"�And Brent Hull grabs the rebound. He turns to the right, fakes a break-awa� SCORE!!! And the Dallas Stars have just won the Stanley Cup!!" Leslie reenacted as she ran into her house, yelling and screaming.
Her parents, who were entering the house more quietly, had taken their fifteen-year-old daughter to watch the 6th game in the Stanley Cup playoffs at a local sports bar. To the excitement of the entire bar, their hockey team, the Dallas Stars, beat the Buffalo Sabers 2-1 in a third overtime with Brent Hull's goal.
"Man, I gotta go email Laura! Night!" With that, she ran quickly upstairs to her brother's room where the computer was kept. Getting onto the Internet while watching the live Dallas Stars' press conference, she typed a quick email to her best friend who was away at camp.
"OUR BOYS ARE OFFICIALLY THE 1998-99 STANLEY CUP WINNERS!!!!!!!!!!!!! right now, it's 1:21am thegame ended a little over thirty minutes ago in buffalo (I was at bobby v's watching the entire game). it lasted intoalmost three full overtimes until Brent Hull got the winning goal, making them win 2-1!!! Now, the tv is showing all the guys getting extremely drunk!!! buffalo, however, is saying they cheated on their winning goal, just cause theyare completely sore losers!! Modano, after they won, was trying not to cry. you could tell cause his voice kept breaking and he kept rubbing at his eyes!! I was like, omg!! i'm so happy!! we were screaming and cheering!! and a bunch of drunk people were there so it was even funnier!!
Well, i gotta go to bed **yawn** i've been up since 6:30am yesterday morning :)
PEACE, LOVE, AND THE DALLAS STARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHOO-HOO!!!
Leslie
GO STARS!!!
GO MODANO!!!
GO HULL!!!
GO EDDIE!!!!
okay.. i'll stop now!! hee hee"
After sending the email, Leslie checked her inbox to find a total of 36 new messages, with 206 additional ones in a separate "Backstreet Boys News" folder.
...Interesting. People went a little crazy with the emails tonight. Damn, I just cleaned all this out before I left too�
Scanning the subject titles, certain ones caught her eyes, and she noticed most of them were about Brian Littrell, "A pic for Bri," "Brian Rumors," "MTV News-Bri," "What happen?" But the one that intrigued her most was titled "Prayers for Brian."
She'd always been a huge fan of the Backstreet Boys and knew all about Brian Littrell's near death experience at age 5 and the heart murmur he had lived with his entire life. A little over a year ago, she'd sent a long encouraging letter to Brian as he entered the hospital for the "routine" heart surgery. Feeling some sort of strange bond with the idol despite the fact they'd never met, she'd unselfishly sent extra Christmas and birthday money to his charity without thinking twice. With all these thoughts floating through her head, she opened the message filled with dread.
"Guys, I have some scary news. It looks as if one of our boys, the beloved
Brian "B-rok" Littrell has been placed into a hospital in London with heart
complications. The seriousness of his condition is unknown, but many rumors
about the world tour being postponed and/or canceled are floating around.
Also, there are rumors that Bri might quit the Backstreet Boys, but nothing
has been confirmed. Please keep Bri and the other guys in your prayers and if
I receive more info, I'll make sure to pass it on. Also, continue to check Tommy's
site and MTV for more info.
Jazz
P.S. My info came from a very reliable source, but MTV should be picking up
on the story soon if you want even more proof. Tommy is working on adding
the info on his site as I type this."
Jumping over to Tommy's site, she saw the bright red sign stating, "Brian News-Click here." The article that appeared confirmed everything in the previous email from Jazz, and gradually, a feeling of complete fear washed over her. Checking her last hope at proving everything wrong, despite knowing deep down that Tommy would know the truth considering he was in the Backstreet Boys band, she went to the MTV news site where she was met with something twice as worse.
Clicking on the Internet broadcast of the news, Serena Altschul popped up saying the news, ending with, "In the Backstreet Boys camp, rumors about Brian Littrell being admitted into the hospital while rehearsing in Europe have been confirmed. At a press conference earlier this evening, the two youngest Boys, Nick Carter and A.J. McLean spoke to the press�"
"During practice today, Brian seemed to be fine. He was goofing off, and doing all the dance moves with us. Afterwards, he was complaining of being extremely tired, but all of us were really tired. Ten minutes later, he collapsed," A.J. said with tears in his eyes.
"Right now� he's in the� h..h.hospital, having some tests done. We're sure�he's going to be�fine, but�we ask for you to keep him in your prayers," Nick said, as his voice cracked with emotion and a few tears fell from his eyes, which he quickly tried to cover.
"The Boys' management, the Firm, said, as of now, the rest of the "Into the Millennium" world tour will be postponed until Brian makes a full recovery. And with that, I'm Serena Altschul with MTV news ten minutes to the hour, every hour."
Completely shocked and saddened by the news, and the images of Nick and A.J., she quickly sent another, shorter email informing Laura and climbed into bed with tears in her eyes as "Don't Wanna Lose You Now" played over her stereo.