Chapter 32
As soon as
she pushed the door open, Claire was blasted with heat. “Ugh,” she groaned, shielding her eyes
against the blinding afternoon sunlight as she strode quickly across the
parking lot. Even in tennis shoes, she
could feel the heat rising from the pavement beneath her feet, and the humid
air was practically suffocating.
“Nothing like a June day in Florida,” she muttered to herself as she
climbed into her car, leaving the door open while she quickly stuck the key
into the ignition and turned the air conditioning on full-blast. She shifted uncomfortably on the hot seat as
she waited for the car to cool down. At
least the a/c in this old junker still works, she thought with relief,
holding her hand over one of the vents to feel the refreshing rush of cool air.
When the
interior of the car was tolerable, she shut her door and buckled her seatbelt,
shifting the car into gear. She cranked
up the radio before backing out of her parking space, trying to brighten her
mood. It’s Friday, she told
herself, tapping her fingers against the wheel in time to the music blaring
from her speakers. Be happy.
Easier said
than done. As she turned the car in the
direction of home – Nick’s home, that was – she was anything but happy. It had been one of those days at work: difficult children who refused to open their
mouths; patients who appeared to have not brushed their teeth in years, let
alone flossed; not to mention Tim and Laureen’s constant flirting all day long
– in the break room, up and down the hall, at the clock behind the front
desk. It had only taken a week after she
had speculated about them hooking up for the inevitable to happen. Laureen had pulled her aside Thursday
afternoon on her way out and, beaming, told her the “good” news – Tim had asked
her out on a date for the following night.
Big surprise. Claire had wished
her well, and apparently, things had gone well, for now, two weeks later, they
were still at it – the flirting, the shared smiles, suave lines from Tim, and
giggling from Laureen. As likeable as
Laureen was – and Tim was not a bad guy either – Claire found the whole thing
slightly nauseating. I hope we
didn’t act that way, she found herself thinking every time she saw Tim,
trying to remember if she’d gone through that giddy phase at the beginning of
their short relationship.
Needless to
say, when two o’clock finally rolled around, Claire was ready to get away from
the office. If only she felt like going
home…
As much as
she hated to admit it to herself, there had been many days in the past two
weeks when she had not wanted to go home.
The first few days after she’d moved in with Nick, she had raced back to
his house after work, looking forward to a relaxing evening at home with
him. What she had not been looking
forward to, nor expecting, was spending night after night with a pouty, pitiful
version of her boyfriend.
Nick, to
say the least, had had a rough three weeks.
Sunday, the
day she’d brought him home from the hospital, had been fine. He’d pleasantly helped her unpack the rest of
her boxes and get things put away, and they’d both had a nice visit with Howie,
who had stopped by on his way back to Orlando that afternoon. That night, he’d braved the staircase on his
crutches, and they slept upstairs in his king size bed, purple sheets and all.
Sunday, it
seemed, had been the calm before the storm.
She’d come
home from work Monday afternoon to find him in a downright foul mood. “What’s wrong?” she’d asked cautiously, when
she’d found him sitting on the floor of is den, directly in front of his big
screen TV, playing Playstation. He
hadn’t even looked at her when she’d walked in, let alone say hello. “Nick?”
“Shitty
day,” he’d mumbled finally, without tearing his eyes away from the TV.
“Why
shitty? What happened?”
Neither “a
lot,” nor “nothing” would have sufficed as an answer, for, as she found out, it
had been a combination of both. He’d
about killed himself that morning, slipping and almost falling in the shower
upstairs, which did not have handles on the wall like the ones that had been
installed in the shower downstairs.
According to him, that had been the most interesting part of his
day. He went on to complain – about
going up and down the stairs on crutches, about how there was no food in the
house, about how there was nothing to do and how he’d been bored all day.
The rest of
her afternoon and evening were hectic – she’d gotten groceries, changed the
sheets on the bed downstairs so that they could sleep there as long as he was
still on crutches, and called about having a safety handle put in the shower
upstairs. By the time all that was done,
she was exhausted. So much for a
relaxing evening.
