Chapter 1
Three months earlier...
Dear Jill,
Hi, I was surfing around the internet last night when I stumbled across you site. I have to say that I was very impressed with your writing talent and your stories are very lifelike. You write the Backstreet Boys the same way I imagine them to be in real life. Have you ever met them before? Just wondering. Anyway, the real reason I’m writing is because I’ve written a fan fic of sorts and was wondering if I could get your opinion on it. I don’t want you to host it or anything like that, just take a look at it and tell me what you think. It’s the first time I’ve ever written a story and I’m just curious what someone else thinks of it. If it’s okay to send it to you, write me back.
Sincerely,
Nick sat back and reread the letter. Chewing on his thumbnail, he tried to come up with a name to sign to the letter. Surely if the girl wanted to read his story, she’d want a name on it too. Glancing quickly around the room, his eyes fell on an old picture of he and Brian. Hmm, he thought as he scrawled out the name Jean Thomas. I wonder if she’ll get the joke? He clicked the send button before he could change his mind and quickly shut down his laptop. Continuing to chew his thumb, he wondered if he had made a huge mistake.
Some time ago, Nick had discovered fan fiction. A serious bout of insomnia had him in its grips and he spent countless nights just surfing all over the internet. Night after night, he continued to pass over site after site that boasted “the best stories on the net.” Finally curiosity got the better of him and he decided to read one. The first few that he read were absolutely ridiculous. Sure he knew they were fiction and that the people who wrote them had absolutely no clue, but anyone who really thought their tour buses looked like those in Spice World or that they comfortably accommodated ten people was really stretching it for him. By the second night of searching, he was slowly becoming adept to weeding out the stories that were terrible within a sentence or two. Over time, he found stories that he really enjoyed. There was one in which “Nick” tried to commit suicide and through the help of girl that was nearly a ghost, he regained his sense of self. There was one where “Nick” was a college student who fell in love with a girl from an abusive relationship and got stabbed. And then there was the one where “Nick” had been involved in a bus accident with the rest of the group and had to fight his way back because he was the worst hurt of all. That one was great right up until they sung with Nsync at the end.
But then there was his absolute favorite. It was written by a girl named Jill and involved “Nick” and his girlfriend, Karen. The reason Nick was so drawn was because “Karen” closely resembled his ex-girlfriend, Shanna and their “problems” very, very closely resembled the problems they had as a couple. As a matter of fact, they resembled the problems he was having currently with Alaina. Hence the reason he asked Jill if she’d ever met any of them. Wouldn’t he have to put his foot in his mouth if he really knew this girl? How would he explain himself?
The problems with Alaina were actually what spurned him to write the damn story in the first place. Well, actually, it had been AJ’s idea. One night after a fight, Nick had been whining and complaining about Alaina and all that was going on with them. One innocent comment from AJ set the ball rolling in Nick’s mind.
“Damn Nick, you bitch and moan more than a Danielle Steel novel! You could write this shit down and make a fortune selling it as made-for-tv movies.”
That night, when Nick sat in front of his computer, AJ’s words echoed. And suddenly it came to him. A real live fan fic. Who would know? And it was so sensational that people would never guess that it was all actually true. After all was said and done, he sat back and read what he’d wrote. It was pretty good in his own humble opinion. Of course, he could never ever show it to anyone he knew. They’d laugh in his face. That’s why he’d sought the advice of his favorite author. Just for shits and giggles, he wanted to know what someone else thought. He stared at the closed laptop for another minute before getting up and going out.
Chapter 2
