The four of the guys fly back to Orlando, but instead of going straight to Kevin’s they head to Nick’s old house. No one had wanted to sell it because they were hoping one day he would come back and if he did he would want his old house back. All the furniture was in the spots he had put them in the only difference is the house was now filled with dust. No one ever came by clean it because none of them wanted to do it and they didn’t trust just any one to touch Nick’s things.
Brian had a key to the house still on his key chain, so he opened the door and they all walked in one behind the other.
“God, it still looks exactly the same,” Kevin says looking around the house.
“It even feel the same,” AJ says, “You know what I’m talking about?”
“Yeah,” Brian says.
“Where do you think this trunk would be?” Kevin asks.
“Probably his room,” Howie says.
“Yeah, Nick lived in his room,” AJ says heading toward the stairs and running up them two at a time as the others follow.
You now that scene in Titanic where Rose is going back to the Titanic and they show her all the wreckage, but all she sees is the sparkling of the ship’s new wood and how the ship once was? Well that was how AJ was seeing everything. There seemed to be a layer of dust on everything, but all he saw was the house Nick had bought and was so proud of when he did. He ran through the whole house daring the others to keep up with him showing them every little detail. As AJ runs into Nick’s room he stops and looks around in a full circle. He felt like crying.
Brian runs in behind him and Kevin and Howie follow close behind. Everything was exactly the same. The sheets and pillows showed the signs of not being touched in days. The TV was sitting there unused while all the game systems were still plugged into it.
“We gotta start looking,” Kevin says breaking the eerie silence and walking over to the dresser.
"Yeah,” AJ says walking over to the closet and starts looking through it.
Howie sighs and walks into the adjoining bathroom and begins looking around.
Brian walks over to the nightstand and blows the dust off of the top sneezing a few times with three God bless yous in reply. He opens the first drawer and finds a leather bound Bible that he had given Nick one year. He picks it up and throws it onto the bed. He was going to take that home with him.
Kevin starts digging into the dresser drawers and pulls out a small black book and opens it. It was a photo album with pictures from when the group started out. He flips through the pages and sighs as he feels the familiar sting of tears behind his eyes. He wasn’t going to cry, not now. Nick was so happy back then it amazed him to realize how much he had changed as the years passed. He would complain of being homesick in the beginning and towards the end he would complain about not wanting to go home. Nick didn’t have a home to go back to in the end. He puts the small album on top of the dresser and continues his search. He digs through Nick’s shirts and things with one hand pulling out some pieces of jewelry Nick had thought he had lost a year before he disappeared. Nick was never organized. He pulls out a box of unused condoms and smirks. At least he didn’t have any children running around out like there like Joey Fatone. He digs into the bottom drawer and pulls out an enveloped that was sealed shut and stares at it. He rips it open and pulls out four photographs that were inside. Two were of a beach that Kevin didn’t recognize, one was of a house that looked like the type you would find in England somewhere and the fourth was of a picture of the guys. It was from the Millennium tour and Kevin was laughing not looking at the camera, but looking over at Brian who was climbing on top of Nick. AJ was trying to pull Brian off by pulling on his legs and Howie was next to Kevin laughing. Those were the good times.
AJ scans Nick closet and sighs. The man had too many t-shirts with Journey on them. It made him smile though to think of Nick’s love for music. Yes, he was into all the eighties music more then the nineties music, but that was Nick. He sighs as he sits down at the back of the closet and leans against the wall. He was not going to cry. He was not going to cry. He smiles as he remembers how Nick had spent a good hour jumping around telling them all about how The Foo Fighters would sing “I Want It That Way” all the time and how they would play “Larger Then Life” at their concert. Nick loved Nirvana, so he loved the Foo Fighters too since they had Dave Grohl in the band. AJ presses his hands to his eyes and tries to stop the tears as he hears a small creak and he goes flying backwards as the wall gives out behind him. He tumbles back into a small room that is covered in spider webs and dust flies in the air as AJ hits the ground.
“What happened?” he could hear Kevin say as he walks into the closet and through the small opening AJ had created.
