The Story of Us (Book 1 of "The Story of Us" Series) [Completed]

Chapter 41 - This Is Us

[September 2009]

This is looking like a contest,
Of who can act like they care less,
But I liked it better when you were on my side.
The battle's in your hands now,
But I would lay my armor down
If you say you'd rather love than fight.
So many things that you wished I knew,
But the story of us might be ending soon...

Harley held her hands out, singing to the television audience crowd. Suddenly she went back to playing her guitar to sing the last verse of the song.

Now I'm standing alone in a crowded room and we're not speaking,
And I'm dying to know is it killing you like it's killing me, yeah.
I don't know what to say, it's a twist of fate when it all broke down,
And the story of us looks a lot like a tragedy now, now, now.
And we're not speaking,
And I'm dying to know is it killing you like it's killing me, yeah.
I don't know what to say, it's a twist of fate 'cause we're going down,
And the story of us looks a lot like a tragedy now.

Harley took her guitar off, handing it to one of her band members as she walked off the performing stage. The audience continued to stand and applaud as Harley walked over, hugging Oprah Winfrey. From the moment she started singing, she had always wanted to be on Oprah because her mother was such a huge fan.

Finally, she was getting her wish.

"Sit down, sit down," Oprah said as Harley sat down on the loveseat next to Oprah's chair. The audience died down and Harley took a deep breath, looking at Oprah. She was nervous. After being out of the spotlight for over three years, she was back. "So," Oprah said as she smiled, looking at Harley. "Before your performance, the audience and I watched a long video that our staff put together with you and Nick Carter talking about some of the things in your past that's going to be part of the DVD that comes with your new album."

"Yeah, I watched that backstage before the performance," Harley smiled. "I'm not going to lie... it was a little nerve-racking knowing that people are going to watch that and have watched it. Until Nick and I talked about everything, I honestly forgot a lot of the small stuff."

"But your new album is a lot more personal than your last albums," Oprah said as Harley nodded. "Tell us about that."

"Well," Harley said, tucking her long dark hair behind her ears. She looked down at the black leggings that she was wearing under a sparkly black top and then looked back at Oprah. "Well, Nick and I made the album completely together. It's a three-disc set. One disc has some of my older songs on there. The second disc has all the new songs and the DVD has some appearances, home videos, videos we shot while recording and the making of my latest video. There's also a part where we talk about our story, which is where some of those video clips came from."

"And the album, you named it after the song you just performed..."

"Right, 'The Story of Us,'" Harley smiled. "It's basically the story of my best friend and me through music and we made it together."

"Let's go ahead and bring that best friend out now," Oprah said as she and Harley stood up. "Nick Carter, come on out!" she yelled as the audience began screaming. Nick walked out, more slender than he had been and kissed Oprah. He gave Harley a quick kiss on the cheek and sat down next to her. "So Nick, since Harley says this album is the story of your relationship and friendship, what was your first impression of her?"

"Like I said in that video we watched, I met her on a red carpet at the MTV Awards," Nick said, looking over at Harley. "I had no idea who she was, but Brian, one of my Backstreet Boys group members, he did. I thought she was kind of cocky at first, but later that night, we met and I thought she was pretty cool."

"Harley, what about you?" Oprah asked as Harley started to laugh and looked at Nick. "Were you a Backstreet Boys fan?" Harley nodded and Nick raised an eyebrow.

"I was actually a Nick girl believe it or not," Harley said as Nick looked at her in shock. She started laughing and looked at Oprah. "I'd never told him that. I used to have his poster on the closet door in my bedroom. I used to watch this video for the fans that they release with the making of 'As Long As You Love Me' and 'Everybody' all the time. I was such a Nick girl."

"Are you serious?" Nick asked, causing the audience to laugh. "I had no idea."

"Yeah, sorry I never told you that," she smiled, causing Oprah to laugh. "I wasn't a crazy fan or anything. I never saw you guys in concert until after we met and I promise I didn't bump into you on that red carpet on purpose."

"And that was 11 years ago," Oprah said as Harley nodded.

"It was 11 years ago last week," Harley smiled. "We've been through a lot since then and that's usually where I get the inspiration for my music. That's why the album is basically our story... kind of a journey through our relationship... our ups and downs. The first disc is all of the songs that I've recorded in the past that are about us... from 'Enchanted' to 'Better than Revenge' to 'Kiss You on the Mouth.' The album is completely about us."

"How do you think the other has changed in the past 11 years?" Oprah asked as Nick and Harley looked at one another.

"Nick has matured a lot," Harley said as Nick smiled. "He takes things more seriously now and doesn't get as freaked out when something serious comes up. I think that's the main thing that's changed with him... his maturity. He's more confident in himself, whether it's writing, singing or performing. If you watch old clips of him from 11 years ago to him performing over in London last week, he's more confident. He's a lot more driven now. When he sets his mind into wanting something, he gets it, trust me. I don't think people realize how talented he really is. I don't think I realized that until we started making this album together."

