"It's hard for me to get a grip on reality.
When I'm in my room, it's like you almost feel like a king.
But I can't go outside and do anything, you know? I tried the other day.
It's not that things happen. It's just that in the back of your mind,
you know
that there's always somebody watching you."
- Nick Carter, Rolling Stone, December 14, 2000
Ultimately, Nick had returned to Boston as much for the escape from his life as it was for the medical expertise available to work on his hand. The doctor had replaced the cumbersome white cast with a smaller black one that reminded Nick of a fingerless glove. He had also begun his physical therapy for the injury and the doctor was excited about his progress. In fact, he had told Nick that as long as he kept up with it, there was no reason for the young man to stay in Boston.Tonight, Nick Carter wanted to forget that he no longer had a purpose and that he was forced to find a new place to belong. Maybe there was some irony that he had chosen a place called Avalon. For now this was his paradise.
The amount of alcohol he had consumed exaggerated every one of his five senses. The bass thundered in his head. He threw back another shot of Goldschlager and chased it with a gulp of beer as he headed onto the dance floor.
His body was sandwiched between a buxom brunette woman and her equally endowed strawberry blonde friend. He pulled the brunette closer to him grinding his hips to hers while the redhead moved against his butt. Nick lowered his head to kiss the beauty in front of him and equal opportunity dictated he bless the other woman as well. Both tasted slightly of cigarettes and rum, a tantalizing mix. He closed his eyes savoring the warmth and smell of the two women as he fell prey to the beat of the music.
Suddenly, the vision in his mind changed into something that resembled an out-of-body experience. Nick saw A.J. dancing with the same two girls, downing several shots of Goldschlager and chasing them with beer. He also saw him pass out cold on the floor then carried away on a stretcher.
Nick's blue eyes jumped open and sobriety grabbed ahold of him. "Excuse me, ladies," he choked. He barely heard their whiny objections as he ran back to the perceived safety of the VIP section. His heart thundered in his chest and he felt as though he was hyperventilating.
What the hell just happened? He called over his bodyguard, Billy, and asked him to flag down a taxi because he was ready to leave. The older man gave his charge a questioning look before obeying the order.
By the time, the duo was in the cab bound for the hotel, Nick had calmed visibly. "You okay, Nick?" Billy asked.
"Sure, uh, those girls...they were, uh, weirding me out." The blonde turned back to the windown and watched the businesses pass by as the car continued down Commonwealth Avenue. "You know, I might head back to Tampa in a day or so? The doc gave me the okay."
"Yeah?"
"It's time I visited some of the old crowd."
Nick truly missed his friends back in Florida. There were a select few that had known him before Backstreet began but many of them found his friendship after the group's popularity started to rise. Part of him was suspicious of those friends, but the lonely child, who had grown up as a social misfit in elementary school, thought that the more friends he had the better off he was. So he ignored the fact that they used him.
His closest friend was Brent, or B.P. as he was known to fans of the alternative band Born into Kaos. They had been friends before Backstreet so Nick gladly helped him and BiK by becoming the group's part-time manager. The music was as far removed from BSB as possible - hard, grinding rock in the style of Limp Bizkit or Linkin Park. Now, he wasn't so certain about his side project. It wasn't like he had that much input thanks to the schedule he carried as part of his primary job. If he cared to examine the situation, Nick would have realized that he was being used for his business contacts and the notoriety of his name.
Nick hadn't been blessed with luck with romantic relationships as of late either. His latest girlfriend, who had taken a leave of absence to travel the Americas with him on the first leg of the tour, had called not long before the second leg to say that she couldn't put up with his shit anymore - whatever the hell that meant. She had been a great companion, but he was positive he didn't love her.
He wasn't sure if he had ever been in love. Nick counted only one other "girlfriend" in his 21 years. Amanda Williford. Most of the world knew how that turned out, but none knew the pain he endured after the relalationship was finally ended for the last time. Of course, now he felt like crawling back to her.
No nothing good would ever come from that. She was a user too. Willa Ford - as she called herself professionally - had become a star on MTV despite all the hate she garnered from his fans. Atlantic Records would release her debut album next week. He, along with those fans that hated her, was responsible for making her a household name. It was like that old saying: "There is no such thing as bad publicity." Even now, reporters couldn't mention her with mentioning him in the same sentence. When MTV had interviewed the Backstreet Boys two days prior to the postponement of their tour, Nick had to answer a question about her kidnapping his dogs. It seemed as though their lives were permanently linked.
Their relationship had been difficult. He swore that he loved her or at least he had thought what they had was love. There were fan allegations of Mandy physically abusing him. Yes, the couple had a fair share of fights and some of them were physical. What left the lasting impression on Nick was the emotional and mental pain. She had injured him more with her hateful words than with her fists.
Nick said goodnight to Billy at the bar knowing that the older man might want to linger there since it was still early. There were no fans around since most assumed that the Backstreet Boys had returned to their homes for the break. Riding the elevator up to his room, Nick considered that idea once more but then pushed it aside again. He would probably go certifiably crazy if he had to spend more than a few days in the Florida Keys by himself. Not to mention, MTV had taken up residence there all summer. No, he would sleep on it, decide where to go in the morning.
Once he left himself in his suite, Nick felt as though he could relax. He chose to ignore the red light blinking on the phone by his bed. He stripped and wandered into the bathroom to shower off the stale odors of the club.
He could go to the Keys. The Carter compound was safe, but damn if it wasn't his luck that he would run aground in his boat again or something equally stupid.
He could go to Tampa and lose himself in his old crowd. The BiK guys were on the road with the Glam Rock tour this summer, but even without them, there would be a lot of partying. What better way to forget everything than to sink into the depths a drunken stupor mixed with a little marajuana or cocaine? There was no such thing as reality there.
He could join Aaron and Leslie on tour. The whole thing had been turned into a cross-country Carter summer vacation anyway. Of course, that would mean dealing with his parents - most notably his mother, who made Mandy's comments about his intelligence and his physical appearance seem tame in comparison. "Fat", "stupid" and "ungrateful" still echoed in his mind after all the times Jane Carter had directed those words to him.
He could go to Atlanta, but he and Brian weren't as close as they used to be.
As his mind scrambled to make sense of his life, Nick surrendered to his emotions. The hot tears running down his cheeks became a stark contrast to the water cooling around him.
