Chapter 138
After the VMA’s, there was publicity
pandemonium surrounding the Backstreet Boys, starting on the red carpet
immediately after the awards and continuing on into October. Suddenly, everyone wanted to interview Nick Carter
again, and all kinds of talk shows, news programs, and magazines kept
calling. After going over their options
with their management, the group scheduled an appearance on “Oprah” and an
interview with Barbara Walters for “20/20,” as well as an interview for People magazine. Nick did not exactly enjoy all the publicity,
but he had to admit, it was better than being out of the spotlight
altogether. People were taking an
interest in his plight rather than shunning him for no longer being “perfect,”
and he was grateful.
In the middle of September, at the
height of all this publicity, he got a call from Aaron. It was a nice surprise, for he had not even
spoken with his younger brother since March, when Aaron and their father had
come to stay for a weekend. After Jane
had come and gone at the very end of March, Nick had been completely isolated
from his true family. He’d done all
right without them – AJ, Howie, Brian, Kevin, and Claire had more then
compensated – but as soon as he heard Aaron’s familiar voice, it hit him how
much he had missed the kid. It was hard
for one to call him and Aaron close, for besides being almost eight years apart
in age, the two brothers had always spent a great deal of time apart, ever
since the Backstreet Boys had started to gain popularity overseas, and Nick’s
life had turned into a seemingly endless spiral of touring and work. When Aaron’s own music career had gotten off
the ground, and he, too, had hit the road, it had become even more difficult to
arrange visits. And yet, despite this,
Nick and Aaron had always had a special bond.
Maybe it was due to the fact that they were the only boys in the family,
or maybe it was because of everything they had in common, namely a passion and
talent for music.
Whatever the case was, the two of them
had always seemed to understand each other.
And even though so many things had changed over the past few months,
that was one thing that hadn’t. Nick
knew it as soon as he hung up after a half-hour-long conversation with his
brother. Aaron had not been himself on
the phone. The normally outgoing and
talkative teenager was unnaturally quiet and withdrawn, and when he had spoken,
even though he hadn’t really come out and said it, he had sounded thoroughly
apologetic. Guilt-ridden, actually.
And Nick understood.
Aaron had not been in touch with him
since March, had not called or even emailed him once in the past six
months. Some would call him selfish,
uncaring. But Nick knew that was not the
case. Putting himself in his brother’s
shoes, he tried to understand what Aaron must have been going through these
past few months. The kid had always
idolized Nick, sort of like how Nick had always looked up to Kevin, who, when
he joined the Backstreet Boys at the age of twenty-one, had seemed so suave and
knowledgeable and all-around grown-up to the then thirteen-year-old Nick. Nick tried to imagine what it would be like
to have to watch Kevin go through what he had gone through. Although he hated what had happened to him,
he would never wish it upon anyone else, especially Kevin. Watching his oldest brother break under the
burden of cancer would be worse than suffering through it himself. If it had been Kevin, or any of the guys,
instead of him, what would he have done?
What would he have said?
He thought back to the old days, before
his diagnosis. Sickness, disease,
deformity… it had always scared him, in a way, made him uncomfortable. All the times he and the Boys had visited
children in hospitals or met terminally ill kids through the Make-a-Wish
Foundation, a part of him had been terrified.
It had always made him happy to see smiles brighten the faces of the
children, but at the same time, his heart had ached for them, and deep inside,
he’d been afraid. Not afraid of them, but afraid of what they had to
go through and of what could happen to them.
His thoughts turned to another memory,
one that had occurred shortly before he had received his own diagnosis. Two days before, in fact. He’d been in the hospital, undergoing tests
which would lead to the finding of Ewing’s sarcoma, and he had run into a girl
in the elevator…
An orderly
was waiting in the hall to take Nick back to his room. He pushed Nick in his wheelchair down to an
elevator bank at the end of the hallway.
When the doors to one of the elevators slid open, Nick was relieved to
see that the elevator was virtually empty; the only occupant was a young woman
dressed in a light yellow robe and leopard-print slippers. She had an IV pole standing beside her and a
hot pink scarf wrapped around her head, contrasting sharply with her pale
skin. Nick knew automatically what was
wrong with her.
She had
cancer.
