| Love is a Funny Thing |
| Have you ever been in love? Truly in love? The kind of love that causes you to have sleepless nights, losing your appetite, makes you day dream nearly 24/7? Have you? Well than you know what I was and am feeling at the moment. Sorry, I�ll introduce myself. My name is Nicky, Nicky Byrne. Yes, the Nicky Byrne. The songwriter. Years ago I confided in my diary the way that I�m confiding in you at the moment. I hope you don�t mind. Well back to love. Years ago I fell in love. And I fell hard and deep. I never knew that I was in love until disaster struck. Ok I like to exaggerate. It wasn�t really disaster, it was the flu. But suddenly it hit me hard. I could lose the person lying in bed. And I realized that I didn�t want that. I wanted to be happy. I have no idea how long these feelings have been slumbering waiting to rise to the surface. But they were there and there was nothing I could do about it. Well there is something of course. I could tell that person that I was in love. But that�s the catch. See I�m talking about one of my band mates. Did I just hear you gasp? Yes I fell in love with another man. That�s nothing new to me. I�m gay and I�ve known for a long time. What about Georgina I can hear you think. Well Georgina is the best friend any person could have. She covered for me. And she didn�t even mind doing it. She helped me out some situations that could have meant the end of my career before it even started. Ok where was I? Right I fell in love. Suddenly my feelings of friendship that were there for years changed into feelings of love. And all because he was lying in that bed with a high fever and a cough than went straight through me. Sometimes I wonder what had happened if he didn�t catch that nasty virus. Would I still have realized that I love him or would the feelings slowly pass without me knowing� Falling in love was the easiest part. Now I had to reveal a secret that I�ve kept for years. Something even my best friend didn�t know. No, let me correct that. Georgina is my best friend and she knew. My best friend in the band had no idea. So one night after dinner I stood up and dropped the bomb. I knew that they wouldn�t be disgusted about the fact that I was gay. We had loads of gay men as fans. But the fact that I never told them before kinda did it. I of course only told them that I was gay. I didn�t tell them that I had fallen in love with one of them. But they yelled and they were very pissed off. Bryan didn�t speak to me for 3 days. And with Bryan you can be sure that those days are very long. In the end he came round. We hugged and things were ok again. Till that fatal day. I�m very well known for my fobias. I basically have one for each occasions. That�s a Kian quote btw. Anyway I can�t stand people picking their finger nails, let alone their toe nails. We were all sitting in the dressing room waiting for our cue to go on. Suddenly Mark starts to pick on his fingers nails. The poor lad was just nervous. Shane saw me cringe and decided to have a go. He took off his socks and started to do his toe nails. His grin couldn�t have been any bigger. I lost it. I just lost it. Call it nerves or what ever you like but I had a massive go at them. I called them every name in the book. I think that I went on for at least five minutes. When I finally calmed down again and looked around I saw that everyone except Shane had left. He sat on the couch and looked at me with raised eyebrows. He asked me what was wrong. I think that his exact words were: � what crawled up your ass and died?� I couldn�t utter a word. I couldn�t just say that I was in with him and that I had no idea how deal with those feelings or how to control them , could I? Well I could. I blurted it out. I�ve never seen anyone so shocked in my life before. His mouth slowly fell open and his eyes were wide. He gasped for air and mumbled a few incoherent words. I saw him rise from the couch in slow motion. I tried to stop him but he was out the before I knew it. That night we performed a show without Shane. He was gone and I was to blame. I took that guilt and carried it with me for a few days. Faith gave us a few days off and Shane didn�t contacted any of us for those days. Not that I expected him to do so. But Kian or Mark was a likely option. I spent those four days with Bryan. He knew that something was wrong. And confronted me. He said that he knew that I had something to do with Shane leaving. And for the second time in a short period I lost it again. But this time I broke down. I started to cry. Something I had never done in front of Bryan. I told him everything. From the day that I knew I was gay till the moment I told Shane that I was in love with him. I cried and I cried. Bryan did his best to comfort me but he didn�t manage to. I cried myself to sleep knowing that I had to face Shane again the next day. We had an appointment with Louis, Ronan and Anto the next day. We were going to discuss the new upcoming tour. Shane was already there. He was talking to Ronan and it seemed very serious. They didn�t even look up when we entered. Louis welcomed us all and we talked about the tour. The meeting was nearly over when Shane rose to his feet and cleared his throat. This was it. He was leaving the band. I made him leave. But his words shocked me the most. He looked at me and said. �One date, you and me. If it works out it works out and if it doesn�t than at least we have a close friendship.