"I wish I could define
All the thoughts that cross my mind
They seem too big for me to choose
I don't know which ones to lose
When I've fallen down so far
I think I'll never see your light
About the love for me
Shining down here from your eyes"
“Well, Olivia, we are going to really miss you here; I’m really going to miss you.” George Carson stood up to shake her hand, but Olivia ignored it and hugged him instead. “I’ll miss you, too. You’ve been a wonderful boss to me. Thank you for everything.”
“You’re welcome. You’ve been a great employee.”
Olivia began to exit his office but then suddenly turned around. “And I'm sorry about the short notice--”
“Don’t worry about it. Lana will be back soon from maternity leave and we’ll manage. You go and enjoy LA and your new job and your new boyfriend.”
Which one? Olivia thought suddenly. Stop it! Kevin is my boyfriend, not Nick!
“Olivia! Oh my God, you’re back and so soon! What happened with you, girl, you’re glowing!” Stephanie, another legal secretary and friend approached her.
“Take a break and I’ll tell you about it.” Olivia said, suddenly wanting to unload of her feelings from the past few days. It had been an emotional train wreck.
Last night, as Olivia walked away from Nick at the airport, she brushed away her tears, determined to put Nick out of her mind for as long as she could. After obtaining her boarding pass, she sailed through security with no problems and headed for the magazine/newspaper stand. Her flight wasn’t leaving for another 45 minutes, and she wanted to read something, anything that would take her mind off of Nick. As she scanned the racks of magazines, she noticed some familiar faces. She picked up the magazine and opened it to the appropriate page. There glaring at her were the faces of her all-time favorite band, The Backstreet Boys. She looked at Howie, AJ and Brian and smiled when she saw Kevin, her sweetie, but as soon as her eyes focused on Nick, she slammed the magazine shut and shoved it back in its place. She needed a drink. There was a sports bar nearby and she entered it and ordered a drink. She decided wine wasn’t going to get her drunk enough, so she ordered a Long Island Iced Tea, which she knew was loaded with several different kinds of alcohol. Sitting at the bar, not caring who might be looking at her or not looking at her, she gulped it down within minutes. The bartender glanced over and seemed a little taken aback but didn’t say anything.
“One more, please,” Olivia said, throwing her money on the bar. The bartender complied, still wondering what this beautiful girl’s plight could be to make her order two strong drinks within minutes. A man sitting at the end of the bar dressed in a business suit, looking like a lawyer, eyed Olivia, and when it looked like he might approach her, she shook her head as if to say, ‘don’t even think about it’. Needless to say, he turned back to his drink in defeat.
A few minutes later that drink was gone, too and Olivia stood up to leave but the alcohol rushed to her head and she almost fell to the floor, but managed to grab onto the barstool for support. “Whoa!” She said and thought, ‘what an idiot!’
“Here, let me help you.” Mr. Lawyer was there in a flash to assist her. He helped her to stand up.
“Are you okay? Can you walk now?”
Olivia smiled at him. “Yeah, thank you.” She looked at his face and thought, ‘he has kind eyes’ and he was easy on the eyes, too.
“Do you mind me asking what made you down what looked like two very strong drinks in a matter of minutes?”
“Well, yeah, actually I do mind. I’ve just had a rough day, that’s all. I’ll be okay; thank you again.” And she left the bar and headed for her gate, leaving him in the lurch. She definitely did not need another man in her life…
Flight 204 to Portland took off on schedule and somehow a still drunk Olivia made it on the plane without a problem, but making it into her seat was another matter. Finding her row and seat number okay, she attempted to step over the woman sitting in the aisle seat to get to her window seat and lost her balance and fell backwards into the aisle smack on her butt.
“Ow!” Olivia exclaimed.
A gentleman sitting in the seat in front of her aisle looked to see what the commotion was about.
“Olivia?”
From her sitting position, Olivia looked up to see a tall dark-haired man standing over her.
“Jack?” her speech was slurred.
“Em hem.” A woman behind them indicated her desire to pass them to get to her seat.
“Here, let me help you up.” Jack took Olivia’s hand and pulled her up and held her back into his row so the woman could pass.
Even in Olivia’s altered state, she could discern that her ex-boyfriend was not only on the same plane as she was, but at this moment he was holding onto her. What the hell was going on?! She thought. How had her life become such a fucking soap opera?!
“Let go of me!” Olivia gasped and pulled away. She teetered into the aisle.
“Are you drunk?” Jack recognized the signs of her intoxication, having been with her for four years, plus the fact that it was obvious.
"No!" Olivia said surreptitiously and hiccupped. She clasped a hand to her mouth in horror and stared at him wide-eyed, knowing she was busted.
