Erin sat backstage with Joe and Kevin waiting for Nick to return to the room. She was shaking quite a bit out of nervousness because there were so many guys that worked for the Jonas Brothers and not so many girls.
“Erin, it’s going to be okay,” Kevin said reassuringly, “We told you that we would make sure that nothing bad would happen to you.”
But Erin wasn’t listening. She was staring at Big Rob with wide eyes completely terrified that he was going to crush the living daylights out of her.
“Uh…Erin,” Joe said, noticing that Erin was about to faint.
Erin looked at him with and was hyperventilating and shaking furiously.
“Erin, calm down,” Joe said, “Big Rob’s not going to hurt you.”
She, then, looked at Big Rob who was just standing there, minding his own business. She stopped hyperventilating but the shaking was still pretty fierce.
Nick suddenly entered the room, followed by a woman who looked very much like him. “I see that you’ve already met Big Rob,” Nick said, noticing the shaking.
Erin nodded fiercely.
Nick continued, “But this is my mom, Denise Jonas.”
“Hi,” Erin said, trying to smile and calm down.
“Oh, Nick, she’s scared to death,” Mrs. Jonas pointed out.
Nick smiled. “Yeah, she’s afraid of men,” he explained.
Suddenly, another girl entered the room and said, “Hey Nick, aren’t you going to introduce me to your new friend?”
This girl was very ecstatic and had dark hair dyed purple.
“Oh yeah, Erin, this is Beth. Beth, this is Erin,” Nick said.
“Ah,” Beth said, happily, “So how do you two know each other?”
“Erin’s Nick’s girlfriend!” Joe said.
Nick and Erin both looked away and their faces both turned tomato red.
Beth looked at her bare wrist as if there was a watch there and pretended to look shocked. “Oh, look at the time. I have to go now. It was nice meeting you, Erin,” she said, and took off.
“Hey Nick,” Erin said, approaching Nick after a while of doing nothing, “Do you have some time?”
Nick looked at her and smiled. “I always have time for you,” he said.
Erin blushed and then mumbled something inaudible.
“What did you say?” Nick asked with a chuckle.
“Will you go on a walk with me?” Erin said, a little bit louder.
Nick looked at Kevin and Joe, who both shrugged and smiled.
“Sure,” he said and then he grabbed Erin and took off.
They had been walking in a nearby park for about ten minutes when Nick realized that they hadn’t said a word to each other. He looked over at Erin who was admiring the scenery and not looking at him in any particular way. But still, he felt like she had something that she wanted to say to him.
Eventually his impatience got the better of him and he just had to ask, “Was there something that you needed to tell me?”
Erin looked up at him and Nick realized that this is the most calm that he’s ever seen her. “No,” she said, “I just wanted to be with you.”
Nick was surprised. He never expected this from Erin. This isn’t something that she would do. Was she getting more confident? Was she changing? What was happening to her? He didn’t know.
“Awe, ducks,” Erin said cheerfully as she ran over to a giant flock of ducks.
Nick smiled when he noticed how happy she was. He wanted to cherish this moment with her forever because he felt that this was probably the only time that he’ll ever see her this happy.
He walked over to Erin, who was still playing with the ducks and said, “Hey, I think we’d better go soon.”
“Okay,” she said, cheerfully and began to walk off with Nick.
But before they could even go 3 feet, a duck suddenly went underneath Erin’s feet and tripped her, causing her to fall to the ground.
“Are you okay?” Nick asked, helping her up.
“Yeah, I’m fine. But I cracked my glasses,” she said, as she took her glasses off of her face and examined them.
“Can you still see out of them?” Nick asked.
“A little bit,” she said as she put them back on her face, “I’ll make it.”
Nick gave out a little chuckle and then they both headed back to everyone else.
Later that evening, Erin was sitting in the hallway against a wall, reading a book, when suddenly Beth approached her.
“So, you like Nick, huh?” Beth asked curiously, sounding very sly.
Erin just shrugged. Not because she didn’t know if she liked him or not. She did. But she had a strange feeling that Beth was up to something and she just didn’t want to risk giving away too much information.
Beth continued, “I agree. Nick’s a stud—”
“What do you want?” Erin interrupted, not liking where she thought this conversation was going to go.
Beth’s expression suddenly changed from cheerful and happy to serious and intense. “I want you to stay away from Nick,” she said.
