A Girl Named Madeline

Chapter 2

POV: Outside View (1987)

"Can I go play with Nicky now, Mama?" "Hush, child. Eat your veggies, and then we can go over to Ms. Jane's house." "Yes, ma'am." 7 year old Madiline says sullenly to her mother, Beatrice Johnson. After half an hour of trying to force Maddie to eat her vegetables, Mama Johnson (as everyone calls her) finally managed to get some down her daughter's throat. "Now can I go play with Nicky, Mama? Please?" "Go, sugar. I'll catch up with yall later." But Maddie was already gone. "Maddie! I was starting to think you weren't coming." "I'll always come, my Nicky." she says matter-of-factly. "Come on, I need to show you something." a 7 year old Nick Carter whispers in Maddie's ear. They take each other by the hand, and Nick leads the way. "Wait... Close your eyes." he says as he stops suddenly. "Fine." He guides her carefully. "No peeking! No peeking!" he says, holding his hand over her eyes. "Fine, fine!" "Ok, you can open now." She opens her eyes quickly. "Oh, wow!" They are standing in the entrance to a cave. "This can be our really secret place!" he says excited. Maddie flings her arms around Nick, and he returns the hug. "Thank you." she whispers in his ear. He feels her tears on his shoulder as she gently sobbs. "I thought, since you've been sad. Sad because your dad... died. So I figured you might need something to be happy about." "Thank you." she says, wiping her tears from her eyes.

 POV: Nick (2010)

"Yeah, ma. Uh-huh. Yeah. Ok. Love you too. Bye." I say as I hang up the phone. "When are we scheduled to go to Tampa? My ma won't stop asking." I ask Brian. "I think we'll be there next week, after these last few shows in South Carolina. Then we get a month of vacation." "Okay. Good. I'm not sure how much more I could handle." "You know she means well." I roll my eyes. "Come on. We gotta go to rehearsal and Nick, I swear, if you start singing 'The Call' I'm gonna punch you." He knows me too well. "Ugh. You're no fun." I say pouting. "Don't worry, you're fun enough for the both of us." I lightly shove him, and go to the closet to grab my jacket. "Race ya to the car!" I yell. "Oh, you're on!" he yells running after me.

POV: Madeline (2010)

I walk past the old Tampa Bay dock, where Nick and I used to spend our days. "Hey, Maddie." calls Lenny, the fisher-trainee. "Hey, Len." I walk past the corner store, where I see a whole bunch of people looking at the TV's in the display case. I shove my way to the front, to see what all the commotion is about. Of course. I think to myself. The Backstreet Boys. I roll my eyes and walk away. I don't know what the big deal is. I knew Nick before he was famous, but nobody cares. They only like them for their looks, anyway. Not for who they are. I walk past the stores, past the houses, to the edge of town. The old cave from our childhood. It holds so many memories. I've been coming here everyday since Nick left. I guess I hope, maybe one day, he'll be here. Waiting. I walk over to the bookcase, which holds hundreds of notebooks and other scrapbooks of Nick and I. The notebooks are the record of our lives. Together. We started as soon as we could write, though the earlier issues are harder to read. After we had this cave, we moved the dozen we already had each to here. Nick said he wanted to make it into a movie, and I would be the star.