Chapter 122
Nick awoke to a
screaming AC/DC song blaring in his ears.
With a moan, he reached out and slapped blindly at his clock radio,
finally managing to shut off his alarm.
Savoring the sudden silence, he blinked sleepily and, disoriented, tried
to remember what day it was. Yesterday
had been a chemo day, he knew that much.
Those fun hours of feeling like he was constantly seasick were never
hard to forget. So that would make
today... Wednesday? Yes,
Wednesday. It was a physical therapy day
then. Which was why his alarm had gone
off and woken him up.
Satisfied with this
knowledge, Nick decided he should probably get out of bed. He forced himself to sit up and was
immediately met by a flood of dizziness.
Putting his hands behind him to support himself, he closed his eyes and
waited for it to pass. He was growing
used to the dizzy spells, for they had been happening on and off for over a
week now. Most likely just another
pleasant side effect of the chemotherapy.
He wasn’t too concerned.
Opening his eyes to
find that the room had stopped spinning, Nick gradually scooted to the edge of
the bed and swung his leg over the side.
He sat there for a moment, working up to the point of actually standing
up. He stifled a tired yawn and absently
raked his hand through his flattened hair.
Something didn’t feel quite right, and when he held up his hand, he saw
why. Woven between his fingers were
numerous strands of his dark blonde hair.
His heart sinking, his hand drifted back to his head, and he
halfheartedly pulled on a thin lock of hair.
Resisting only a little, it slid out in his hand.
“Shit,” he
whispered, staring at the hair in his hand.
Curling his lip in repulsion, he gave the hand a shake and watched the
thin strands of hair float to the floor.
Then he flopped roughly backward so that he was lying flat on his back
once more, staring at the ceiling. His
eyes began to burn as unexpected tears welled up, and he blinked
furiously. Why was he getting so
upset? He had known this would probably
happen, just as it had before. Nothing
new there. Still, it bothered him, and
when he finally sat back up and caught sight of his pillow, which was strewn
with stray hairs that had come out during his restless sleep, he could not stop
the tears from falling.
“You loser,” he
muttered in a choked voice, disgusted with himself, vaguely remembering how he
had broken down and cried the first time this had happened as well. Déjà vu.
He thought of the movie Groundhog Day, where the same day kept
happening over and over again. Was this
what his life had become, an endless cycle of misery that just kept repeating
itself? What, was he going to go to the
doctor next week to find that the cancer had somehow spread to his other leg?
Groaning, Nick
forced himself to stand up, hastily grabbing his crutches from where they were
propped up beside his bed. Tucking them
under his arms, he limped into the bathroom, letting the door swing closed
behind him. Setting the crutches aside
and leaning heavily on the counter, he turned on the faucet and splashed cold
water on his face. As the water dripped
down his cheeks, he met his own eyes in the mirror and critically studied his
reflection. His skin was ghostly pale,
and his haggard appearance, only accented by the dark bags that hung under his
red-rimmed eyes, made him look like a drug addict. Well, no matter; once his hair fell out, he’d
look like what he really was – a cancer patient.
Backing up on his
crutches, he turned to catch a glimpse of himself in the full-length mirror on
the back of the bathroom door. Turning
to face the mirror, he stared at himself with increasing aversion, detesting
himself and the way he looked. The man
in the mirror was anything but the teen idol and heartthrob he had once been,
the Nick Carter whose smiling face had graced the covers of all the hottest
teen magazines just a few years earlier, at the height of success. No, the man in the mirror was someone
entirely different, a mere shadow of the old Nick Carter, the charred ruins of
his former self.
His eyes traveled
slowly, loathingly, down his mirror image.
He looked like hell, but of course it wasn't his wan and disheveled
appearance that bothered him. What
caught his eye, as it always did, was the pinned-up left leg of his baggy
pajama bottoms, which hid his stump, but did not hide the fact that he was missing
most of his leg. That he was disfigured,
damaged, flawed. No longer Mr. Perfect
Backstreet Boy, no angel, not even an ordinary man.
He was a freak.
Feeling his blood pressure rise as he gazed upon his own
reflection in hatred, he let out an animalistic cry and heaved one of his
crutches at the mirror. Seemingly in
slow motion, he watched the metal crutch strike the glass, which shattered on
impact, sending a waterfall of shards flying.