"What about Harley, Nick?" Oprah asked.

"She's matured a lot, too," he said as Harley looked down at her hands. "She's really grown into her own as a performer because when she first started, she thought she had to be a certain way, show skin, be sexy and now she realizes she can be sexy and play the guitar and do what she wants. Like she said about me, she's more confident now. She's less of a diva than she was when she was younger, too," he said as Harley rolled her eyes. "Plus, her hair color has changed," he said as Harley started to laugh. "I like her better as a brunette. I guess the only things about her that hasn't changed over the years is the fact that she still wants her fairy tale happy ending and she's not afraid to voice her opinion."

"Probably the biggest 'down' in your relationship together is the whole Paris Hilton situation," Oprah said as Nick looked at Harley and she looked back at him. "Harley, you ended up writing a song that turned into a huge hit about that. Why did you decide to take out your frustration in a song?"

"It's just what I always did. I mean, most of my biggest hits, in fact all of them I think, have been about my relationship with Nick," Harley shrugged. "I'm not afraid to say that I never liked Paris and I still don't like her, so when she basically stole my boyfriend away from me, I wanted to get even. I wanted the last word and I got it when she claimed that Nick abused her when their relationship ended."

"Nick, what did you think about the song?" Oprah asked as Nick started to laugh a little.

"At the time, I was mad," he said, shaking his head. "I admit, that whole thing was the worst mistake of my life, but now looking back on the song... it's genius. Who would have thought to rhyme heiress with mattress? Only Harley would. A lot of people were tired of Paris and her fame at that point and so Harley's frustrations were a lot of people's frustrations. Trust me, my fans were as mad at me as Harley was back then."

"So, how did you two come back to talking after that whole experience?" Oprah asked as Harley shrugged.

"We saw one another in London after his relationship with Paris was over and talked. Then we didn't see or talk for a few months until he had heard I got sick and he texted me. I asked him to come over and he ended up spending Christmas with my father and me," she said, looking at Nick. "Nick was always more than just a boyfriend. He was the only best friend I had ever known so we decided we needed that back at that point."

"Is this when you were engaged to Ashton Kutcher?" Oprah asked as Harley looked down at her hands. "Nick, how did you feel about that?"

"Funny enough, I kind of came back into the picture the day that Ashton left it," Nick said as Harley looked at him and smiled. "I just wanted her to be happy and to have the whole fairy tale thing she's always dreamed about having. I liked Ashton, but yeah, I knew he couldn't give her that."

"I just think it's amazing that you two are still so young, 29 and Harley, you're about to be 28, right?" Oprah asked as Harley nodded. "You're so young, yet you have all of this history together." Oprah turned to look at the camera. "When we come back, Harley and Nick will discuss a shocking confession for the first time that no one except those closest to them know."

Harley sighed, looking at Nick as the show went to commercial. "Nick, I don't know if I can talk about it."

"We don't have to if you don't want to," Nick said as he looked at Oprah. "Right?"

"Right," Oprah said. "The show isn't live so we can just redo that whole commercial lead-in, but people are going to find out because you talked about it on the DVD that comes with your album. We don't want to talk long about it, just a minute or two."

"Okay," Harley sighed as Nick reached over, holding onto her hand as the show came back from commercial.

"Every celebrity couple has their ups and downs and their moments where the world sees them as just normal, everyday people. Nick and Harley have experienced that and have a secret that they are finally ready to talk about," she said, looking back at Nick and Harley. "Nick, you've always been pretty private about your personal life. Why did you guys decide now was the time to talk about what happened with you?"

"Well, it's a part of our story and we couldn't leave it out," he said as he looked at Harley.

"And what happened that nobody knows about?" she asked as Harley looked at Nick, wondering who was going to say it first.

"We had a baby together," Nick said as the audience gasped a little. "It was when Harley cancelled her European tour for her last album in 2006 and there were rumors that she was sick and in a way, she was sick."

"My high blood pressure problems began acting up again and to make a long story short, it caused me to have an emergency surgery and we lost the baby," she said, looking down at her lap.

"Nick, this is during the time that you were in rehab, right?" Oprah asked as Nick nodded. "So you weren't there?" He shook his head and looked at Harley, knowing that she was about to get upset.

"The good thing that came out of that is in around about way, I found out that I had my own health problems," Nick said as Harley looked at him and smiled. "I found out that the muscles in my heart were crapping out on me so I pretty much changed my lifestyle all together. I stopped drinking, started working out and lost some weight and it brought Harley and I a lot closer. It led to us working on this album together."

"How is your health problems now?" Oprah asked.