The rest of
the week – and the two weeks after that – had not been much better. Nick was frustrated and angry and taking it
out on her, as she was the only one around.
He refused to leave the house as long as he could not wear his
artificial leg, and so naturally, he was bored, and the boredom made him moody,
and his moodiness made him completely unpleasant to be around. Sometimes she tried to cheer him up, and
sometimes she succeeded. Other times,
there was nothing she could say or do to bring him out of the storm cloud he
seemed to be living in, and sometimes she didn’t even feel like trying.
That
afternoon felt like it was going to be one of those times. She parked her car in the drive and hurried
up the walkway to the front door, anxious to get out of the heat and into the
house. The air-conditioning would make
it seem welcoming, even if Nick wouldn’t.
She unlocked the door and walked inside, quickly pushing it closed
behind her. “I’m home!” she called
automatically, as she strode through the library and stuck her head into the
living room. No Nick. She wandered through the other rooms
downstairs, looking for him, and finally found him slumped in his bed, staring
glassy-eyed at the TV.
“Hey,” she
said simply, offering him a tight smile.
“Hey,” he
replied, glancing up at her only briefly.
“How was work?”
“Eh,” she
shrugged, knowing that response was enough to say it all. He was used to hearing the horror stories
that came from days like this. “How was
your day?”
“Eh,” he
mimicked her. No surprise there.
She came
further into the room and perched on the edge of the bed. “So,” she said, finding his foot beneath the
pulled-up covers and giving it a pat, “not-so-great days for both of us,
huh? We should make up for it by having
a great night tonight.”
He finally
looked at her, giving her a crooked smile.
“What do you wanna do?”
“I dunno…
maybe go out?” she asked, raising her eyebrows hopefully.
Immediately,
he shook his head, just as she knew he would.
“No.”
She
couldn’t help but sigh. “Nick… don’t you
want to go out? You’ve been cooped up in
this house for weeks!” The only times
she could remember him going out in public were for doctor’s appointments – a
follow-up for the infected ulcer, and his regular check-up with Dr.
Kingsbury. Both appointments had gone
well. The antibiotics he’d been taking
had done their job, and his infection was gone by now, although the ulcer was
still healing, making it impossible for him to wear his prosthesis yet. There had been no unpleasant surprises in the
oncology clinic either – all his tests had come out normal, and he was still in
remission.
“Yeah, and
do you think I’ve enjoyed that? That I
wanted to spend the entire month of June this way?” he retorted sarcastically.
“No one’s making
you stay at home, Nick,” she argued. “If
you don’t want to spend all your time at home, then don’t! Let’s go out and do something tonight.”
“I don’t
want to go out like this,” he grumbled, looking away.
“Well, not
like that.” He looked like he
hadn’t even showered that morning; his hair was disheveled and greasy-looking,
and he was dressed in a rumpled, ratty old t-shirt. She was willing to bet he was only in his
boxers beneath the covers, just the way he slept. She wondered if he’d gotten out of bed at all
that day, other than to use the bathroom and raid the kitchen. “You’d have to get dressed and comb your hair
first.”
He shook
his head, his face contorting into an expression of pure irritation. “Damn it, Claire, don’t play dumb. You know what I mean.”
“You mean
without your fake leg? Is that
what you mean? Because I think that’s
ridiculous. You can get around fine on
crutches, and if you’re worried about what people will think… well… don’t be!”
He looked
down, and she followed his eyes to the space on the left side of the bed, where
his missing leg would have extended. She
waited silently for him to look back up, to say something. When he finally lifted his chin, she saw that
his cheeks were slightly red, and she could barely make out his words when he
mumbled quietly, “It’s not that easy.”
“I know
it’s not easy,” she replied, softening her voice. “But you have to get over this, Nick. You have to learn to go out in public and be
confident in yourself, whether you’re wearing your leg or not. Do you really think it matters that much
whether or not you have it on? People
are going to stare at you no matter what – because you’re famous,
because you’re a Backstreet Boy, not because you have one leg. And I know you’ve got to be used to that,
because that’s been happening for years.”