“It’s none of your business if I am or not!” Olivia said indignantly and took a giant step over the aisle-sitting woman and plopped into her seat. She looked over to see if the woman had witnessed anything and she was relieved to see she was wearing headphones and reading a magazine so it appeared that she had not.
“So, you’re just going to ignore me now?” Jack leaned against the front of his seat and confronted her.
“Yes, yes I am. Hey, aren’t you supposed to be on your honeymoon anyway?” Olivia said without looking at him.
“We are on our way back to Portland,” And just then a tall, lanky, attractive woman appeared next to him.
“Oh, hi, honey.” He said and smiled.
Olivia had no desire to be introduced to the new Mrs. Jack, so she grabbed her iPod out of her carry-on bag, clamped the headphones onto her head and turned it on, her eyes tightly closed to indicate to Jack the conversation was definitely over. The very first song to play was “Miss America” by none other than Nick Carter. “Take it off, take it off, let’s get it on, let’s get it on...” ‘I’m going to be sick’, Olivia thought and frantically grabbed the barf bag out of the front pocket of the seat in front of her just in time to vomit into it. She laughed hysterically afterwards which quickly turned to crying. The woman next to her stared at her in shock, as well as Jack and his wife and the next thing Olivia remembered was blacking out.
Kevin was missing Olivia already and he knew it would be a long week, but a busy one. They had a video shoot to do and rehearsal and meetings; it would be crazy. It was probably a good thing since it would be five long days until he saw her again.
On Wednesday, he had to meet the guys at the video shoot for their last single, “I Still”. This was one was being filmed in L.A., so he didn’t have to drive far.
“Hey, Bro, how’s it going?” AJ was the first to greet him. Everyone was there except for Nick who seemed to be the last to arrive a lot of the time. Kevin chatted with the director and got an idea of what was expected of him. The film crew and photographers were already there and most of the set was already set up.
Nick finally arrived in sunglasses, looking like he had had a rough night.
“How’s it going, Nick?” Kevin asked and Nick just nodded and went to get in make-up.
It was a long day, but the shoot went well, so they just had a few more hours the next day and they should be done.
As Kevin opened the door to his trailer to change, a familiar woman greeted him.
“Hi, Kev! Surprise!” It was Monica.
“Uh, wow, yeah, it is a surprise! What are you doing here, Monica?”
“Well, I was watching you guys filming. You all did a fantastic job! I loved it! I think the slow and fast action is going to be wonderful!” Her enthusiasm always was contagious.
Kevin laughed. “Yeah, I think so, too but I'm confused as to why you are here.”
“Oh, Nick didn’t tell you? I’m back in L.A. and back at Jive. So, I guess we will be seeing each other again.”
“Well, good for you, but why would I be happy to see you?”
“Oh, you’re not? I just thought… I just hoped that our bad break-up would be water under the bridge by now, but I guess I was wrong.”
“Monica, I don’t know what you expect from me. I mean, you were the one sleeping with different guys, including AJ the last few weeks of our relationship so I don’t know why you thought I'd be over it."
“Hey, Kevin, I admit I was wrong for cheating on you, but you have admit that we were having some problems.”
“The only problem I knew about was that I wanted to get married and you didn’t!” He spat at her.
“Kevin, I had told you from the beginning that I didn’t want to get married, you were the one who thought you could change my mind and you kept pushing me. So, I rebelled. I'm sorry."
“Oh, you poor thing, a man wanted to marry you, so it’s the end of the world! I’m sorry, Monica that I can’t muster up a lot of sympathy for you.”
“God, you’re so exasperating! You don’t understand how I am – you never really understood me, hence the affairs…” Monica threw herself onto a chair and Kevin just stood there with his head in his hands.
“So, what do we do?” Kevin looked over at her. “I mean, I guess we’re going to have to see each other now, so we should declare some kind of a truce.”
Monica stood up to face him. “I would like that. Look, I’m really sorry, Kevin. I guess I never said that to you and I should have. I know after you found about— everything, we fought and I took off to New York and we haven’t spoken since, but I should never have left things that way. I should have tried to explain to you why I did the things I did, but I was just so mad…" She sighed. "Anyway, not that it matters anymore, but for the record, I did really love you.”
Kevin looked at her, really touched. That’s all he had really wanted from her this past year was an explanation, an apology, an acknowledgement, something – some type of closure. Unable to get it, he had to struggle to move on and try to forget their past.
“Thank you, Monica. That means a lot.” They hugged as a sign they had moved on and both were relieved to put that bad chapter behind them.