Nick had
visited sick children in hospitals many times with the Backstreet Boys and
alone (it had been part of his community service following his arrest the year
before), and he was well aware of how to recognize a cancer patient. And though he had met many of them, the sight
of those ghostly, gaunt faces and bald heads still made him uncomfortable. He loved meeting such people and making them
happy; he hated the disease they had. It
scared him, to be honest.
He gave the
woman a slight smile, which she returned unselfconsciously. He realized then that he probably didn’t look
much better off than she did, dressed in his hospital gown and sitting in a
wheelchair. It was almost as if he were
one of her… one of them…
Well, sorry, but that ain’t true,
Nick thought dismissively. I’m gonna be out of here in another day or
two, and everything’s gonna be just fine…
Of course, it hadn’t been fine, and in
just a matter of days, he had found himself face to face with that very same
young woman once again, this time in the chemotherapy room, as he received his
first treatment for his newly-diagnosed cancer.
How quickly his attitude had changed.
But even now, he remembered the way he’d once seen things, when he had
just been a normal, healthy guy (or so he thought). And he understood his younger brother’s
absence in his life these past six months.
It had to have been hard for Aaron to imagine the brother he’d
hero-worshipped for his whole childhood laid up in bed with only one leg. To think of the Backstreet Boy whose
footsteps he had followed in reduced to the life of a cripple, an amputee. And assuming he had picked up the phone or
opened a blank email, what would Aaron have said? What was a person supposed to say in that
kind of situation?
Going back to his previous comparison,
if it had been Kevin (or Howie or Brian or AJ), Nick didn’t know what he would
have said or done. For a brief moment,
it almost seemed as if he’d had the easy way out. He’d had to deal with physical pain and
hardship far beyond anything the others had gone through, and his emotional
pain had been intense as well. But he
realized now that on the inside, the people who loved him had to have been
suffering too. The guys had hidden it
well, refusing to let it get in the way of being there for Nick. But Aaron was not like them. At sixteen, he was still practically a child,
wise beyond his years in some ways, but still young and innocent in
others. He had not experienced the
hardships and tragedies that the others had gone through, and Nick knew that he
just didn’t know how to react. He could
only imagine the internal battles the teen had been fighting over the last few
months and understood the guilt he was feeling now.
But in a way, Nick felt guilty
too. He’d thought mostly of himself
these past six months. For a long time,
he had wallowed in self-pity. This was
the first time he’d really sat down and thought about what it had been like for
the people who cared about him. The
realization came to him that maybe he should have made the first move. He should have been the one to call Aaron
months ago and talk to his brother, offer him some reassurance. He recalled the first time Aaron had seen him
after finding out about his initial diagnosis.
It had been in the hospital the previous summer, when he’d nearly died
of pneumonia. He remembered how timid
and hesitant his brother had seemed.
That side of Aaron had to have been greatly magnified by the thought of
amputation. After all, serious as it
was, cancer was something that could go away, vanish and leave no traces. Amputation was not. He could be cured from cancer for fifty
years, and he would still never get his leg back. Unlike the disease that had caused it, the
amputation was permanent. He would never
be the same because of it, and that must have scared Aaron.
The revelation of all this, the
understanding of Aaron’s feelings, made Nick determined to get things back to
normal between him and his brother.
Aaron had made the first move by finally calling him. Now it was Nick’s turn, and he started by inviting
Aaron to Florida for a visit at the beginning of October. He felt certain that it would do the teen
good to encounter him face to face, to see with his own eyes that Nick,
although changed, was still the same guy he’d known and looked up to his entire
life.
He had expected some hesitation on
Aaron’s behalf, but his brother surprised him by agreeing immediately. Plans were made quickly, plane tickets were
purchased, and not long after getting off the phone with Aaron, Nick was
opening up his planner to the Saturday that Aaron was due to fly in to
Tampa. He was dismayed to find that he
already had something written down under that day – Dr. appt. 10:00,
he’d scribbled in red ink three months earlier.
He frowned; Aaron’s flight was due to arrive at 10:30. He’d never make it. Shrugging, he took a black pen and scribbled
out the appointment. Pick up AC –
10:30, he wrote in large letters and slammed the planner shut with a
smile. The doctor’s appointment could
wait, he decided. His brother was more
important.
***