She thought
her point was perfectly logical, but he just shook his head. She sighed, her patience wearing thin. She did not have it in her to keep battling
with him over this, not tonight. “Fine,”
she said, standing up. “Stay here
then. I’ll see you later.”
“Where you
going?” he called as she briskly left the room.
She did not answer. She didn’t
know where she was going either. All she
knew was that she had to get out of the house, or she was going to go crazy.
She was
beginning to worry that he already was.
***
He heard
the front door slam and her car start.
Moments later, she pulled out of the drive, her taillights casting a red
glow through the window of his darkened room.
As soon as the lights faded, he leaned forward and put his face in his
hands. “Good going, Carter,” he muttered
to himself, raking his fingers through his hair as if they were claws.
He hadn’t
seen Claire all day, and not five minutes after she’d come home from work, he’d
argued with her. He hadn’t seen her
since she’d stalked out of his room hours ago, and now she was gone. Who knew when she’d be back. So much for doing anything together that
night. He knew he’d blown it; it was his
fault she had left.
Nick
sighed. The last few weeks had been some
of the dullest of his life, nothing like he had expected when Claire had finally
agreed to move in with him. It would be
fun, he had thought, living with her, being able to spend as much time as he
wanted with her. But, of course, that
was not the way it was. She worked most
weekdays, and he was left at home, alone and bored, with nowhere to go. And when she came home, they didn’t hang out
nearly as much as he wanted them to.
“I’m tired,
Nick; I just want to stay inside and relax,” she’d say, when he asked if she
wanted to get in the pool with him. “I
can’t, Nick; I need to make us something for dinner,” she’d sigh, when he
suggested they watch a movie. “Nick… I
have errands to run,” she’d explain, when he just wanted to talk to her. “Come with me?”
“No.” It was always a ‘no,’ and by now, she’d
stopped asking. She came and went,
taking care of things he knew he should be handling himself. Or at least helping her with. She rarely complained, but he was afraid she
was unhappy. And it was all because of
him.
He knew
that. He knew he was being selfish – and
‘ridiculous,’ according to her.
But she
didn’t understand. She didn’t know it
was like to feel like a freak, to look like a freak, and to be stuck at home
for fear of being treated like a freak.
And that’s what would happen, he felt sure, if he went out to normal
places like this, his stump bared for the world to see. People would stare at him, their eyes filled
with sympathy, or worse, disgust. He
couldn’t stand the idea of it.
Claire’s
words returned to him: “I know you’ve
got to be used to that, because that’s been happening for years.”
It’s not the same, he thought. Sure, he’d attracted attention in public for
years, but until recently, for a good reason.
People watched him because he was famous, because he was talented, because
they thought he was good-looking. Now
they would only watch him because he was different, because he was diseased,
because he was disabled. Admiration
would turn to pity, devotion to repulsion.
As long as
he could hide it, he was okay. There
were people who would recognize him and remember what had happened to him, but
as long as he looked “normal,” it didn’t matter as much. But that was impossible now; he couldn’t hide
it until he could wear his leg, and that couldn’t happen until the ulcer finished
healing.
As soon as it does, I’ll take her out…
I’ll make it up to her, Nick vowed. I’ll make up for
everything…
***
“… I just
had to get out; I couldn’t stand the thought of yet another night stuck at
home, watching him mope around.” Lifting
her head out of her hands, she peered at Amber and asked meekly, “Does that
make me a bad person?”
“Aw,
honey…” Amber offered her a sympathetic
smile. “Of course not. Everyone feels that way from time to time. It’s just part of living with someone. You love ‘em to death, and yet, sometimes,
they drive you crazy. You think I never
get sick of your brother from time to time?”
