Oreos For Breakfast: Chapter 37
By the Paperbag Princess and Pumpkin Coach

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Nick's Journal - March 6, 2003

It was okay on the bus. I could pretend that I was still on tour. We had pizza and I sat around and talked to the guys for a while and avoided Anna. She keeps giving me the ‘do we need to talk?’ look and I don’t want to talk. She asked if I wanted to talk, but I was tired and I went to bed.

I even managed to sleep. I just didn’t think about today. I thought about the show, and what we might do differently tonight and…

Now I’m in LA, and we’re in a hotel- we haven’t been in a hotel for a week or so, but I wanted to make sure we had rooms for LA, because I’m going to see you tonight and I at least wanted a decent shower- and my car’s downstairs.

My car is freaking me out a little. The last time I drove it was when I drove Paris home that last night (when I did not hit her- have I mentioned that yet?) and then I drove around LA for a couple of hours, just thinking about stuff. After that, Anna drove, so that the photographers wouldn’t notice my car right away, and then we went on tour, so it wasn’t a big deal.

I kept the car at Howie’s after I gave up the LA apartment for the tour, and he had someone drive it over to the hotel this morning. Because I need it to get to the Bonaventure tonight. That’s another reason it’s freaking me out. That car is going to take me to you.

I told Howie I needed it to meet you tonight, and he told me I should grovel and get you back.

Everyone seems to be saying that. Aaron totally is. I think he likes me a lot more when I’m with you. I think everyone likes me more when I’m with you. I like me more when I’m with you.

But...

I....

I don’t know what I want, Rachel. I really don’t. It’s not that some huge part of me doesn’t want you back. But I don’t think I’m that guy any more. I’m not the guy that chased you around the country and cried because you didn’t love me.

I know I’m not that lawyer guy you were dating. I don’t think you’re with him any more. But there were pictures of you together a few weeks ago. Around the same time that I broke up with Paris, you were in the tabloids, too.

Did you know that one tabloid had some headline about “Rachel’s lonely vacation in paradise,” and another had something about you and the lawyer and a “romantic getaway”? I really want to know which one it was. The one that said you were lonely had pictures of you on a beach in… somewhere. One of those tropical islands. You were on the beach and you looked happy enough to me. You looked a little lonely in the picture of you at dinner by yourself, but you looked beautiful. Tan and relaxed and in a really pretty white dress. Maybe the lawyer guy was just getting you another drink or something.

Anyway. I will ask you about your vacation. But I’m not sure if I want to hear if it was lonely or not. Not that I want you to be lonely, but… I don’t exactly want you to be happy with lawyer guy, either.

AJ says you broke up with lawyer guy. But that was a few weeks ago. I haven’t talked to AJ since the tour started. Anything could have happened.

Did something happen with AJ? I don’t even want to think that. I know he’s pretty crazy about you right now. He’s trying not to show it, but he is. I know you’ve been talking to him a lot. He’s the one that told me that you were sticking up for me after the whole mess with Paris.

You are the only one that believed in me, Rachel. The only one. Even Anna had to ask if I did it. I mean, I know it’s possible. I know I have a temper. And Anna had heard me and Paris fight a few times. But… you didn’t even need to ask. You didn’t call me, or ask AJ if I had done that to Paris. You just stuck up for me in the press and that was amazing. Thank you.

It’s good to know that even though we aren’t getting back together tonight, you’ll still always have my back.

I don’t think we’re getting back together. Do you? I try to think about tomorrow, and- I don’t know what it looks like. But I don’t really see you there. Maybe I’m just used to being on my own.

I sorta like being on my own. At least when I fuck things up, I’m just hurting myself. It’s not like I’m breaking your heart all the time. At least you’re not breaking mine.

Okay, a little bit with lawyer guy. And maybe some when I think about you with Justin freaking Timberlake. And maybe a lot when I think about you with AJ.

But not like when we were together and I thought you were cheating on me or something. Not that you ever did cheat on me, but I thought it all the time.

