"The past six years have been one big rollercoaster ride. A ride with never ending drops, climbs and sudden flips that would drive any one mad. Three platinum albums; a well-publicized romance and the biggest heartbreak; three sold-out world tours; and a diagnosis that brought the entire rollercoaster to a complete stop. After four years, I'm back. Join me on the new rollercoaster ride I'm on with the last six months before my album drops with promotional tours, photoshoots and all the writing, recording and awkward situations that I've always put myself into. Take a look into my personal life with my family, the crazy relationship I have with my brother Brian and the ... interesting collaborating relationship I have with my ex-romance and take a look into the fast-paced day-to-day process of that of a returning Pop Star. Hear my uncensored thoughts, my breakdowns, my exciting moments ... this is me, without limitations. This is raw, untouched. You think you know, but you have no idea. This is ... the Diary of Audrina Littrell."
She stood in the wings of TRL Studios, eyes casting away from the jumbo screen in the center of the stage that had just played a commercial of their show, Diary that she had just finished recording. Nerves were fluttering, heart pounding as she listened to Lyndsey Rodriques introduce her. This was it.
"Our next guest is making her comeback after four years away from the spotlight; having sold ninety million dollars and marketing another forty in merchandising and DVD sales alone. She sold-out three world tours and in 2004 began work on her own line of perfumes but abruptly pulled out and took personal time off. Known before as the baby sister of Brian Littrell, she definitely made her name stand out from his. Now, returning to the spotlight with a new album dropping next week and already a number one single for the last three weeks, everyone give a warm welcome to Audrina Littrell!"
She inhaled, releasing the air and hearing the first single from her new album blare from the speakers as she walked towards Lyndsey, a broad smile on her face. She had missed this.
"Hi, Audrina!"
"Hello, hello," she greeted, walking into Lyndsey's extended arms and hugging her tightly. "It's so nice to be here, I've missed this studio!"
"And we've all missed seeing you! How've you been? In good health these days? We know that you had taken personal time off to care for yourself ..."
She tucked a hair behind her ear, nodding. "I've been feeling pretty good lately; the adreneline is really keeping me feeling upbeat and very, very excited about all of this. Gotta take care of myself, and I'm definitely not overlooking any of that."
"Are you excited for your album to be released?"
"Excited, nervous, scared ... all these crazy emotions that I'm not quite sure where they came from. I'm so afraid people aren't going to accept me coming back and that I'm just going to be another object to be put on a shelf. I just hope people haven't forgotten me!"
Lyndsey smiled, gesturing towards the audience and towards the streets behind them. "I don't think you need to worry about being forgotten, Audrina: we had to have police calm down all your fans out there and we had to turn down everyone trying to come up because there was no room! Your single is number one, too - it's sold the most digitally and in stores than any single this year. I'd say you're making an amazing comeback."
"I hope so," she chuckled, watching as Lyndsey walked towards a fan who was crying. "Aww, honey ..." she followed Lyndsey, feeling the heart strings tug as she reached for the girl's hand and hugged her when she stood up. "I've missed you guys!"
"They've missed you, too," she laughed, the fan sitting down and putting a hand to her mouth in shock at what had just happened. "We actually have a clip coming up after this break involving Audrina and one of the most pivotal scenese I had ever seen in Diary history. So stay tuned!"
"So how are you feeling?"Audrina turned, seeing Lyndsey approach her with a sad smile. "I know all this excitement can really cause a world of difference on how someone feels, but at the end of the day ... and I know I probably shouldn't be asking, but that music is loud and I know they really can't hear me ..."
Audrina gave her a weak smile. "It's a good day. Been a good week, too. You have your ups and downs with everything though."
Lyndsey nodded. "The whole industry has been so excited you came back, Audrina; you were a positive influence on girls everywhere and everyone adored you. It was such a shock when you left."
"But now I'm back," she assured, "I'm not going to give it up easily. I just needed to take time to know how to take care of myself, how to treat the disease. I needed to have time to mend my heart. Emotionally and physically."
"We're on in 5, 4, 3, 2 ..."
Lyndsey turned, smiling at the camera. "And we're back with our special guest Audrina Littrell, who just returned from a four-year hiatus to release her new album, Resurrection, which has been getting rave reviews by the media and consumers alike from just the first single! You've collaborated with a lot of people on this album ..."
She nodded, in awe of how quickly her demeanor had changed as soon as the cameras rolled. If something went wrong, hopefully it did not, she prayed she'd be able to do the same. She wasn't meant to be an actress, though.
