Chapter 2

“There have been times when I’ve been scared out of my mind.

This was one of them.

I’ve already suffered enough. I lost my dad and my grandmother. Now He’s taking my best friend.

I know I should trust Him, but seriously, I don’t see why. Why should I trust someone who shows hardly any remorse to me at all? He takes three of the most important people in my life and expects me to be loyal? No. I nearly gave up when my grandmother died… Now Howie…”

~From the journal of A.J. McLean

Seconds passed. After time they blurred into minutes. Before anyone could realize the comparison between second and minute, they had warped into hours. No one remembered who made the call to Howie’s family. They only knew the next flight out of Florida would arrive too late.

“But too late for what?” Nick had wanted to know.

No one had been able to answer him, so he left.

A.J. supposed he had gone off to wander the hospital, probably to the gift shop or the cafeteria. Brian glanced up after his best friend, looking as though he were wondering whether or not to follow him. Kevin nodded his approval. A.J. shook a hand at him. Brian smiled apologetically and jogged after Nick’s retreating form.

That left Kevin and A.J. alone. A.J. wished Howie had been there. In hospitals, A.J. always felt caged and trapped. You had to be quiet and had to stay in one place. You couldn’t be loud or wander as you pleased. It was the ninth level of hell for A.J., but with his best friend in the condition he was, he found he was completely uninterested in moving or speaking.

“The doctors don’t even know what’s going on,” Kevin said to him gently.

A.J. shook his head. Kevin didn’t know what was going on either, so why should not knowing anything make anyone feel any less anxious? That was the cause of why A.J. was so scared in the first place. No one knew what was going on. Why was Howie losing his voice? Over a substance the doctors couldn’t even name? How was that supposed to explain anything? And yet the doctors knew enough to say that it was unlikely Howie would live through the night because the “substance”, as the doctors were calling it, was spreading.

“If he’s going to die, why won’t they let us see him?” A.J. snapped bitterly, breaking the uneasy silence in the waiting room. He glared at Kevin for an answer. Unconsciously he heard Howie’s voice telling him “it’s not Kevin’s fault, don’t glare at him,” and softened his expression.

Kevin gave him a sympathetic gaze. “I don’t know, Alex,” he said truthfully.

As if on cue, the doctor who had broken the news to them appeared in the doorway. He motioned for them to follow him. A.J. was halfway to the door before Kevin could so much as nod. As soon as they were in the hallway, A.J. began his interrogation.

“What’s going on?” he demanded immediately.

The doctor put a finger to his lips. “Please keep your voice down,” he pleaded.

A.J. was about to retort when he felt Kevin’s fingers painfully digging into his arm. He kept silent, but he never wavered his scowl at the doctor for a second.

The doctor sighed. “Listen, I know this is difficult for you to understand. I know you want to see your friend, but right now I’m afraid we have to keep him secured.”

A.J. felt his heart skip a beat. “S-secured?” he stammered, eyes growing wider than saucers.

A.J. assumed he looked terrified, or else the doctor would have found it easier to continue. He knew it seemed nearly impossible for someone so rebellious-looking like himself to assume such a naïve expression.

“Your friend has been infected with a liquid chemical we haven’t been able to determine as of now.” He took in a deep breath. “We’ve called a local university hospital to examine him. We just need someone to convince him to reach a consensus.”

Kevin caught the subtleties the doctor was trying to hide. He arched an eyebrow. “You mean Howie doesn’t want to be examined?”

The doctor shrugged. “He can’t say anything, like I said before. So far the substance has eaten away parts of his tissue and was quickly working towards his lungs earlier, but luckily we were able to stop it. But he refuses to let anyone near him, and he won’t hear of someone examining him for some reason.”

“Why can’t you just syringe it out?” A.J. asked, as though it were obvious.

The doctor frowned. “We tried that. It seems…” He hesitated, finding the right words. “It seems that the substance is…avoiding our needles…”

A.J. and Kevin’s expressions betrayed their shock. “It’s avoiding it?” they cried in unison.

“Please!” the doctor begged, waving his clipboard frantically. “Please keep your voices down!”

A.J. had had enough. “I want to see him.” He saw the doctor’s kindly rejecting smile and added forcefully, “I’m serious. Now.”

The doctor was intimidated by A.J.’s ice-cold expression and Kevin’s six foot one form. “Then this means you’ll help make him cooperate?”