“Why?” Erin asked, very confused.
“Because Nick’s mine,” she stated.
Erin then realized that Beth said the word ‘mine’ meaning that she viewed Nick as an object to be possessed and not as the kind, loving person that he is.
“What happens if I don’t stay away from him?” Erin asked.
Beth smirked. “Let’s just say that you’d better stay away from him…or else,” she said.
“Or else what?” Erin asked, beginning to get a little scared.
“I don’t think that you want to find out,” Beth responded and then walked away.
Erin sat there, completely horrified by what Beth had said. She didn’t want a repeat of what happened seven years ago. She would do anything to make sure that that never happened again. But, in Erin’s mind, that was the only possible meaning of the words ‘or else’ and she couldn’t help but think otherwise.
Suddenly, Nick, Kevin, and Joe all started walking down the hallway and Erin stared at them. So far, her ‘stay away from Nick’ plan wasn’t going very well.
Erin quickly picked up her book and hurriedly walked past Nick and his brothers, trying not to make eye contact with any of them.
“Hey Erin,” Nick said as Erin walked by them.
Erin didn’t respond. All she did was silently walk by them and think, “Why me?”
It had been a few days after Erin had her talk with Beth and Erin was doing her best to stay away from Nick. She was doing pretty well. All she had to do was hang out with Jason for a while. But after a while, Erin started to notice that Nick wanted to be around her more and more every day. But in order to stay safe, Erin just had to keep ignoring him.
But one day, she couldn’t stay away from him. And that’s the day that things went horribly wrong.
After Erin had finally found a book to read in her giant bag of books, she headed off to find someplace quiet to read. It was almost time for the concert to begin so everyone was running around backstage trying to do last-minute preparations. Erin opened the book to a random page and hid her face in it so that no male passing her would know that she was scared of him.
A few minutes later she knew that she had finally found the perfect room because it was in the back of the building and no one was running around anywhere near it.
She opened the door and, in there, was the most unbelievable thing she had ever seen. No, it wasn’t the big comfy couch perfect for reading or the numerous amounts of flowers that encompassed the room, but it was none other than Nick and Beth kissing in the corner.
Then, as if on an impulse, she dropped her book and ran. She didn’t know why she was running. It was as if she was jealous of him and Beth. But she didn’t have any reason to be jealous. She turned around and saw Nick running after her, with Beth close behind him. She didn’t know what to do, so she kept running. But while she kept running, she also kept looking behind her, and she looked behind her so much that she wasn’t looking where she was running and ran headfirst into a wall, knocking her onto the floor.
“Erin, what’s wrong?” Nick asked, running up to Erin and then kneeling down next to her.
“I was…you where…what?” Erin said, not really knowing the words to describe what she wanted to say to him.
He could see in her eyes that she was confused and hurt. He wanted to tell her the truth but who would believe ‘she came onto me’? He didn’t know how to tell it to her so he just said what he thought would calm her down best without confusing her even more. “Look,” he said, “you mean everything to me, and I’ll never leave you for someone else. You’re just going to have to trust me, okay?”
Erin nodded in response but before anything more could happen, Kevin came up to them and told Nick that the show was about to start and that they needed him ready to go onto the stage right then. Nick, then, left with Kevin, but before Nick was out of sight completely, he quickly turned around and gave Erin a reassuring smile.
Thirty minutes later, after Erin had returned to the room, she sat down on the couch, began to read her book, and then she heard the door suddenly open. She looked up and saw Beth entering the room, and she was looking very ferocious. Erin decided that it was best not to say anything that would make Beth mad at her, so she kept quiet. But it was a little too late for that.
“You LOWLIFE!” Beth yelled at the top of her lungs. Storming up to Erin.
“What?” Erin asked, not really sure what Beth was talking about.
“I told you to stay away from him! But you just had to make him like you even more, didn’t you?” Beth screamed. Her face was as red as a chili pepper and she looked like she was about to burst into a million pieces.
“I didn’t do anything!” Erin said sternly, feeling the confidence rush through her body.
Beth smirked at Erin. “Oh yeah, I see your little game. You go around pretending that you’re scared of everything, but you’re just using that excuse to hide your true self.”
“Don’t you dare talk about me like you know everything about me,” Erin said angrily, “You have no idea what I’ve been through! And you have no right to tell me otherwise.”