"It's not a shock that you worked with your brother, but the one that definitely had tongues wagging was the name that followed right after Brian's: JC Chasez. With the history, was it difficult to work with someone you had been in a relationship with before?"
"To be honest," she started, inhaling and exhaling quickly, her nerves were starting again, "at first, yes. For the first year after our break-up, we barely spoke. You take someone who you had been with from the time you were barely twenty one up until the time you were twenty six and it's an awkward situation to suddenly be working on such an intimate album with. But, he and I have been through so much together, after a few awkward moments, it was just as if we were back before we began dating when he was the little producer who liked to push my buttons because he knew I could do better than I had."
"It says he's featured on the album, did he have a song with you?"
She nodded. "Probably the most raw of the songs I have on the album. It was written after many glasses of wine and a lot of reminiscing. He and I both have a respect for each other that I don't think anyone could understand. We both love each other, after all that we've been through, it'd be ridiculous to say it wasn't true. He's been there for me when no one else has - when Brian wasn't able to be."
"Like when you were diagnosed."
"Yes," she nodded, blinking hard to keep the emotions at bay. "Brian was in Germany when I started getting sick and was wrapping up the last tour date when I was getting my tests done. He and JC were both there when I got my results. He was there when Brian had his third surgery to repair yet another hole and was there when they thought he wasn't going to make it through."
"But he did."
"He did. It was actually a year before all my problems began."
"Right now, we're going to go to our number six video from Justin Timberlake. After the video, we'll be getting a sneak peek at just what happened during the whole ordeal when Audrina shows footage exclusively for Diary from her own tapings."
"Audrina, you have a phone call!"
She turned her head, the executive producer holding out the phone for her. "What?"
"Your brother! But make it quick, okay? We've only got two minutes!"
She nodded, walking up and accepting the phone. "Brian?"
"Hey, kiddo," his voice said breezily, "I see you on tv. You doing okay?"
"Yeah, but how did you -"
"You'd think with your celebrity status you'd take advantage of it once in a while," he joked. "I was just seeing how you were doing. I know what's coming up. What's in the video, who is in the video -"
"Brian, JC and I are fine. We're friends. Maybe not the closest of friends, but we're okay."
"And the heart thing -"
"I have to talk about it sooner or later -"
"Don't divulge too much. Don't forget we do Oprah tomorrow."
"Which means you fly in tonight?"
"Don't tell me you forgot."
She sighed deeply. She had. "I'm sorry, Brian. Things have just been crazy and this medicine makes me forgetful sometimes ..."
"Just as long as you're taking it makes me feel a whole lot better," he said sadly. "I just don't understand ..."
"Thirty seconds, Audrina."
"Bri, I gotta go. They're coming back from the video. Call me when you land, okay?"
"I will. I love you."
"I love you too, Brian." She hung up, handing the phone back to the producer as she stepped back on the stage, smiling widely, though bothered by her brother's call. Though she wasn't sure why, his voice had been eerie. She hadn't seen him in four weeks, so maybe it was just him being tired from touring with the Boys, or chasing a five-year-old around. Maybe it was just him being tired all in all.
"And now, we have a featured clip from Diary, a clip of video that Audrina had allowed MTV to use in filming exclusively for this. Audrina, do you want to introduce this?"
She looked over at the screen, seeing the green screen with the stamp of 'Brand Spankin' New' in the middle. Why not? She was already airing her dirty laundry. Why not be the one who is caught hanging it? "Sure." She turned the camera, unable to force a smile to her face. "Here is a clip from my Diary special, featuring myself, my Cardiologist and my former boyfriend, JC Chasez. Enjoy."
"In 2004, right after I had begun my world tour and my album dropped, I began experiencing a lot of problems I had witnessed my brother go through: shortness of breath, fatigue, and palpitations. I had brushed it off, but when my sudden weight gain had made magazine covers stating that I was pregnant, my family grew alarmed. Brian himself had called me and told me to take care of myself, to get checked out and I put it off until the tour was over. That was when my entire life changed. On May 6, 2004, my tour ended. On May 18th, what had been my life had ended. The following clip is actually footage from a documentary that I had permitted Brian's close friend tape, though it never made the documentary because Brian himself found it too emotional for even him to discuss. The following is also a little graphic, so be forewarned."