Claire
smiled across the table at her sister-in-law, glad she had decided to come
over. After her argument with Nick,
she’d gone straight to the phone and called Dianna, hoping for a nice “girls
night” out on the town. But Dianna had a
date that night. So did Laureen, who was
going out with Tim again. Envious of
them both, Claire had finally ended up calling her brother and inviting herself
over to his place, desperate to get out of Nick’s house. Now she sat sipping a tall glass of iced tea
in the cozy kitchen of Kyle and Amber’s home, a small two-bedroom ranch that
was perfect for a young, married couple.
“What, sick
of me? Never,” Kyle denied impishly,
sticking his head into the kitchen. “Is
this strictly a man-hating conversation, or can I sit down?”
“Sit,”
Claire said. “We’re not man-hating;
we’re just discussing my man.”
“Yeah, so
what’s going on with your man anyway?
Troubles in paradise?” She’d been
pretty vague on the phone with him… all she remembered saying was something to
the effect of, ‘I need to get out; can I come over?’ Good big brother that he was, he’d simply
replied, ‘Sure. See you in awhile.’ No questions asked… until now.
“Kind of,”
she answered, a sick feeling entering her stomach as soon as the words left her
mouth. “The last few weeks haven’t been
at all like what I expected…” And she
launched into what she’d just gotten done telling Amber, how Nick was driving
her crazy, the way he lay around the house all day like a hermit, refusing to
go out or do anything. “… And he’s so needy
lately. The first couple of weeks, he
would pounce on me as soon as I got home from work and want to hang out with
me. Which is great, but… I dunno,
sometimes I need my ‘me’ time, you know?
Or I have places to go and things to do, and he just wants me to stay at
home with him. I know he’s just bored,
but… it’s like he doesn’t understand that I have a life outside of him, that I
have other priorities too. Someone has
to run the house, because he sure hasn’t done much of that lately. Frankly, I don’t know how he’d survive if I
wasn’t around. I’m the one who’s been
getting the mail, buying the groceries, making dinner, cleaning-“
“Wait,
you’ve actually made him dinner?” Kyle interrupted her, raising his
eyebrows. “Well Jesus, no wonder he’s
been so down lately. I would be too, if
I was stuck with you as a cook. Are you
sure he’s not just sick from whatever you’ve been feeding him?”
“Oh, shut
up,” Claire rolled her eyes. “I’m not that
bad. And somebody’s gotta do
it. If it were up to him, we’d just
order take-out every night.”
“And what’s
wrong with that? He can afford it.”
She made a face. “Take-out every
night? Blech. And anyway, you’re missing the point.”
“No, I get
the point,” said Kyle. “And I understand
why you’re mad. But look at it from his
end – he hasn’t had an easy time of it either.
Do you think he wants to be stuck at home all day, not doing
anything?”
Claire
looked up at her brother in surprise; he sounded just like Nick. “He’s not stuck,” she said
carefully. “He’s choosing to stay at
home. He’s not an invalid; he could go
out and do things if he wanted to.”
“It’s no
picnic trying to get around on crutches,” Kyle pointed out. “And maybe he doesn’t want to go out in
public and have people stare at him.”
She cocked
her head to the side; how was he doing this? It was like he was reading Nick’s
thoughts. “Well, of course not, nobody would
want that. But… but…” She sighed and shrugged helplessly before
finally continuing, “he needs to get used to it. Well, not used to it, but… he needs to
not let it bother him so much. He can’t
waste a month of his life hiding in his house every time something happens, and
he can’t wear his artificial leg.
Because something like this is bound to happen again, at one point or
another.”
“You have a
good point, and if you tell him this later, he’ll probably see that too. But it’s not that easy to just ‘get used to
it.’ I can’t even imagine what it would
be like to go through what he has.”
“I know…
none of us can.” Claire shook her
head. “But he’s come such a long way in
the past year, and just when I thought he’d gotten his confidence back, wham,
this happened. Now he’s acting worse
than he was a year ago, right after it happened.”
