Standard disclaimers apply.....This is a work of fiction and not meant to imply anything about the Backstreet Boys.
There is also no sex in this story...sorry again.
I want to thank Gene and Ash as always...you both are way too sweet to me. and I need to give a big thanks to my Sentinel friends....I think you all know why. Any comments can be sent to Kameko1@excite.com
Thanks for reading Eriker
The Front Row 2.........
Strong Enough by Eriker
Nothing's true and nothing's right So let me be alone tonight You can't change the way I am Are you strong enough to be my man?
Lie to me I promise I'll believe Lie to me but please don't leave -Sheryl Crow
8-15-01
I need time to think, to get a grip on this. I am letting my control slip. There is one thing I know beyond all others: I, Kevin Richardson, cannot let this happen. I can't, under any circumstances, enter into to a relationship with him.
No one should have to take `being with me.' I am nothing at my best, and I'm rarely at my best. To have to put up with me in any kind of relationship is hard enough... but a love match... a few have tried, and all have failed.
I watch him sometimes, when I know he's looking at me. I watch his sidelong glances. I see him staring at me in the reflection of a window. Every time I see it, it reinforces my need to keep a tight hold on this situation. I can't let him know.
I know he loves me. It really wasn't that hard to figure out even before he kissed me. For some reason Nick Carter has fallen in love with me. I know what you're thinking. `Where is the problem there?' A wonderful person with a heart the size of the fucking sky is in love with me. And I love him too.....
I want nothing more than to wrap myself around him and hold on for an eternity. There. Now you know the truth. You're the only ones. That's the hell of it. I can never et him catch on that I feel the same. And if, God forbid, he keeps pushing this situation I will refuse it all. I'll knowingly look at the last love ever to enter my life and I will reject it out of hand.
I sent him away this morning. I couldn't handle him here, looking at me, his eyes picking up on every move I made. The concern pouring out of them was more than I could handle. So what did I do? I ripped into him, of course. Now, I'm standing here as close to crying as I'll ever get. I made him want to leave. Do you know how badly it scares me that I can do that? What is worse... I know I will do it for good one of these days. He will leave here thinking that he tried his best but I just didn't love him that way. Is it better to let him believe that? If he knew that I loved him, but that I couldn't let him have me, it would kill him. Or even worse he might think this relationship was possible because we both wanted it. Life is never that easy. After last year, I know he knows that. I am staying hidden in this room tonight...just three doors away from him. Praying that that is enough space to keep us apart a little longer. I don't have the energy tonight. I can't take the lies tonight.
I pray most of the time that he never broaches the subject. I know I can lie to him, after all I've done it before. Countless times when he has asked me why I am distracted or what is wrong, I have outright lied to him. It scares me how easily I can come up with some line of crap to feed him about one imaginary problem or another. I always make it something he can fix just to keep him happy. It is the least I can give him..or maybe the most. Sound horrible to you? Don't worry, it sounds that way to me, too. One more reason I am no where near what he needs. I stood by and watched him destroy himself. I could have intervened sooner but I kept thinking that he had to come to the decision on his own. By the time everything went down he couldn't make his own choice anyway. Some of that suffering was my fault.
He needs someone good. I am not now, nor have I ever been that. Nick deserves the world handed to him on a platter. Knowing him, he would take the time to dish it out to everyone else before taking his own share, and then he would wash the platter before giving it back. I love that man. I am standing here with tears running down my face looking at a city that can't even know I am in it.
He has this ideal built up around me. He thinks that I'm some sort of human trapped in a super hero role. Maybe I am. I won't deny that the role is there, nor will I deny that I'm compelled to fill it. However, it is not the tragedy that he makes it out to be. I don't do what I do to get accolades of any kind. Damn, that sounds almost noble. Trust me, there is nothing noble about me.
I do the whole Big Brother thing because, in that capacity, I might be able to make some sort of dent in the black void that is me. Does that sound as pretentious and bull-shitty to you as it does to me? Good. Although Nick would chalk it up to my `natural tendency to care about people', the truth is I don't know why I'm here half the time. I just know that I can write here...express myself and if I can reach one person...touch them a little..maybe make their lives a little happier....then this all might mean something. There I go sounding noble again. Sorry. I'm a coward at every level when it comes to more than physical damage. At times, I fantasize about running....I think about ending it all...my career, my fame....even my life on occasion. I wouldn't do the latter...that would mean being passionate about something and emotions are something I can't let myself get into. Not again.
There is another problem. I don't want my escape to hurt him when it happens. I need for him to move on, but at the same time, I can't let him. I always tell myself that after he finishes his time in the BSB, I will end this. Why should I care if he rips me apart in the process? Maybe he should listen to his own words more carefully. What was it he said about me last week? He said all my decisions were fear based....yeah that sounds about right. Every once in a while, I slip and let my feelings show. It is usually enough to keep him coming back for more. I have let myself slip badly twice. The first being when he was first incapacitated last year and the second was fifteen days and about three hours ago...when he kissed me.
That last one would be the most memorable instance for him, I think. My fondest memory is holding him in my arms for a split second before the medic got there in the hotel room in Vancouver. He was drugged and will never recall that. I remember that thought entering my head as I held him. So I held him the way I had always wanted to. Selfish, eh? Well, we cowards are usually opportunists, too.
God, do you know how much shit I am spewing here? Im talking about sending him away because Im not good enough for him, you know, maybe doing it for his own good. That might be part of it, I guess. Maybe the real truth here is that I just can't put myself through any of it again. I cannot lay myself out like that. With ever fiber of my being, I know he would never intentionally hurt me. Still, I can't risk it.
I know I'm not really alive. I'm more awake with him in my life than I was before he stormed the place. I refuse to wake up completely, and nothing will ever change that. Not even he can save what is left of me. He can try and sustain it for a while...hell that is what he has been doing for the last few years...breathing life into a corpse. I wonder if he knows that. Doesn't matter much really. The corpse is still dead, and it always will be. You can't live alone in this world for as long as I have without losing yourself. Even Adam never got through my shell. Lord knows I tried to let him in. I wanted that to work too. All I ended up doing was refortifying my own walls with the added bonus of hurting him in the process.
I just want Nick to stay. I want things to go on like this forever with no real risks. He is my best friend and I am his. I want to believe the lies. Both of us can just go on pretending that the other has no clue. That would be ideal. I ask him what is wrong and he can lie to me, too. Just as I do to him. There can be an unspoken promise to accept those statements as the truth. No complications..oh god, please Nick just lie to me. Let us leave it like this. Don't make me work that last bit of magic that makes you leave me....us. I might as well kill myself. I can't do it right away though. He would feel guilty like it was his fault because he wasn't around anymore. In a way, he would be right but I can't let him think that.
No "In Case of My Death" letters have been written either. I wouldn't do that to him. Confess in a letter what I couldn't say to his face. Make him think that maybe it all would have worked if he had said something sooner or later or whatever. Nothing about this will ever work, and he will never know what is in my head.