The video cut to black for a few short moments, suddenly blurring back to another screen and focusing on Audrina lying on her left on the examination table, JC sitting by her side and holding her hand as a doctor listened to her heart numerous times, the stethoscope resting over her bare breast, though it was blurred out. It zoomed in as the doctor put a gel onto her chest, the lights dim as he switched on a monitor and the pulsing of her heart was heard, his words captioned beneath.
"There is definite irregularities. That 'swoosh swoosh' sound is your valve letting blood in and out almost as if it were gargling it like mouth wash, which it shouldn't be doing. I don't even need to do the other EKG or the MRI to know that this is what you have. Luckily, we caught it in time before it worsened. It is very rare for a woman your age to have this, Audrina; but with your family history, I am not surprised. Why it had not been caught before is beyond me. We're going to have to do some more tests and run a Transesophageal Echocardiagram, where we put a scope down your throat and get a picture and video of what we really have to work with ...."
"Simple things became a chore for me. Things that used to take no struggle were suddenly tiring me out quickly. I slept, I hid away from my family, my brother, my boyfriend. Heart disease to me was a death wish. Especially, for women. I was angry at my parents for having me, knowing that Brian's condition was congenital, angry at God, angry at myself for ignoring what had been me thinking I was overworking myself for a disease. Valvular Stenosis. A disease that is treatable, but in cases could lead to heart failure and possibly death if overlooked for too long. Had I overlooked it too long? Was my death sooner than I had wanted it to be?"
"I was given medications control my heartbeat. Antiarrhythmic medications. Mitral Valve had always given me an irregular heartbeat as a child, but I never suspected it to lead to more. It was more common than people understood, it followed closely by murmurs, but suddenly, a common condition was my execution."
The screen left an emotional looking Audrina to a past video of a wide-angled shot of the front of her house, her beloved Range Rover sitting in the arch of the driveway, Brian's blond head appearing on the screen, rummaging for keys in his hands as he approached the front door. The camera followed him as he went inside, hollering her name as he set his things down one by one as he walked: keys, carry-on bag filled with clothes he was going to have while he stayed with her, hooded sweatshirt. He toed off his shoes, leaving them too as he walked, hand gripping her banister and walking up the slightly curved staircase to the stairs.
The house was her pride and joy. It had originally been Jessica Simpson's bachelorette pad after her split with Nick Lachey, it a four bedroom, three bath abode that was more classic than modern, with large windows and open spaces that she had filled to make it feel more like home. It was her retreat away from the world, and retreat, she did.
"Rina? Come on, I know you're in there ..."
The camera settled on the two french doors of the master bedroom, Brian standing desperately in front of them. Within a few moments, the door opened slowly, Brian pushing it to open more to his liking as he took in the sight of his sister. He had been the first person she let see her after she found out, the only person for a few more days. The door closed behind him, and as the video faded out, her cries and his low, soothing sounds were the last things heard to the viewer.
Audrina turned away from the screen, fale pale as she relived the moments once more. It had been an emotional few weeks, the few weeks where she decided to put off her career to take care of herself. Though it was a hard decision to make, it was the best decision she had made.
She sat, curled on her couch with a blanket around her shoulders and a mug of hot tea nursed in her hands as she watched an old episode of 'Extreme Makeover: Home Edition'. The day had been exhausting, and as she sat in the back seat of her limo as it took her home, the calls of the ultra plush couch she had bought just for exhausted kind of occasion had been echoing in her ears since TRL had ended.
Of course, after TRL she had to take a trip down to Virgin Megastore with Lyndsey and sign a few hundred of her singles and take photos with the people who had camped out below TRL to catch even a glimpse of her.
She remembered feeling this way years ago as a fresh-faced twenty-two-year-old, but here she was, two years shy of thirty and she felt like she was sixty.
"Are you ready? Everyone say it with me! Bus driver, MOVE THAT BUS!"Everytime. Everytime she watched their reactions she became almost as emotional as the families that had gotten a new home were. And almost everytime, she ended up crying the rest of the episode. There wasn't an exception this time, either.
She wiped at her eyes frantically when she heard someone knock gently before opening the door, she muting the television as she heard her name being called softly, it echoing through the high ceilings of the foyer and into her ears. Her heart skipped a beat. It couldn't be.
Putting her mug down and pulling the blanket off, she got up and stepped lightly into the hall, the dimmed chandelier casting a barely there glow to the smiling face standing in the middle of the foyer. "JC?"
"Hey, darlin'," he said softly, eyes knitting in confusion as he saw the traces of tears on her face. "What's wrong? You okay? Brian? What happened?"
