Chapter 1
I picked up the phone in my hotel room as it rang for the 8th time. I tried to yell for Nick to answer it, but for some reason he was unresponsive today.
“Hello?” I groaned, suddenly realizing my voice sounded a bit off today.
“Good morning honey, you awake yet?” I heard my moms voice ask.
“No.” I responded in a monotone. I tried to cough to get whatever was in my throat out.
“Are you feeling okay?” She asked, I guess in response to my cough.
“I guess, just tried, will you call Kevin and then call me back. Nick is already in the bathroom I think.” I was desperate for 5 more minutes of shut eye.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Why was she acting like it was such a shock that I wasn’t willing to wake up. It was like this all the time with me.
“Yes, okay fine I’m up. I’ll be ready to go soon.” I coughed again wondering why the voice coming from my throat wasn’t mine, yet strangely familiar.
I hung up the phone and reached for my cell. I texted my girlfriend, Olivia, every morning when I woke up, she was usually asleep since she had the luxury of not waking up until 7 on weekdays and could sleep in till whenever on weekends, so I made sure that everytime she woke up it was to something from me. That way no other guy would be the first thing on her mind in the morning. Kind of greedy, I know, but when you don’t get to see your girlfriend that much, sometimes you wonder if she really is just into you. I’m not saying I think she would cheat on me, I know she wouldn’t, but that doesn’t mean her mind isn’t allowed to imagine what her life would be like with some star football player that was able to be with her all the time.
I made my life easy by putting her in my contacts list at *Liv, that way she would be the first to come up and I wouldn’t have to waste a few seconds trying to get to her name with all the other contacts on my list.
“What?” I asked in pure confusion and I saw she wasn’t where she normally was on the list. I went down to the L’s, again her name was M.I.A. Finally, I tried O’s, sure enough she was there.
“Okay?” I voiced again to no one.
I began to type a text out just as my battery died.
“Seriously?” I asked my phone, annoyed at its inability to be a good phone.
I put it down and walked to the bathroom. Maybe I’ll just call her once I charge it, that will surprise her, I’m never able call her in the morning.
I lazily turned the shower on and stood watching the water poor quickly from the shower head. I stuck my hand under and immediately pulled it back due to the cold water. I counted to 30 and tried again, perfect temperature.
I stepped in through the sliding glass doors and suddenly asked myself a burning question, where was Nick? Did he already feel the need to go find my parents and ask them for food? He was still on the phone with Kati when I went to sleep, who knows how long he was up. Maybe they finally decided to date and he was too excited he couldn’t sleep.
I laughed at the thought. Nick met Kati a while ago, he’s been crushing on her ever since. He just doesn’t realize that. He’s in denial about the whole thing, and swears they are just best friends and he would never change that for anything.
But that still didn’t answer the question about where he was. Maybe he ran away, that would be just great. I’d have to start to play the guitar during shows. I didn’t really want to do that, plus, what would everyone think, that we abandoned him? No he didn’t run away.
I turned the shower off and reach for a towel. I dried myself off and wrapped it around my waist. I stepped out of the shower and shut the sliding door. Walking up to the sink I looked for my tooth brush, but the reflection of myself caught my eye quickly. I stared at the person for a little too long and then quickly rubbed my eyes and hit my hand against my head a few times. I slowly opened my eyelids, revealing to myself a pair of eyes I wasn’t used to and a truth that no one was going to believe.