AJ didn’t respond though he just lies on his back and stared at the corner of the room and points to blue trunk that is sitting there. Kevin looks up and sees the trunk. He walks over and begins pulling the trunk from its spot and over to the opening. AJ finally gets up and crawls back out of the opening. As soon as he stands up Brian begins hitting him on the back with a book he has in his hands.
“What are you doing?” AJ asks covering his head.
“You had a huge spider on you,” Brian says.
“Ah get it off,” AJ says pulling off his button down shirt he had on and stepping on it.
“I think it’s dead, AJ” Howie says staring at him.
“Just making sure.”
“Guys,” Kevin says walking into the bedroom pulling the trunk behind him and stopping in front of all of them with it.
It was a blue trunk just like Justin had told them it would he and it had a faded piece of paper attached to it with all their names written on it. Well all their names, but Nick’s. Kevin blows on the trunk as the dust flies off and begins to wipe the dust off with his hand. After he gets some of the dust off he opens the trunk and the four of them gather around the trunk staring inside. Brian reaches inside first pulling out three books.
“Photo albums,” he smiles opening the first book.
Kevin reaches inside pulling out a few CD’s. Nick’s rock CDs. Most of them where Nirvana albums, the Sex Pistols album, the Clash’s album, some Guns and Roses, and some other ones they didn’t recognize. There were DVDs in the trunk such as American History X, Fight Club, Full Metal Jacket, the Virgin Suicides and some they didn’t even know Nick had, but they knew were violent ones. Brian was sitting on the floor flipping through the photo albums while the other three look through the trunk. There were some magazines in the trunk that were travel magazines. Some pages in them where marked and Kevin sits on the floor beginning to slip through them. Howie pulls out five Rolling Stones and smiles as he notices they all have them on the cover. AJ pulls out a picture that is in a metal frame and frowns, it was of Nick’s family.
“Oh my God,” AJ mutters as he digs into the trunk.
AJ begins tossing out the CDs and DVDs digging to the bottom of the box. He finds an old baggie with marijuana in it and tosses it aside. He pulls out a leather bound book and tosses it aside hitting Kevin in the head.
“What the hell are you doing?” Kevin asks looking at AJ and Brian looks up too.
“Don’t ever say I didn’t leave you any clues,” AJ says.
“What?” Brian asks.
“Don’t ever say I didn’t leave you any clues,” AJ says standing up and looking down into the trunk.
“Huh,” Brian asks getting up and walking over.
He looks down into the trunk and his mouth drops open. There on the bottom of the trunk scribbled in red marker were the words; don’t say I never left you any clues. Kevin stands up and walks over looking down as Howie does the same.
“That crazy son of a bitch,” AJ mutters, “He knew we were going to find this.”
“He wants us to figure this out,” Brian says.
“No he doesn’t,” Howie says, “He only wants us to know that he is safe or in a certain place.”
“He wants us to feel better,” Kevin says picking up the brown leather bound book AJ hit him in the head with, “Letters.”
“What?” Brian.
“This book is filled with letters addressed to people.”
“He wrote letters,” AJ asks.
“They’re nick’s letters. He wrote them to all terse different people. Look here’s one to Justin Timberlake.”
Justin,
Don’t blame yourself when you finally here I disappeared. I know when you sober up that is what you’re going to think, but don’t. You just gave me an idea and it was better then the way I saw to getting out. At least with your way I can still be alive. Make sure you get out of the business. You’re losing it faster then I was at your age. You need to get out and fast. Take Ness with you she has a good head on her shoulders and loves you more then anyone will ever love me. I know you’ll forget to tell the guys about this trunk, but fuck that it’s ok I know they’ll get it in good time. I did what I wanted to and just make sure you do what you want to do. Lose the coke too. It isn’t doing you any good and you’ll only end up killing yourself then what will Ness do. I just wanted to make sure you know I didn’t do this because of you. I did it because of me.
“He wrote these to everyone,” Kevin says flipping through the pages and stopping on his name.
