Oreos for Breakfast: Chapter 28

I had not thought this one through.

I couldn't go down to the lobby. There were a million fans there, and they could not see me carrying a suitcase, my eyes red from crying. They'd know that Nick and I had just broken up, and I wasn't ready for that.

No one else knew. Right now, just Nick and I knew that it was over. I didn't want the first people in my life to know about it to be fans.

Was I going to have to issue a press statement?

I could think about that tomorrow. Right now, I had to get off this fucking elevator before it hit the lobby and random celebrity stalkers saw me looking like my world had ended.

The button for the fifth floor listed some meeting rooms, so I pressed it. Maybe I could hide there.

Or maybe there would be some post-VMA party. I held my breath as the doors opened.

Silence. Good.

The women's room was empty, and I sat on the couch in the sitting room, wrapping my arms around myself.

What did I do now? I couldn't sit here for the next six months.

There was a back exit to this hotel, but I still had to get through the lobby to get there.

And there were probably fans at the back door, too, and they'd compare notes with their friends at the front door and realize that I'd come in with Nick and I was leaving alone with my suitcase.

There was surely a service entrance somewhere, but then I'd have to talk to someone who worked here, and I didn't want to talk to anyone. I didn't want to have to think of some clever cover story about why I was sneaking out of the hotel in the middle of the night.

"James, you have got to get me out of here."

"What? Where are you?" he asked, his voice a little drunk and a lot confused.

"At Nick's hotel in a bathroom on the fifth floor. I can't leave, or everyone will know."

"Know what, baby?"

But he already knew.

"That Nick and I… we…" I couldn't say it. Not yet.

"Okay," James said softly. "Which hotel?"

I told him, and he repeated it to someone.

"I don't want to go to my hotel!" I heard JC's drunk voice. "Wanna go to your place."

Why JC always wanted to go to James' tiny apartment was beyond me. But when they were in NYC, JC paid for very expensive hotel rooms that he never used.

"There are fans everywhere," I warned. "You can't come in here together."

"Sure we can. Chris is here. Boys are allowed to be in groups of more than two."

James and JC had lots of rules, and I couldn't remember them all now. "James, I..."

"I know," he said. "But JC has a room there, so you can hide there until you figure out what to do. Okay?"

"I was going to go to your place. But I can't."

I should have… what? Stayed in Nick's room?

What was he doing right now?

Probably calling that Paris girl. Hell, he might already be gone. He wouldn't have cared if the fans saw him leaving without me.

No. He wasn't that bad. He'd been crying when I left him. He was upset by this, too.

It would be easier if he'd been a jerk about it. But he'd wanted me to stay. But I couldn't stay. Not again. Not this time. I should have left after that incident last month when he'd made out with that girl in a club. Why did pretty boys make me so stupid? I laid down on the couch, my chest aching. Maybe I could just sleep here tonight.

"Rachel?" James asked. "Are you still there?"

"Yeah. Please come soon."

I couldn't sit here alone much longer or I'd lose my mind. Besides, the door didn't have a lock.

"We're around the corner from the hotel. Where can I find you?"

"Ladies room. Fifth floor."

"Give me five minutes."

It was seven. Seven minutes where I checked my watch a million times and concentrated very hard on not thinking.

Finally, there was a knock on the door, and James' welcome voice. "Rache?"

I got up, opening the door. "I'm alone."

In more ways than one.

James tried to hug me, but I stepped away. "Don't. If I cry now, I won't be able to stop."

After Dad had died, James had picked me up at the airport when I arrived from London. I hadn't cried until I saw his face, but then I lost it in the middle of the airport.

No one had cared then. Well, a couple of people had offered help, and tissues. But no one took my picture and put it on the cover of newspapers. Someone might do that now, if I ventured into the public.

Maybe I should just stay here in this bathroom for the next six months. It was safer.

James just nodded, taking my suitcase. "JC and Chris have rooms on the 42nd floor."

Nick was on 44. That was close.

"I can't… I can't stay here, James. He's still here."

Maybe. I hoped. One night of him crying would be good. Tomorrow he'd be out partying again, but for a few hours, maybe I could hope that he was thinking about me.

"Let's go up to JC's room and figure it out, okay?"

James held open the door for me, and I looked at him. "Is JC there?"

"I can send him to Chris' room, if you want."