I don’t think I can go back there, Rachel. It was just so… tiring. I was always thinking about you, and wanting to be with you, and I was never happy with the other stuff in my life if you weren’t around.

Not that I’ve been half as happy without you as I was with you. I keep thinking about this time last year. From my birthday until now. My birthday last year was so fucking amazing. You have fucked up all birthdays forever. Paris kept saying she was going to give me the best birthday ever, and… nothing can compare. Ever. And it wasn’t just the sex. It was you. All the planning to surprise me, and the presents you gave me, and you gave me James’ apartment. I loved living in New York and recording and talking to you all the time while you were in Europe.

And then… well, you know. Even that was amazing, once we both stopped freaking out. I told you things I’ve never told anyone. Things I barely told myself.

And it took nothing to kill it all. We had a few weeks where everything was perfect, where I didn’t think of anyone else but you, where I didn’t want to think of anyone else, and then before I knew it, it was gone. I know most of it was my fault. I wasn’t ready for forever, and that was the only way we could have ended then. It was marriage and kids and the rest of my life and I threw it away.

I wasn’t ready. I’m still not ready. I know these six months were to get me ready, and I wanted to be ready, but I’m not. I’m not what you need, and trying to be what you need scares me to death.

My life is easier now. It’s not as good, but it’s easy. I don’t have to worry about hurting you. I know ‘easy’ is a fucking cop-out, but… maybe in another six months.

My room phone rang, and I knew it was someone calling to wake me up. I hadn’t slept since we got off the bus. We’d driven overnight from Phoenix, and I’d managed to sleep a little on the bus.

But now I was in LA, and it was March sixth, and there was no way I could sleep. So I’d been wandering around the room, and writing letters to Rachel that she’d never read. I’d even gone down to the gym and run on a treadmill for an hour. That didn’t make me tired, either, so I just took a shower and watched more TV.

I picked up the phone. “Nick?” Anna said. “We leave for sound check in an hour.”

“I know,” I said. “I’m awake. I’m showered. I’m dressed. I’m packed. We leave after the show for Vegas, right?”

That was good. The less time I spent in LA, the better. A month ago, I loved it here. I was dating Paris, and rehearsing for the tour, and it was good. Now LA just made me think of Paris, and how stupid I was for ever being with her.

And a year ago…

“Couldn’t sleep?” Anna asked. She knew what today was.

Well, what today was going to be. Not what today was in the past.

“No,” I said.

“It’s going to be fine,” Anna assured me. “I know she’ll be there.”

“Maybe that’s bad, Anna,” I said. “It would be easier if she didn’t show.”

“Easy is overrated. Want me to come over?”

“Yes.”

She knocked on my door a minute later, and I pulled her into my arms. “You could have called me earlier,” she said, her voice muffled against my chest. “You know I wake up early.”

“No,” I said, letting her go. “It was okay. I needed to be alone.”

Anna sat in the chair across the room, propping her feet on my unmade bed. “Did you figure anything out, sitting here alone?”

“I don’t want her back,” I informed her, sitting on the bed and looking at her.

“Really?” Anna asked, drawing the word out and arching an eyebrow.

“Really,” I insisted. “I don’t want her back.”

“Why?”

“Because… I didn’t love Paris, and look at how she hurt me.”

“Rachel would not do something like that!”

“I know. But… A year ago, Rachel and I were…”

Driving to New York from the Point house. Or she was having the abortion and I was just waiting. Or we were driving back… I didn’t remember what time everything happened. It was just a long, sad day, and it was horrible, but the next day was good. We’d been so close during the whole experience, and it had taken almost nothing to pull us apart. Six months later, it was all over.

“You and Rachel were happy a year ago.”

“Sorta,” I said, not looking at Anna.

“Sure you were. A year ago, was… a week or so after the Grammys. I remember that you hadn’t seen her for a few weeks, and you were all excited.”