With that remark, Beth really exploded. She reached for a nearby flower vase and looked at it as if deciding if she should do something with it or not. She then decided that she would do it and hurled the vase at Erin and it shattered all over Erin’s face. But when it struck Erin, it also struck her glasses and caused the glass from the glasses to shatter as well and, due to the powerful force, some of it ended up piercing through Erin’s eyelids, causing her eyes to bleed.
Erin howled in pain and yelled profusely as the blood poured out. She began to breathe heavily and her vision by now had completely vanished. But as she continued to listen to what’s going on around her, she heard Jason’s voice calling her name in the distance, but she was too weak to respond.
Then, she heard Beth chuckle and say, “I told you…‘Or else’.”
And then she heard nothing, felt nothing, and was completely aware of nothing.
When Erin awoke a few hours later, she wasn’t sure where she was, who was around her, or if she was even awake at all. All she could see was darkness. She felt around her face to see what the damage was and noticed the deep scars that signified that the shards of glass had almost pierced through her skin. But as she began to feel her eyes, Jason suddenly came out of nowhere and said, “Don’t you dare think about touching that bandage.” She immediately dropped her hands from her face as Jason came closer to her. As Jason looked at her, he noticed that by the way that she was shaking and by the way that she talked that Erin was absolutely terrified.
“How bad is it?” she asked him, her voice shaken out of stress.
Jason sighed heavily. “You’re never going to see again,” he stated.
Erin gasped and he noticed that her body had began to shake all over but in spite of that, she managed to work up the courage and ask, “What am I going to do now?”
“I don’t know, okay!” Jason yelled. Erin noticed that Jason was very stressed and was having a massive panic attack.
Suddenly, Jason heard Nick outside of the room. “Nick’s here,” he reported to Erin, “I’ll leave you two alone.”
Erin nodded.
“If you do anything to make her upset, I’ll make you wish that you had never met her,” Jason said to Nick as he passed by him.
As Nick entered the room he saw Erin laying down on the bed and noticed the cuts covering her face and her light brown hair spread out all over the pillow. But most of all, he noticed the giant bloodstained bandage covering both of her eyes.
Erin stared into the dark abyss that will forever surround her and listened to the quiet footsteps approaching her. And while she listened to the hypnotic sound, it stopped and she felt fingers rough from calluses yet as smooth as can be, intertwine with her left hand. Erin tried to smile at him, but when she realized that it made her whole face hurt, she stopped.
“Are you okay?” Nick asked sitting down on the chair next to the bed while still holding on to Erin’s hand.
“I’ve been better,” she said, trying not to move her lips so much.
Nick could tell by the strain in her voice that Erin was in a lot of pain. He hated seeing her unhappy, especially if he was the reason behind it.
Everything was still and quiet for a moment until Erin turned her head toward Nick and said, “I’m sorry.”
Nick looked back at her. “Sorry for what?” he asked.
“It’s all my fault. I should have never gone on tour with you,” she said.
He could tell that she was trying to hold back tears from falling down her face due to the fact that it would hurt her eyes immensely.
“What are you talking about,” Nick said, gripping her hand tightly, “it’s been amazing having you with us.”
“But if I wasn’t here, none of this wouldn’t have happened. I wouldn’t be blind for the rest of my life and you wouldn’t be sitting with me in a hospital,” she said. A tear came down her face and Erin winced in pain and with that sudden movement, more pain came to her face, causing her to yell out.
Nick gently caressed her forehead. “It’s alright, calm down,” he said calmly and reassuringly. It took Erin a good five minutes before she calmed down completely, then Nick said, “Here, I have something for you.”
He placed something in Erin’s hand and she felt it with her other hand. She could tell that it was small and was in little segments. “What is it?” she asked.
“It’s a necklace,” he said, “I was going to give it to you for Christmas but you left before I could give it to you.”
Erin gave him a little smile. “Thank you,” she said, gripping the necklace tighter.
And, although she couldn’t see anything, Erin suddenly became aware of how important her other four senses were when she felt Nick’s soft lips touch hers. At first, it filled her with excruciating pain, but once she got her mind on Nick and only Nick, the pain was transformed into something different. She didn’t know what, but she knew it was something that she would want to feel for the rest of her life.
---
Please message me and tell me what you think! Thanks!