"No. That's not fair. I shouldn't kick him out of his room. He wanted to go back to your place tonight, didn't he?"

James shrugged, pushing me out of the door gently. "He's a little drunk. Useless to me anyway. He already offered to get lost."

"No, that's okay."

James led me down the hallway, and onto the same elevator I'd been on before. Luckily, no one was with us.

The elevator wasn't safe, either, was it? Damnit.

I had to get out of this hotel. If I could just get out of here without anyone seeing me, I could breathe again.

James knocked on a door, and JC let us in. They had a whispered conversation while I looked around. It didn't look like Nick's room. Nick had a suite. This was just a room. Why should JC waste money on a suite when he was just going to stay with James?

I was glad it didn't look the same. I never wanted to set foot in this hotel again.

There was a knock at the door, and I jumped. Had Nick figured out where I was?

"Room service," said the voice behind the door.

"I can't be here," I said, and took James into the bathroom with me, shutting the door behind us.

I could tell he was trying not to laugh at me, and I glared at him. "Hotel staff talk. If they see me here in JC's room and tell their friends, and one of them saw me with Nick, someone will figure it out!"

"Someone is going to figure it out sooner or later, Rachel."

"I'd rather it be later, James!" I hissed. This was a thick door, right? "I certainly don't want news of my fucking love life leaked by a room service guy. Let me have a shred of dignity about this."

James wisely didn't mention that we were trapped in a bathroom while I was saying this.

JC knocked on the door. "He's gone," he informed us, and I opened the door.

"Why did you have to get fucking room service anyway?" I asked, stalking out of the bathroom.

"James thought you'd want junk food."

I eyed the plates on the room service cart. Sandwiches and chips and mozzarella sticks. None of it appealed to me in the least.

"I might never eat again."

"They're good…" James said, offering me a mozzarella stick. Normally I loved fried cheese.

"No," I said, shortly, and he sighed, dipping it into the marinara sauce.

"More for me," he said.

"I'm gonna go and hang with Chris," JC offered, and I shook my head, falling into a chair near the window.

"No. I'm sorry. It was sweet of you to order room service, honestly. Stay here. I just need to figure out how to get out of here and then I'll leave you with your boyfriend."

"Where are you going to go?" James asked, sitting on the bed and considering me.

"I'm…"

I didn't want to go home. Everyone would want to know what happened, and I couldn't tell them. The girls would be heartbroken. They loved Nick. Colleen hadn't spoken to me for days the last time I broke up with Nick, and I couldn't deal with that now.

I couldn't go to James' place, because Nick had just been there, and I'd been so happy and surprised.

Was that just this morning?

I looked at James. "I don't know," I admitted. "Home is too hard."

He nodded, agreeing.

"We could go to LA," JC offered. "I'll give you the keys to my place."

"I hate LA." LA was full of the plastic girls like Paris that Nick really wanted. I might end up going berserk if I was faced with them at every turn.

That would be a great way for the news to get out. 'Rachel Connor, despondent over her recent break-up with Nick Carter, went on a killing spree on Robertson Boulevard, killing three and injuring a dozen others. All of the victims were blond.'

"Florida?" JC offered, and I looked at him.

Florida was bad. Nick lived in Florida.

"My family has a vacation place near Orlando. Well, outside of Orlando, on the beach. We could go there. You could go there. Whatever."

Orlando… I'd never done Orlando with Nick. Just Miami and the Keys.

Orlando might be okay. It was neutral.

JC smiled at the look on my face. "Did I do something right?"

"You do lots of things right, Jace," I told him. "Are you serious?"

"Of course," he said. "I can set it up now. We'll get you on a early flight."

"We'll go with her," James said.

Yeah. James didn't want me to go too far without him.

I didn't want to go too far away from him, either. If I was alone, I would just sink into despair and never get out of bed, and I had stuff to do. We were starting our tour next month and…

"Shit," I said. "We have press tomorrow, don't we?"

"I'll take care of it," James said. "Jeremy and Darien can handle it."

"Then people will wonder where I am, and I won't be with Nick and they will figure it out."

James leaned towards me, his voice soft when he spoke. "Sweetie, is there a reason you don't want anyone to know?"

"Not yet, James. Give me a day to get used to it before I have to answer fucking questions from the press about it. Just a day or two. I need…"

I didn't know what I needed. Time, maybe.