“She was… sick at the Grammys. Remember? She passed out, and it was all over the papers.” I said, still not looking up at her.

“Right,” Anna said, remembering. “Forgot about that. What was that?”

“She was pregnant.”

I’d sucked all the air out of the room, and I hadn’t even meant to say anything. Shit.

“She was what?” Anna whispered, but I heard her.

“She was pregnant,” I said, looking at her.

It wasn’t fair that I had to keep this secret any longer. It just wasn’t. I was just going to tell Anna, because it was rattling around inside my head and making me crazy. Anna would never tell anyone. I was sure of that.

“And a year ago today, she had an abortion. Lola found us a fancy doctor in New York and we used assumed names and paid a lot of money for it.”

“Oh, my god, Nick,” Anna breathed, leaning closer to me.

Anna was okay with abortion, right? I didn’t think she was conservative about that. She wasn’t about most things. But we’d never talked about it before.

It wasn’t something that came up in everyday conversation, after all.

“Is that why…”

I finished for her. “That’s why we picked today to see each other again. Because it was a really bad day, but it was… it ended up okay. Good, even. We went back to the Point house, and once we got over being sad, we talked for the next three days and we were just… really close. It was the closest I’ve ever felt to anyone, and it had nothing to do with sex. It was just… her. It was Rachel, and I loved her so much and…”

I could hear my voice breaking, and I took a deep breath.

“I can’t do that again, Anna. If we could have been that close and that much in love, and a year later, I’m here? That’s… I can’t do that. I can’t be with her. It’s too hard.”

“But, Nick, you love her,” Anna said, putting her hand on my knee. “Yeah, maybe it was hard, but the good stuff was really good.”

I got up, moving away from her. “You don’t know. You weren’t there. You were just there sometimes, when things were okay.”

“I remember a lot of phone calls from you when things weren’t okay. I do know. Sorta.”

“You don’t. You can’t know unless you’re me or Rachel, and you’re not. I can’t go through that again. It’s just… it’s… too much. If I had known then what I know now, I never would have chased her like I did.”

“Don’t say that. Don’t be stupid. You should be thankful that you got a year with a woman you loved that much. Hell, be thankful for three days of feeling that close to someone. Most of us don’t get a minute of that.”

“It’s not all like the fucking movies. Half the time it just hurts,” I nearly yelled, and felt my heart beating faster as I remembered the pain of being away from her. Always away from her and counting the days until I’d see her and I could breathe again. The sense of relief when I saw her eyes light up was always overwhelming for me.

“And half of the time it’s amazing. Don’t be such a wimp, Nick,” she said, looking up at me with angry eyes.

“I don’t want to talk about this any more,” I told her.

She sighed. “Fine. Whatever. You are going tonight, though.”

“Yes,” I said. “It’ll be fine. We’ll have a drink, we’ll catch up on our lives, and we’ll go our separate ways.”

“What if she tells you she wants you back?”

I snorted. “That’s not going to happen.”

“You don’t know that. She may have figured out over the last few months that she wants you back.”

“She might. I did all the work, after all.”

“Bullshit!” Anna said, standing up. “Just because you’re scared, don’t convince yourself that she didn’t do any work in this relationship.”

“Okay,” I said, taking a step away from her. I wasn’t sure how this became a fight. “You’re right. Rachel and I worked hard, but it was never hard enough. Maybe she wants me back.”

I couldn’t let myself think about that too much.

“But I can’t go through all of that again.”

“So what are you going to do? Be single forever?” she asked, her voice still angry.

“No, because we’ll get married when we’re thirty,” I tried to joke, but Anna wasn’t in the mood.

“I’m not your back up girl, Nick.”

“I know. That’s not what I meant…”

But she had already slammed out of the room.

Damnit.

This was not going to be a good day.

“Anna?” I asked, and she looked up from her book. Barely. She was still mad at me. We were backstage, after sound check, and she’d found a chair in a corner, and ignored the rest of us as we talked about where to get dinner and if there was anything to do around the venue.