Instinctively, his right hand flew to cover his face, while he clutched
to his remaining crutch with the left, struggling to keep from falling
over. In a matter of seconds though, he
inevitably found himself in a twisted heap on the floor, his crutches scattered
amid a carpet of broken glass. Looking
first at the glittering floor and then up to the empty frame of the fractured
mirror, to which only a few large pieces of glass clung, he surveyed the damage
he had done with the air of an innocent onlooker. Then, letting his eyes fall again, he stared
at the floor once more, sitting numb and unmoving, with the exception of his
heaving chest. He did not even realize
he was bleeding until he noticed the floor turning red with the warm, sticky
blood that flowed freely from a deep cut on the inside of his right wrist. Holding his arm up, he gazed blankly at the
wound for a moment, then let it limply fall.
It was bleeding all over his leg now, staining his pants, but he hardly
noticed and certainly did not care.
Others cared though, and they came running with the sound of the
crash. “Nicky?!” Howie called, flinging
the door open and sending another piece of the fragile mirror to splinter
against the ceramic floor. “Oh my gosh! Nick!
What happened?!”
Nick looked up guiltily at Howie’s wide-eyed face. “I broke the mirror,” he mumbled.
“What? What happened?” AJ’s face appeared over Howie’s shoulder as
he tried to see into the bathroom.
“He broke the- Nick, you’re bleeding!” Dashing into the room, the glass crunching
beneath his shoes, Howie squatted beside Nick.
“Let me see,” he said, gingerly picking up Nick’s wrist and inspecting
the cut. He drew in a breath and said
shakily, “AJ, get a towel.” AJ nodded
and started to step into the room when Howie gasped and cried, “No, not without
shoes! Forget it, I’ll get one.” While AJ ran off to get some shoes, Howie
jumped up and dug a hand towel out of one of the cabinets. He wrapped it tightly around Nick’s wrist and
pressed it down hard. “What happened,
Nicky?” he asked again, quietly this time.
“I told you. I broke the
mirror,” Nick said lamely. “My bad.”
“No, Nick… what happened? Why did you break the mirror?”
Nick shrugged. “I dunno,”
he muttered. The last thing he was about
to do was tell Howie that he hated himself and have to endure some motivational
speech on self-esteem.
Howie sighed and looked away, shaking his head in
exasperation. Luckily AJ came back just
in time to break up the awkward silence.
“Damn, Kaos,” he muttered, crunching his way into the bathroom and
closing the door to inspect the broken mirror.
“What did the mirror ever do to you?”
It wasn’t the mirror; it was what was in the mirror, Nick
thought, but decided against voicing that.
It was the kind of response that would elicit that whole self-esteem
spiel. So he just kept quiet until he
heard AJ gasp.
“Shit, you’re bleeding a lot!”
Startled, Nick looked down to see that the blood was seeping
through the folded over hand towel, staining the pale green terrycloth dark
reddish brown.
“It’s not stopping,” said Howie.
Glancing up at AJ for counsel, he added, “It looked like a pretty deep
cut. Do you think he needs stitches?”
Staring at the blood-soaked towel, AJ backed away, looking
slightly woozy. “Damn, man, how would I
know? Shit that’s a lot of blood.”
“You’re such a pussy, J,” Nick muttered with a smirk. Then again, he was feeling a little
woozy too, now that he thought about it.
His eyes traveled down to his towel-encased wrist. Shit, that was a lot of blood.
Howie carefully peeled the sodden towel away. “Yeah, AJ, it’s definitely not stopping. Grab me another towel, would you?”
“I think maybe stitches would be good,” AJ said shakily, grabbing
another towel from the cabinet, which Howie then swapped with the bloody one.
“No stitches,” Nick said quickly.
“It looked deep, Nick. And
it’s bleeding pretty bad. I think we
should take you to the emergency room,” said Howie, putting even more pressure
on his wrist.
“No. It’ll be fine,”
countered Nick stubbornly.
Howie shook his head. “This
could be serious, Nick. Come on, we’re
going to the hospital. AJ, go find the
wheelchair, there’s no way he’s getting out of here on crutches.”
“No!” cried Nick. “Get my
pros-“
“Forget it, Nicky,” Howie interrupted. “Here, keep pressure on this. I’ll go get you a shirt and some shoes.”
“Shoe,” Nick corrected bitterly, wincing as he pushed against his
wrist.
But, disappearing into the bedroom, Howie pretended not to hear
him.
***