"Okay," he said, nodding. "Eat something, and JC and I will make some calls. I'll get you a couple of days."

My phone rang, waking me up, and I glared at it. Why was it so fucking loud?

Why was it so fucking bright in here?

I sat up, looking around the room. Where the hell was I?

Hotel room. New York. The sun was flooding into the room, and all the lights were on. What the fuck? Had Rachel...

I squeezed my eyes shut, like closing them would make me forget her face as she walked out of that door and out of my life.

For a tiny moment, I'd forgotten, and my life was still good. Rachel was still mine.

Shit. The pain in my head was so big that I almost couldn't think.

But I could think enough to know that Rachel was gone, and I'd cried myself to sleep. I didn't remember much about what happened after she left. I wasn't sure why all the lights were on. Did I think the lights would chase away the nightmares?

I used to do that when I was a kid, and alone on the road. The first night I'd had my own hotel room, I couldn't fall asleep in the dark, and it had been months until I could be alone in the dark in a strange room.

Sometimes I'd cry myself to sleep then, too. It had been a long fucking time since I'd felt like this, hollow and sad in the morning. Even on mornings that I'd wake up without her, I still had the hope of talking to her. I didn't have that now.

Last night had been so final. How could that be? She loved me! I loved her! If you loved someone you didn't just leave them. Did you?

My head pounded and I closed my eyes again. I'd never had a headache like this that I could remember.

I forced myself to get out of bed and turn off the lights and close the curtains. That helped. A little.

I needed aspirin. And probably some food.

If Rachel were here, she'd bring me pills and rub my head until room service got here. She'd take care of me. She was so good at that.

Thinking about her made my head hurt worse, if that was possible. My stomach lurched and I ran for the bathroom, but there was nothing in my stomach to throw up. Which just made it worse, really, as my stomach twisted, looking for something to get rid of.

I couldn't get rid of myself. I was a lousy fucking boyfriend, and I'd thrown away the best thing I'd ever had in my life by being stupid and lazy and selfish.

I sat back against the bathroom wall, covering my eyes with shaking hands. I couldn't sit here forever, hating myself.

I couldn't leave this hotel room and face my life without her, either.

My phone rang again, from very far away. Maybe that was Rachel, calling me to say she'd made a huge mistake. Where did she wake up this morning? Did she cry herself to sleep last night, too? She was upset when she left. She'd started out angry, but she'd been upset, too. That wasn't just my imagination…was it?

The phone was under the bed, and I wondered how it had gotten there. Had I thrown it there when it woke me up?

Why had I had it in the bed? I flipped it open, checking the call log, but I hadn't called her last night. Thank god. I had no idea what I might have said.

The phone rang again while I was staring at it. Ken.

I did not want to talk to my fucking manager. He hated me for coming here to surprise Rachel and look how that ended. I couldn't tell him that she'd left me for flirting with some other girl.

But if I didn't answer, he'd keep calling. Then when I still didn't answer, he'd send someone to find me. I didn't want to be found. Unless Rachel was the one doing the looking.

"What?" I said. "I don't have to be back in LA until tomorrow."

I couldn't begin to think about that. I didn't want to go back to LA and face everyone. Try to pretend that everything was fine.

Was that what she was doing?

"No, I like you in New York. Paris Hilton's people tell me you were very chummy with her last night. It's already in the New York Post."

My head throbbed at the sound of her name. Paris fucking Hilton.

"Why exactly is that a good thing, Ken?"

"Because it shows that you're not tied to Rachel. Paris is very hot right now. Good exposure for you."

I didn't want to hear another word about how Rachel was bad for my career or about how I had to play the publicity machine. That's all Ken and Cynthia could talk about. Not the music, but the column inches. Fuck that.

"Paris is a shallow bitch."

Okay, she was a hot shallow bitch. But still. I was pretty sure that Paris had leaked this particular bit of gossip.

She didn't need to get us linked in the gossip columns to get Rachel to leave me. I did that all by myself.

"Whatever, Nick. I think you should go out tonight."

"No," I said.

"Just for a little bit. Rachel will…"

I cut him off. "No. Rachel will not understand."

Why should she?

"It's business, Nick!"

"I'll see you in LA tomorrow morning, Ken."

I hung up, switching off my phone. I knew Rachel wouldn't be calling, so what was the point?

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