Kyle
nodded. “You may not think it, but in a
way, this is probably harder to handle now than it was a year ago…”
“What are
you talking about?” Claire asked incredulously. This was nothing compared to what he’d
been going through a little over a year ago.
“I mean the
whole not-being-able-to-walk thing. He
had to have spent months learning to walk again last year, and then, when he
was back on his feet and thinking that was all behind him, this happened, and
for the time being, that ability has been taken away. He’s back to where he was last year. And trust me, that’s depressing.”
He was
speaking from experience, she realized.
During his sophomore year of high school, Kyle had torn his ACL at
football practice. It took arthroscopic
knee surgery, days on crutches, weeks of physical therapy, and months of
rehabilitation before he had fully recovered from the injury. He’d gone back to playing football for the
last two years of high school and made the college team his freshman year, only
to suffer the very same injury in the second game of the season. That had marked the end of his football
career.
“I
understand,” she said. “It’s like you
with your knee…” Or me with my
leukemia, she realized. In a way, it
had been harder to hear that she had relapsed, than to get the diagnosis
in the first place. She had already been
through so much… sitting in the doctor’s office, hearing that it had all been
for nothing and that she would have to go through more treatments, had nearly
broken her. Was that what it was like
for Nick, not being able to use his leg after he’d worked so hard to get used
to it?
Kyle
nodded. “Give him a break, okay. He may be being difficult now, but he’s
probably just frustrated. And you trying
to get him to snap out of it and have a better attitude probably isn’t going to
help things much. Just give him time and
wait it out… I’m sure things will change once this is all behind him and he’s
back on his feet.
“You’re
right,” said Claire. “I’m sure
everything will get better soon.” It
has to, she added internally. It
just has to.
***
Claire left
Kyle and Amber’s house late that night feeling much better than she had when
she’d arrived. Their talk had helped her
more than she’d expected it too, reassuring her that her feelings were normal,
that Nick’s actions were understandable, and that everything would work out
before too long.
Nick’s
house was dark when she got back, and she crept in quietly, locking the door
behind her and checking to make sure the security system was turned on before
she started through the house, flipping on lights on her way. After circling through the empty living room
and kitchen, she headed for the front bedroom.
The door was closed, and she knocked softly before pushing it open a
crack. All the lights were turned off,
as well as the TV, but as she opened the door wider, allowing light from the
hall to spill in, she could just make out a large lump beneath the
bedcovers. She tip-toed into the room,
silently approaching the bed. There he
was, curled on his left side, sound asleep.
He looked
so peaceful when he was sleeping, she thought as she studied his features, just
barely visible in the dim light. She was
glad, for he had been anything but at peace when he was awake. She bent down, casting shadows over his face,
and placed a feather-light kiss on his smooth forehead. “I love you,” she whispered, gently smoothing
back his hair.
She left
the room briefly to shut off the lights she had turned on all around the house
and then returned. Ducking into the
bathroom, she washed her face and brushed her teeth. She undressed quickly in the darkness of the
bedroom and pulled on one of his old t-shirts before climbing carefully into
bed beside him. He did not move, and the
steady up and down movement of his back and shoulder as he breathed told her he
was still immersed in sleep. She
snuggled closer to him, spooning him from behind and draping her arm lightly
around his torso.
Just give him time and wait it out, Kyle had told her.
I will, she thought with resolve. I’ll wait for you, Nick… and you’ll get
through this. Things will be better
soon.
With that
thought repeating in her head, she closed her eyes and let the comforting sound
of his slow, deep breathing lull her to sleep.
I will be the answer at the end of the line
I will be there for you while you take the time
In the burning of uncertainty, I will be your solid ground
I will hold the balance if you can’t look down
If it takes my whole life, I won’t break, I won’t bend
It’ll be worth it, worth it in the end
Cause I can only tell you what I know
That I need you in my life
When the stars have all gone out
You’ll still be burning bright
Cast me gently into morning
For the night has been unkind
- “Answer” by Sarah McLachlan
***
AN: Thanks to Susan for the song! :)