A.J. shook his head, taking on a pitying expression for the doctor. “Howie isn’t like that. If he rejects to it that much, he must have a reason.” The doctor opened his mouth to argue. “But I’ll talk to him,” A.J. added hastily.

The doctor smiled. “Thank you. I’ll come back as soon as we need you.” With that, he turned on his heel and walked away briskly.

“Kevin?” A.J. said quietly, watching after the doctor.

“Hmm?”

“What’s wrong with him?”

Kevin shook his head. “I don’t know, Aje… I don’t know.”

<~*~>

The remaining three Backstreet Boys decided readily that A.J. would talk to Howie. If anyone could convince Howie to be agreeable, A.J. could. However, none of them could figure out why Howie was apprehensive about the doctor’s opinion to begin with.

A.J. didn’t know exactly what he would say to Howie. He didn’t know how he could talk to Howie or get anything out of him with Howie’s voice gone.

He walked through the hallways, mentally following the doctor’s directions to a tee. Knowing if he followed the directions, he would eventually meet Howie, he purposefully followed the wrong hallways and took the wrong turns. He didn’t want to see Howie. Because when he did, things would be awkward between them, and A.J. hated awkwardness, especially if it involved Howie in some way. Howie was by far his closest friend, and to have awkwardness between them would be unbearable. They were close, but not quite to the stage of telepathy. How would he communicate with him? Would he be able to at all?

It didn’t seem like any use to try and take the wrong directions, because as A.J. was encased in his thoughts, he unconsciously ended up at Howie’s door. He paused in the doorway. He didn’t want to see the inside of the room. He wanted to run back to the waiting room out the doors to the airport and fly home to his house. He wanted to be anywhere but the place he stood only feet away from.

Eventually his guilt for thinking so selfishly nudged him inside the room. Howie was lying on his side, back facing the doorway. He was sleeping. A.J. smirked slightly. Anywhere, anytime, that was their Howie D. It didn’t occur to him that it might have been because of medication. Another lie. Another mask of innocence that hid harsh reality… A.J. walked around the bed and was shocked to see that Howie looked no different than he did before. He figured the damage must have been sustained on the inside. With a shaking breath, A.J. reached over and rested a hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“Howie?” To his displeasure, his voice was raspier than he would have preferred. He cleared his throat. “Howie,” he said, louder.

Howie’s eyes slowly opened, revealing his soulful brown eyes. He looked up at A.J. with a tired smile. He winced and shook his head. He swallowed hard and flinched again.

“You okay?” A.J. asked. He immediately regretted his choice of words. What did he expect? Howie to nod and everything would go back to the way it was?

Fortunately, Howie gave a weak smile and nodded. A.J. knew as well as he that Howie was lying. Even without his voice Howie couldn’t lie for his life. To make up for the silence that followed, Howie moved over, making space for A.J. A.J. smiled gratefully and sat next to him.

For a long moment, they avoided each other’s eyes. A.J. would have given anything to hear Howie’s voice again, but all he heard was the silence in the room and his heart hammering against his chest. Why did the silence have to be so graceless?

Finally A.J. felt Howie’s hand on his arm. When he looked up into his friend’s eyes, Howie stared back at him, his eyes a mixture of emotions A.J.’s most likely mirrored. It was almost like looking to yourself to help you. Both of them were lost, but in different ways. Howie let his hand fall. He dropped his eyes to the floor.

A.J. knew this was hard for him. It would have been hard for anyone. But it had struck Howie like a slap to the face. Several, in fact. Howie sang. It was his life. It was his only escape from reality. A.J. wondered if Howie was beginning to doubt his faith, too. If he didn’t die, he might be fated to live the rest of his life without his voice. When Howie’s sister, Caroline, died, A.J. remembered Howie took most of his strength from the lyrics in their songs. Music was Howie’s escape. Now it was gone.

Pushed by his sporadic side, A.J. wrapped his arms around his friend. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered, choking back a sob. He clenched his eyes shut when he felt Howie return the embrace. As A.J. was about to pull back, he felt Howie’s form shuddering with broken sobs…silent sobs.

A.J. couldn’t tell him truthfully everything would be all right. But he couldn’t lie to him. After everything Howie had done for him, he couldn’t lie to him. So he rubbed his back reassuringly, wondering if it was he or Howie he was trying to console.