~ Chapter 14 ~
Shae held him in her arms for a few minutes, letting him cry. They didn't talk. She took Nick's hand and led him inside the hotel and up to her room. Nick followed her, sniffling, his head bent low.
Once they were inside, she sat him down on the bed and sat down facing him. Nick stared down at his hands, his lower lip trembling. "Talk to me, Nick. I'm a good listener. Why are you so upset?"
"It's just....God, everything! Everything is going wrong." His tears started coming again.
Shae wanted to take him into her arms and make it all go away. But she didn't want to scare him. "What's going wrong? Start at the beginning."
Nick looked at his watch. "I have to be at soundcheck in two hours. I don't even want to perform tonight."
"That doesn't sound like you. Tell me what has upset you today. You seemed fine when I saw you on the boardwalk earlier."
Nick felt a pang of guilt. "After I came back here, I went to Kevin's room. We got into an arguement."
"About what?"
"The way he's been acting lately. The way he's been treating me."
"Which is how?"
"Like I'm a piece of dirt under his shoe. Shae, Kevin hasn't been the same since I...you know about my accident, right?" She nodded. "When I came came home from the hospital, I noticed some subtle changes in him. Then they grew to be more noticeable."
"What kind of changes?"
"His was distant, silent. Every time I spoke to him, he would get this weird look in his eyes. Almost like it hurt him to look at me. Then things seemed to get better. His moods seemed to improve and he was quite upbeat. Now I know why."
"Why?" she asked softly.
"He was drinking." Shae's eyes widened. Nick saw the look. "Yea. Are you shocked? I'm surprised no one found out and posted it all over the Web. He came clean with us last week. He told us he had been drinking because of all the stress he'd been under last year. Management issues and some other problems we had."
"It must have been difficult for all of you," Shae sympathized.
"It was! Both B and I were in the hospital. But we didn't start drinking. Neither did Howie or AJ."
"Everyone has their own way of dealing with stress," Shae said.
Nick sighed. "I know that you're right. When I went to see him earlier, he looked like shit. I know he's going through withdrawal, but I think it's more than that. He was so mean to me, Shae. I've asked him over and over what I've done and he keeps telling me nothing. But I know it has to do with me."
"Maybe it doesn't. Maybe he's being honest with you. Have you done anything to make you think he's mad at you?"
Nick shook his head. "No. I've lain awake night after night going through everything that has happened since I got out of the hospital. There's nothing that I've done that could cause Kev to treat me the way he has."
"What did he tell you tonight?"
"Just that I annoy him. To leave him alone and maybe things will go back to the way they were. But I know he's lying. He's keeping something from me."
"Nick, you keep saying how things changed after you got out of the hospital. What about before? Before your accident. How were things then?"
Nick's eyes clouded over and his expression grew sorrowful. "I guess they were ok. I wasn't concentrating on Kevin back then. I had my own problems." He wondered how much he should tell her. He knew he could trust her. Something told him that she would do anything for him.
"Nick?"
Her voice interrrupted his thoughts. "Sorry. I was just thinking about my ex-girlfriend."
"Do you want to talk about her?"
"I was with her for two years. About six weeks before my accident she left me for someone else."
"I'm sorry!"
"It was very hard for me to take. She said she met someone else and had been seeing him behind my back for about four months. She was very cruel with her words. She said he was more of a man than I would ever be, he treated her like a queen, he was better in bed. She really poured the salt in."
"What a bitch!" Shae blurted out, then put her hand over her mouth. "Oh God. I'm sorry. That just came out."
"You're right though. That's what she is. But I couldn't see it then. I was willing to overlook her unfaithfulness and give her a second chance. But she didn't want one. She laughed at me and told me I was a little boy trying to play a game only men can play. Up until the day of the accident, I kept trying to win her back. I know she did me wrong, but I loved her. She was part of my life for so long. Since I was 15 years old. She was the first girl I ever gave my heart to. I lost my virginity to her on my 16th birthday. Have you ever loved someone so much that you were willing to overlook their mistakes just to be with them?"
Shae nodded. "Yea, I have. Once."
Nick looked at her with interest. "Tell me about him."
"Oh, you don't need to know about my boring life. I'm here to help you, remember?"
Nick took one of her hands, rubbing her index finger with his thumb. "Please. I want to hear about it."
Shae's heart spun out of control at Nick's slight carress. "He was a guy I met when I was 14. We were penpals if you can believe that. We connected instantly. I guess I developped a kind of penpal crush on him. We met that Summer, but we were too young to do anything about our feelings. A few years later we hooked up again. This time we let out our feelings for each other. We slept together. He was my first and I was in love. Little did I know that he was using me to sort out his own feelings. He doesn't think that he used me. Maybe he didn't, but that's what it felt like to me."
"What went wrong?" Nick asked.
"I went to visit him about six months later. He lives in the States, by the way. He decided to tell me something that he had been keeping from me until then."
"What?"
"He had feelings for men."
Nick gasped. "Oh shit!"
"Tell me about it. Funny thing is, I didn't know what he was trying to tell me. I thought he meant that he had experimented a couple of times. I hear teenage guys sometimes do that. But then he elaborated about all the guys he'd been with. I thought I was going to be sick. I asked him why he was with me then. He said that if he could hold on to me, his feelings for men would go away. He said that I was his light at the end of the tunnel. He was bi-sexual, but he didn't now which way he wanted to go. I told him that I would give him time. And I did. But during this time, he still slept with men. I'm the only woman he's ever been with."
"I'm sorry," Nick said. "That sucks. It's not like you can compete with a man."
"I didn't see him until the year after and then all we did was fight and argue. He told me that I was trying to change him and it wouldn't work. By then he wanted to be gay and had started openly dating men. This is where my understanding of your relationship with your ex comes in. I know what it's like to love someone so much that you'd do anything to have them back. Even overlook their mistakes. I was willing to take him back knowing he'd been with men, even during our relationship. It took me about two years to forget about him and move on."
"It's been a year and a half for me and I still think about her. What it was like to hold her at night. What she looked like after we made love. How she giggled. How soft her hair was."
Shae-Lyn felt so jealous. "Lucky girl," she commented, not realizing she had said it outloud until Nick shot her a look. She blushed and looked away from his blue eyes.
"I was the lucky one," he said.
"Nick, what she did to you was wrong. Just like what my ex did to me was wrong. Now that I look back, I'm glad that he didn't come back to me. He'd been sleeping with men. Who knows what he could have caught. I guess life is one big education with little lessons along the way."
"That it is," Nick said solemnly. "I guess we both got our hearts broken. So that's what was going on before my accident."
"What about the day of the accident?" she asked.
Nick jumped up. "Shit! I gotta go change. It's almost time to leave for the venue."
Shae ran to the door. "Wait..."
Nick gave her a quick peck on the cheek. "Thanks for the talk and thanks for listening. You're an angel." He sucked in his breath as he realized what he said.
"What?" she asked, confused.
"N...nothing. There's nothing left to talk about. I'll see you later."
Shae sighed. "Ok. See you at the venue."
Nick turned back to her for an instant and searched her eyes. Then he was gone.
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