Kevin,
I know we didn’t get a long all the time, but I love you man. Please don’t blame yourself for this because I know you will. You’re the rock man. You’re the rock of our little group. Make sure to keep an eye on Brian I’m afraid he’s going to destroy himself over this. Watch for AJ too I don’t want him to relapse that scarred the shit out of me when he went to rehab. I think Howie is the sanest out of all of us how sad is that. I think he’ll be ok. Just watch out for yourself and keep your little girl safe. Just pleaseeeee don’t blame yourself for this. When you read my journal, because I know Brian will dig his big nose into it at some point, just make sure you know I don’t hate you I never did. I just felt it was easier to be mad at you then anyone else and I took all my frustration out on you. I’m sorry I did this to you.
I’ll always be,
Your little Nicky
P.S Just remember me way I hope you will.
Kevin sighs as he feels the stinging in his eyes again and wipes his eyes as a few tears slide out.
“You guys need to read yours,” he says handing the book to AJ and walking out of the room.
AJ stares at Kevin as he leaves the room then flips through the pages quickly looking for his.
AJ,
I know you are going to take this harder then you would like everyone to know. Just please promise me that you won’t turn to liquor. I cried all day when you went to rehab and I NEVER cry and you know that. It killed me to see that you were falling apart too. It was just supposed to be me with the problems and then you started. I didn’t know what to do then I could always depend on you to treat me like nothing was wrong and just see me as a normal person no matter how bad things got. You cheered me up a lot of times that you will never know about even if it meant me shoving you through Kevin’s bathroom window so we could find out what those noises were and then you broke the window, so we ran for our lives. Remember that? That was great I still think about that and smile. You’re a great guy AJ, you’re my brother, and please don’t hurt yourself because of this. Just please stay away form the liquor.
Always your little brother,
Nick
AJ didn’t know what to say. He could feel his hands starting to shake, so he passed the book to Howie and walks out of the room quietly into the bathroom locking the door behind him then he did the only thing he could do. He sat on the floor and cried.
Howie (Howard),
I am going to say the same thing I said to the other guys. Don’t blame yourself. This is my decision. There is nothing you could have done to help me. You might not know it, but you will now and that you are the sanest out of all of us. You always knew what you were doing in the business and who to hang around with to get your “connections”. I think you know everyone in the business now. Stop hanging around with the midget in NSYNC though he’s a bad influence, haha. Make sure you stay sane though and keep up the good work with your business I know you are going to be a billionaire some day. I’ll be living in one of your condos one day I bet ya. Just watch over everyone for me. I told Kev to do the same, but you need to watch over him because I know he will blame himself because of all our fights. Oh yeah Howie one thing. Women are not like exotic birds, even though it makes me laugh still to think of it.
Of course I’ll always be,
Nicky
P.S Stop calling me that in public.
Howie smiles slightly and hands the book to Brian before he walks out of the room.
Frick,
What can I say? I know this is going to be the hardest on you. You are and always will be my best friends. I want you to know above everything else that I would have told you everything if I felt like I could. I know it kills you to know that you weren’t informed about all my pain, but it felt better to keep it all to myself. When you weren’t probing my mind for answers and we could just hang out in parks and play ball are some of my best memories ever even though I was always the worst one out there. Remember shhhhh down play how good I am, haha. I just need to get out, Frick, it is killing me inside. There are two ways to kill a person a fast way and a slow way. I was dying the slow way. Everyday a part of me was dying, Frick. I hope your baby is beautiful and healthy because I know she will be in the end. I know I sound happy here, but that’s only because I am writing these before I leave that’s why I’m happy. I’m going to be free soon. Don’t worry about me I’ll be fine. I could write to you about this for pages and pages, but I can’t I have to write to other people. I know you’ll get this and probably curse me for taking the easy way out, but there was a worse way I could take. Just be happy I didn’t take that road. I am telling you and only you flat out. I am not going to die. I do not want to die. I just want to be free.
As always yours truly,
Frack
Brian closed the book and sat down on Nick’s bed staring out the window letting out a loud sigh into the empty room. He lets the tears slid and doesn’t even try to stop them for once. He had never felt more alone in his life.