"A lot better," Nick smiled. "If it weren't for Harley, I might be dead right now because I was seriously killing myself. She talked me into going to the doctor to find out what was wrong and why I kept having chest pains."

"Harley, how are your health problems now?" Oprah asked.

"Better, it's under control," she smiled.

"So with the baby, is that why the long absence in between albums?" Oprah asked as Harley nodded.

"Yeah, I just needed time to regroup and for a time after Ella, that's what we named the baby, after she died and Nick got out of rehab, we didn't talk until we saw one another randomly on my birthday in Los Angeles and I talked him into going to the doctor. Then we kind of fell back into the best friend's mode and I wanted to base my next album around us. I wanted him to work with me on it, so between him working on the Backstreet Boys album and touring for it, we did this in his spare time. That's why it took so long. Plus, I just needed to take time for myself."

"When we toured for our last album, 'Unbreakable,' Harley came out on the road with us, even overseas for us to work on some songs together for the album when I could and she even came out on stage a few times to sing with us," Nick said as Harley smiled. "It was a long process but it brought us closer than we probably ever have been."

"And we have another announcement to share today, too. What's that?" Oprah asked.

"After 11 years of trying to get it going, the Backstreet Boys and Harley Harper are finally going to do a joint tour together," Nick smiled. "It kicks off in January overseas and then comes here in the summer because our next album, 'This Is Us' comes out next month here in the States."

"'The Story of Us' and 'This is Us', was the titles on purpose?" Oprah asked with a smile.

"Kind of," Harley said. "It was one of his bandmates, AJ McLean, it was his idea to name their album after a song that Nick and AJ wrote about Nick and I."

"It's funny because the song is a guy singing about the other guy who has caused the girl so much trouble, yet, in reality, I'm that guy... it's just the old me," Nick said as he laughed. "Kind of like me having split personalities or something."

"You two actually wrote a lot of songs together on Harley's new album, right?" Oprah asked as they both nodded.

"On the disc with the new songs, we ended up writing six together, I wrote five alone and then we recorded a duet of a Bryan Adam's song," Harley smiled. "Then on their album, I ended up co-writing this crazy song called "PDA," which means public display of affection with Nick and AJ. It was kind of a joke at first but then it actually turned out to be a pretty good song."

"And the songs are about you two and your relationship?" Oprah asked as Harley nodded. The back of "The Story of Us" CD came onto the screen, showing a list of the older songs that Harley had written on Disc One and a list of the new songs on Disc Two. "Why don't you tell us about the songs, the new songs that you guys did together?"

"Well, the first song is the song that I just performed, 'The Story of Us'," Harley said, looking up at the screen. "I began writing it years ago while Nick and I were apart after an experience at an awards show."

"The second song, 'I Never Told You,' is a song Harley wrote that I found in her lyrics notebook that she had written after we lost the baby," Nick said, looking at the screen. "Then the third song, 'You're Still Beautiful To Me,' it's an old Bryan Adam's song and it's our duet together on the album."

"What made you two decide to finally do a duet together after 11 years?" Oprah asked. "Why didn't you before?"

"I honestly don't know," Harley said, looking at Nick.

"It was just never the right time and Harley was always dead set against recording anybody else's music until I mentioned this song, which she loved and it just fit," Nick smiled. "I think the song, 'You're Still Beautiful to Me,' fits us because after everything we've been through, we're still friends, best friends and to me, she's more beautiful today than she was at 16 years old, wearing these skimpy suits."

"Yeah, but deep down you liked those outfits," Harley said as Nick laughed.

"Not for every guy in the world to lust after though," he said as Oprah started to laugh.

"What about the other songs, tell us about those," Oprah said.

"The next song, 'Boy Like Me,' is kind of, well it's a country song, about how I finally met a guy that is basically the male version of me," Harley said, looking at Nick. "Which is basically what Nick is, me, except without the boobs and long hair."

"The next song is one that I mostly wrote, "Begin Again," but Harley helped me a little on it," Nick said. "The rest of the songs are mostly hers, but I helped some."

"Yeah, 'White Horse,' kind of goes back to me wanting to live in a fairy tale," Harley said, looking at the screen. "Then, 'We Were Happy,' is a song that I had mostly written at one of times that Nick and I were apart and he helped me finish it. That's basically what all of the songs are, like 'Love Letters,' is basically a song about how we used to text one another all the time. 'Tuesday Morning,' well, it's kind of personal and I don't want to give anything away. I guess the song just speaks for itself. All the songs on the CD just tells our story."

"So, now that your story is going to be out there for everybody to know, where does that leave the two of you now? Are you still just best friends or have you developed into something more? The gossip magazines and websites are saying it's more than just best friends now," Oprah said as Nick looked at Harley. "Are you back together romantically or just best friends?"