"Huh?" She froze as he motioned towards her eyes, she blushing slightly as she reached up and wiped the remnants of teardrops. "I was just watching Ty."
"I should have known," he laughed. "I swear you have every show TiVoed."
"I do."
"Well, come over and give me a proper hello, would you? I haven't seen you in nearly three months."
"That's cause we don't date anymore and my album is finished?"
"Oh, so that is what you called me for? To put my name to your record? I see how it is," he teased, turning on his heel as she protested, he laughing. "I came over to see you. Happened to catch the last bit of TRL and wanted to see how you're doing."
"You and Brian, I swear," she mumbled, motioning for him to follow her as she went back into the room, the show still playing in silent. She sat down, leaving the remote but grabbing her blanket and grabbing the tea once more as JC sat down opposite her on the couch. "I'm fine, Jace. You know if I were to be having problems you'd be second in line after my family to know."
"I know, I just ... I worry."
"Well, stop," she said, giving him a sad smile. "I'm twenty-eight if you remember correctly, JC. Not eight. I don't need people to hold my hand constantly."
"But sometimes, it's nice."
"I'll give you that."
"You know what else you can give me?"
She looked over at JC with a raised eyebrow. "You know, some men just don't change."
He laughed, shaking his head. "No, no, no! I meant, I'd like a hug. I haven't gotten one from you yet."
She sipped her tea, setting the mug down and leaning over, her body weight against his as he hugged her tightly. "I did miss you."
"I missed you too, Rina," he said softly, kissing the top of her head and tightening his grip around her. It felt good to hold her again, even after the small absence of her not being around, the environment was always different when she was there. It had been a scary last two years with her when she was diagnosed, and he had never taken another hug or kiss for granted. He still didn't.
"Are you going to stay for a while? Brian should be getting in from his flight in about an hour."
"Maybe for a little bit longer," he replied, "I don't want to cut in on brother-sister time."
"You're always welcome here, JC," she said softly. "Really."
"I know," he nodded, "and I appreciate that. But I know you haven't seen him in a while so I'd be like a third wheel while you two play catch up." She had released her grip around his neck from the hug, but her head was still resting on his shoulder, though he wasn't really complaining. The family on the television were hugging, too, tears of happiness falling down their faces. They had been granted their one wish.
He closed his eyes, letting the faint scent of her apple body spray linger in his nose as he remembered back then, when all he did was wish for her to be healthy. So far, his wish was holding steady, no major problems occurring. So far. She shifted her weight and sat back down, head resting on the back of the couch cushion as he studied her face. "So how do you feel?"
"Tired," she said softly, shrugging. "But it's a side affect of the medication, too. I've had a long day, so I'm sure that's adding up to it. But it's good to see a familiar face in the midst of all the strangeness of today."
"I'm glad I could be the familiar face," he smiled as she reached forward, cupping the side of his cheek and rubbing his skin gently with her thumb. "I'm surprised you aren't napping."
"I've got after death to nap."
His heart skipped a beat, the familiar dropping feeling in his chest once more at the mention of death coming from her. "Audrina -"
"Life is not meant to be wasted by sleep, Jace. I didn't mean it like that -"
"But it is ten o'clock. You could call it an early night," he said softly, heart still pounding. Suddenly, death scared him shitless.
"I'll just lie here," she said softly, hiding a yawn behind her hands as she spoke to him. "Can I use your leg as a pillow?"
He laughed. "Of course. Your bony head was missed by my thigh."
"I don't have a bony head," she mumbled, barely giving him a fight with that line, "you've just got toothpicks for legs." She lay her head down, pulling the blanket up to her shoulder as she lie on her side, watching the beginnings of another show. "Thank you for coming to see me."
He put his hand to the blonde hairs that were falling on his legs, running his fingers gently through her hair was he felt her sigh deeply. "Anytime, Rine; anytime." He continued stroking her hair, her breathing slowly becoming deep and even, signalling that she had fallen asleep. He knew it would happen, she wasn't one to fight sleep very hard.
Covering her with the blanket a little more, he leaned forward, grabbing the remote and lowering the volume, unmuting it so that the voices were low, barely heard, though he could understand. It was then that he made a promise to himself: the relationship that he and Audrina had was purely work-related now. He didn't care what he had to do, what he had to prove, but he'd ease his way into her life again, he'd be the one to take care of her if she needed it. Suddenly, he wanted to be near her at all times. He wasn't going to lose her.
