Part 2
It had been seven years since she’d seen him. They’d exchanged phone numbers and at first, they’d called frequently…. two, three times a week and they’d written letters and exchanged emails…but as time passed, it all began to fade away and she was left with one beautiful reminder of their fleeting romance. She’d kept up with him through the teen magazines and TRL because his career had exploded. She’d even been happy for him when she’d read he’d married his long-time girlfriend but she had one regret…she’d never told him about their daughter. She often caught herself trying to imagine how things would have been if she had told him but then reality would come crashing down and she knew she’d made the right decision.
Now, as she stood in the bright Virginia sunshine, Chelsea Whitlock watched her daughter dancing around excited that she was getting to see her favorite group, the Backstreet Boys. The minute she’d heard they were coming, she’d begged Chelsea to go. Her favorite was AJ but Howie and Kevin ran a close second.
"Mama! How much longer?"
Chelsea looked at her watch and said, "I’m not sure, baby," but her words were drowned out by the shrill screams of the teenage girls around her. Looking up, she spotted the reason for the screams as two tour buses pulled in front of The NorVa.
Before Chelsea could react, Annie had disappeared into the throng of girls rushing to see The Backstreet Boys. Her heart stopped when she heard Annie’s cries as she realized that her little girl had been knocked down and she rushed to rescue her.
Scooping up the little girl, she checked her over quickly to make sure nothing was broken and then scolded, "Do NOT do that again, young lady!"
"But I wanna see AJ, Mama!" whined Annie.
"If you had just waited, I could have gotten you closer. Now we’ll have to stand at the back," announced Chelsea as she moved to the back of the crowd.
It took a little while before the boys began to exit the bus and the first one was Kevin but because of the crowd, Chelsea and Annie couldn’t see.
"Mama!! Do something!" whined the little girl. "I can’t see."
A gentleman standing behind the two heard Annie’s pleas to see and offered, "I can put her on my shoulders if you’d like."
"Oh, thank you," answered Chelsea gratefully as the man took Annie and placed her on his shoulders. "Is that better?"
"I missed Kevin!" pouted the little girl as Kevin made his way inside.
"Well, who’s next?"