� I think that Bryan closed my mouth 10 minutes later. I couldn�t believe my ears. I looked at Ronan and he nodded. Louis and Anto looked at me with blank expressions on their faces. As if two members of their successful boy band always went out on dates. Mark and Kian were beaming. Shane must have had some contact with them the last few days. In the end I looked at Shane. He stared right at me. Or should I say through me with that look in his eyes. He impatiently tapped his fingers on the table. I barely nodded. Shane said that he would pick me up at seven and he left the room. Mark and Kian started laughing as Bryan handed them both some money. I should have known that they would bet on things like this. Ronan slapped me on my shoulder and wished me good luck. And I was alone with Louis and Anto. I stared at them. Anto shrugged and looked at Louis. He gathered his papers and muttered something about not getting caught or the tabloids would have a field day. I can still remember that date as if it only happened yesterday. The scent of his after shave, the clothes he was wearing, where he took me too. That�s CK one, a red turtle neck sweater and simple gray pants and a small Italian restaurant for the nosy ones among you. We talked about life on the road, our families. Small talk really. We both avoided the subject we longed to talk about. Shane was the first. He started to tell me about the first time he realized that he loved both men and women. He told his parents when he was just a teenager. They were shocked but understanding. He also told me that he wasn�t in love with me, yet. Oh that little word yet. That means that there was an option� that he could fall in love. My story was a little bit shorter. My parents didn�t know. Just Georgina. Our date ended in the lobby. Bryan called Shane from the bar and he just left without saying goodbye. A not so perfect ending to a perfect date. Not that I had expected a kiss or anything. But a few words of good bye or a thank you would have been nice. I slowly made my way upstairs and again cried myself to sleep. Or at least I tried to. I tossed and turned. I couldn�t sleep. My pillow was wet and I didn�t have a spare one. At times like that I wished that I had Mark�s ability to sleep whenever he wants. I decided to go for a long walk. I opened the door. And guess what? Shane was sitting in front of my door. I called him in and we sat down on the couch. He apologized for leaving so suddenly. He didn�t know what to say or do. To make a long story just a little bit longer. We kissed. We kissed and never stopped. Expect to breath. Or at least it felt like we never stopped. Dawn came too early that day. We had so much to talk about, so much to discover. We nearly missed our flight to Paris. We talked all day. We had been friends for years and yet there was so much we never really talked about. It was hard to go to my own room that night. I had spent the whole day with him and I wasn�t ready to let him go for the night. But if I didn�t take things slow� Anyway a few weeks later Shane finally told me that he had indeed fallen in love with me. If any of you were in America, Dallas to be exactly and you heard this scream down the hall of the 16th floor of the Dallas Intercontinental. That was me. Sorry. I was so happy. No I was in heaven. This was the best thing that ever happened to me. Although Shane did add a catch. He told me that I had to tell my parents if I wanted us to be together. I objected at first but he had made up his mind. One thing that I learned about Shane was that if he has his mind set on a thing you don�t have the slightest chance of changing his mind. And as I really wanted Shane, I did what he asked me to. I told my parents. Had I known that they would react this way I would have told them years ago. My mother said that it didn�t matter who I loved as long as my love was returned in the same way. Oh mum, he loved me so much So now you know how we got together. I know that you still have a few questions. Like why tell us now. What happened to the band? What are we doing now? Why tell you all now? Well, Shane and I have treasured this love for years. We never lied in interviews. When asked if there was someone we loved we always answered that there was this special person in our lives. Luckily a good friend helped us out by telling us a few answers to difficult questions. We both feel that the time is right to share our love with the rest of the world. To let you all know that we are indeed still very much in love. And Maggie is going to school. Which brings me to the next question. Maggie? Maggie is our daughter. Technically she is only mine but she doesn�t know any better than that Shane is her dad too. You don�t need to think very hard about who her mum could be. Like I said before Georgina is the best friend anyone could have. Shane and I both love kids and we didn�t want to adopt. It was a hard decision to ask Georgina to be the mother of our child but she only asked us what took us so long to ask her. Maggie is four years old now and it�s time for her to go to school. We did educate her at home. She can already play the piano. Don�t look at me. That�s was all Kian�s doing. We don�t want her to think that we are hiding. We want her to have a carefree childhood. I love her. Shane loves her. The band. Westlife, the best time of my life. Without Westlife I would have never met Shane. It�s fairly simple what happened to us. We all wanted to do different things. Those sabbatical six months turned into a year. That year turned into 2 years and we just moved on. We all did the things we wanted. Shane and I wanted to spend some time together. Just him and me. Kian wanted to work on some songs he had written. He never stopped. Bryan, well most of you have all his successful solo albums. And Mark. Bless him, he is the best babysitter. Mark just stayed the same. He did a solo album and I think he just picked up his fourth Oscar for that new movie he did. I�ve seen bits of his newest movie. I can�t wait to see the full version. Shane and I spent some time together. We took a long holiday and traveled the world. We finally got to see those places we always wanted to see. When we came back we moved into a house in Dublin. Shane built his recording studio and I started to write songs. It amazed me that no one ever realized that I was the one who wrote all the songs for Shane. He moved from pop songs to musicals. He wrote the music and I did the lyrics. Shane Byrne was the best duo in the world. See it was so obvious. Shane Byrne. But than again... take a good look at the Dublin Directories. We Byrne people love Dublin. Well It�s time that I end this confession. Turn on your TV tomorrow morning. Shane and I will be on that new breakfast show. Our story will be in all the newspapers. We�ve decided to come out. It�s been 10 years since that day that I told Shane that I loved him. We got married two weeks ago. Just the family was there. Shane, Maggie, Georgina and me. Love is a funny thing. You can�t control it and you may fall in love with a person that is least expected. But still without love I wouldn�t be this happy� Signed Nicky Byrne-Filan |