T shirt with a shark on which I didn't know I had... oh my tattoo! I quickly rolled the sleeve of my shirt up and looked. It was still there, only it looked a little different. but it was still a shark. I turned around to the mirror and pulled the neckline of my shirt down to see if my music note tattoo was still there. It was not!

By now I was panicking. This was totally weird! I didn't know what was going on! Where were the guys???

I pulled on some trousers that were lying on the floor and went outside the room. I passed some other rooms so I looked inside. The first one seemed to be a girl's room, I saw a sign hanging up saying "Leslie's room' so I knew it was my sister who slept there, though she was not in there at the time. The room opposite was pretty small and all blue. I put my head around the door and saw Aaron still sleeping. Hmmm, so I still had my family the same...

The next room had a two beds and looked like a girl's room. It was empty so I stepped inside. I stared in amazement when I saw a magazine on the floor. I picked it up and looked at it again. No, it couldn't be...

It was us, the BSB. But no me. Just the other four guys. I flicked through but every picture was just of the other guys. I couldn't see my name anywhere.

I left the room and went downstairs, totally mindblown.

"Nick! Your coffee's ready! Do you feel any better today?". My mother was holding a cup of coffee and looking at me concerned.

I took the coffee from her and sniffed it, the delicious smell warming up my nose. "Um, yeah, I feel better, I guess," I replied, looking around the kitchen. It was pretty normal sized, nowhere near as big as the one in our LA house.

"Good, well I hope you've got everything ready for your first day at college! I'll drive you there in half an hour,".

College? Since when did I go to college?! Considering how sad and depressed I was the previous day, college sounded appealing to me. If this was a dream, I'd better make the most of being a normal guy!

Normal guy. That sounded familiar. Hey, that was what I'd wished for the day before at that cafe! A chill ran through my body as I realized what had happened. I had gotten my wish!

I smiled sweetly at my mother. "Yup, I'll be ready for college soon, thanks for driving me there!". I bounced back up the stairs to my wardrobe to pick out something to wear. Wow, I was a normal guy! I couldn't believe it! I had wished for it the day before and now it had come true, I had no idea how! I was just so pleased! It was freaky and scary but I had my wish! No more constant touring, no screaming fans, no girls only wanting me for my fame and money... I only hoped it was not a dream!

I picked out a Tampa Bay Bucanneers shirt and some dark blue Guess jeans and took them into the bathroom. I had a shower then put them on. Hmmm, I'd have to go buy more clothes, I didn't have much... I combed my hair through and parted it down the middle putting some gel in, leaving a few bangs hanging above my eyes. Maybe I should dye it blond, it was weird seeing myself with brown hair... or maybe I would just leave it natural. I brushed my teeth then went back to my bedroom.

I saw a bag on the floor and in it was books and a pencil case. That must have been my college stuff. I didn't even know which college I was going to yet! I didn't even know where I lived!

I took the bag downstairs and sat down in the living room. The TV was on and it was showing the breakfast news. My mother came in and handed me a plate of cookies and my warmed-up coffee I'd forgotten about. "Thanks mom!" I said with a smile. I saw on the TV screen something about a new attraction at Busch Gardens. Hey, it was the Tampa Bay district news, I was still in Florida!

Ten minutes late I was in my mom's car driving to college. I total could not believe it. I was a normal guy.

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