Prologue – Gotcha

August 25th, 2013 – Arkansas

The bottle cap popped off the tall glass bottle releasing a whoosh of pressure and leaving another mar in the wood grain of the table next to him.

Barely giving the blemish from the sharp edges of the cap a glance, he threw the disfigured bottle cap on top of the table and immediately lifted the bottle to his lips. Beer – it was what he needed to get through this atrocity that MTV called an awards show.

He had sat here for over an hour, waiting for it.

He had heard about the possibility of an NSYNC reunion from a coworker. The man had come into work moaning and groaning about how excited his 30-something wife was, and how lame it was. It had immediately piqued his interest.

He didn't let anybody know about his obsession. Around these parts of the South, he would likely be labeled a “sissy” or a “faggot” if anybody knew he followed NSYNC as closely as he did. He wouldn't call himself a fan. He didn't particularly like their music, and he sure as hell didn't like them for their looks like the girls did.

He only followed them because of her. Because he couldn't get past her, and how she had left him like she did.

It was all he had done for the past two months – follow them, and think of her, the whole time he watched what they were doing. It was only because she loved them so much.

So he had to watch tonight, in case it happened – wondering if she was doing the exact same thing right now, wherever she was.

He smiled when they came on stage, finally. He could imagine what was going through her mind right now, if she was watching.

But it was what he saw after they had finished their performance – as they cut the camera to the audience – that made him drop the bottle to the ground, the beer spilling on the carpet.

It was too quick and caught him too off-guard for him to tell for sure that it was actually her standing in the audience.

“Couldn't be,” he said to himself.

He was convinced that his mind had started playing tricks with him a few seconds after he saw it. After all, now that she was gone, he saw her everywhere – even when she wasn't there.

It was what he saw just after the whole performance had finished, that made him absolutely sure he was seeing it right.

The cameras cut to the men walking backstage after their performance – and the first thing he saw was the older blonde one, holding the hand of his smiling wife. Behind him, it was the oldest one – the one with the black-ish hair. The two of them looked at each other, smiling.

And then he saw her on his arm.

She was smiling – as if everything was right in her world, at that exact moment. And he could see why, especially when the dark-haired one leaned over and kissed her on the cheek for the camera.

“Well, look at that,” he said to himself. “Looks like she got herself a boyfriend.”

He went straight to his computer. The Twitter page was already up and logged in, because it was really the only thing he cared about these days. There was one of them that tweeted more than any of the rest of them, so he went to his page first – Lance Bass.

His profile picture showed exactly how proud of his new family he was – it was a picture of him and his son. And of course, he had already tweeted a picture of him and his wife, from backstage at the awards, looking the picture of perfection in her long purple gown with her blonde hair pulled back in an up-do.

“This woman made all the hard work from this week bearable. My @AddyB, such a beauty.”

He scrolled down by a few weeks until another picture caught his eye.

There she was, staring back at him – her hair a little blonder than before – standing next to the wife, each holding up a glass of wine.

“Night out with @AddyB and @melly82. Only girls I'll spend a girls night with! Eat your heart out @IamCKirkpatrick.”

Out of curiosity, he clicked on the link at the end of the tweet to bring up Chris's page. He smiled when the first thing he saw was the most recent tweet, from twenty minutes before.

“My knees hate me. But at least @melly82 loves me...and I love her.”

Seeing her a third time, in the picture that accompanied the post – Chris holding her close to him as he kissed her cheek and she ate up the attention for the camera – he was positive it was her.

He scrolled up to the top of the page, looking at Chris's profile information.

New York, NY.

“Gotcha,” he said to himself with a smile as he closed out the window.