Chapter 94
“Meth-o-trex-ate,” Nick mumbled to himself, sounding out
the lengthy drug name as he typed it into the search box. After studying it for a moment, trying to
figure out if he had spelled it correctly or not, he tapped the enter key and
waited. A moment later, the search page
refreshed with a whole listing of websites containing information about the
drug Methotrexate. Briefly skimming over
the descriptions, he clicked on a link and waited while the page loaded.
It was Thursday, January 24, and Nick was feeling
particularly conniving. It was almost
noon, time for his weekly dose of the six little yellow pills that he hated
with a passion, and he was debating over whether or not to take them. Up until that point, he had followed his
medication schedule quite faithfully, almost always taking his pills at the
right times and on the right days. The
problem was, recently, he had been developing canker sores again, the kind he
had gotten while on chemo. They always
seemed to crop up on Friday or Saturday, and he was almost positive it was the
dose of Methotrexate he took every Thursday that was causing them. Even after realizing this, he had kept taking
the drugs, knowing that Dr. Kingsbury had prescribed them for a reason.
But this week was different. His twenty-fourth birthday was on Monday, in
four days, and he had big plans for the night.
He and Leah would be going out to dinner, just the two of them, for what
she thought was simply a birthday celebration.
But it was going to be more than that.
Smiling, he thought of the treasure that lay hidden beneath
stacks of boxers in his top dresser drawer.
Positioned on a bed of black satin inside a small, black velvet case,
was a ring. Large, sparkling, and
beautiful, it had a three carat, radiant-cut diamond set in a band of yellow
gold and flanked by a one-half carat, emerald-cut diamond on either side. It was an engagement ring.
After weeks of thought and consideration, Nick had decided
to ask Leah to marry him. They have been
living together for over three months, and she was the mother of his unborn
child. It just seemed like the right
thing to do. And besides, he loved her…
didn’t he?
He planned to propose after she gave him his present,
whenever that would be. He even had
somewhat of a speech planned out.
“This is wonderful, babe,” he would say, after opening
whatever she had gotten for him. “But
there’s something else I was hoping for this year.”
“What’s that, Nick?” she would ask, looking perplexed and
disappointed, thinking she had bought him the wrong present.
“The best gift I could ever ask for,” he would continue,
looking right into her gorgeous brown eyes, “would be to have you as my
wife. Leah Gaylers, will you marry me?”
It all sounded so perfect in his head, though he had a
feeling he’d stammer like crazy and make a total fool of himself when it came
down to it. But hey, as long as she said
yes, it wouldn’t be a problem.
He smiled. She would
say yes. He didn’t doubt that for an
instant.
As his head descended from the clouds, Nick’s attention
returned to the laptop computer in front of him. The website had loaded, and he scrolled down
it, skimming through basic information about his medication.
“Aha,” he said aloud, as he reached the section about side
effects. “‘Sore mouth and taste change,’” he read. “‘Your
mouth may become sore, or you may notice small ulcers during this treatment.’ Yeah, tell me about it,” he chuckled
bitterly. So that was it… the
Methotrexate was causing canker sores, and if he took them that day, his mouth
would probably still be raw and sore by Monday night. And that took all the fun out of dinner, not
to mention any mouth-to-mouth action with Leah later that night.
“Eh, it won’t hurt to skip one week, will it?” he wondered
aloud and scrolled further down the page, looking to see what it said about
missing a dose. He found a section
called “Additional Information” and skimmed over it. His eyes were immediately drawn to the word
“fertility,” and he stopped to read. “Your
ability to become pregnant or father a child may be affected by taking this
drug.”
Wow, Nick thought, guess
I was lucky. Leah had conceived just
days before he had taken the first round of Methotrexate. But as he thought about this, he wondered if
other anticancer drugs had the same affect and decided to do another search.
“‘Not
all drugs affect your fertility,’” he read on another site. “‘But
others can reduce the number of sperm you produce and affect the sperm's
ability to fertilize a female egg during sex.
If this happens it may be temporary or it may mean that you will no
longer be able to father children. However, it is important to use
contraception throughout your treatment as pregnancy is not advisable -
the drugs could harm the baby.’”
His heart began to race. What if the baby was born with some kind of
defect that he had caused? Leah’s doctor
had said the baby was fine, but what if there was a problem they would not know
about until later? It would be all his
fault…
He felt sick to his stomach and knew he
had to talk to Leah about it.
Maybe I’ll call Dr. Kingsbury first and
ask her, he thought. Surely his doctor would know if any of the
chemotherapy drugs he had been on could have hurt the baby.
Leah was off shopping, so he decided to
call then, while she wasn’t in the house to overhear. He looked up the number for the hospital, and
after being shuffled from department to department and put on hold several
times, his doctor’s familiar voice greeted his ears.
“Dr. Kingsbury speaking.”
“Hi, Dr. K… this is Nick Carter,” Nick
spoke into the phone, his voice shaking slightly.
“Oh, Nick, hi! How are you?”
“Um, okay.
I… I just had a question.”
“Okay, go ahead.”
“Um… well…” Nick hesitated nervously, “my…
my girlfriend’s pregnant. S-she’s about
six months along now, and I was just wondering if… if the c-chemo or any of the
drugs I’ve been taking could have hurt the baby.”
There was a pause, and then the doctor
said, “Well… I’m actually quite surprised she was able to conceive. Six months… that would put the conception
date at sometime in August, right?”
“Uh, yeah,” Nick answered, feeling himself blush.
“So right after you finished chemo. Honestly, Nick, most chemotherapy drugs make
men temporarily infertile. So you
were one of the lucky few not to have that problem, I guess. Has your girlfriend been seeing an OB?”
“Yeah… she goes once a month,” replied
Nick.
“That’s good. Very good.
And there haven’t been any problems?”
“No.”
“Well… then I wouldn’t worry about
it. There is a risk, but if she’s
already six months along, and no problems have been spotted, there’s a good
chance the baby was unaffected. You
should probably have her mention this to her OB next time she goes; her doctor
might want to run some extra tests. But
for now, there’s really nothing you can do but wait and see. Don’t dwell on it too much.”
“Okay,” Nick said slowly, feeling slightly
relieved. “Well, thanks, Dr. Kingsbury.”
“You’re welcome, Nick. Good luck to you and your girlfriend.”
Fiancée, Nick thought in his head, as he thanked the doctor again
and told her goodbye. Or at least that’s
what he hoped Leah would be in four days.
(AN: Info taken from CancerBacup
and CancerHelp
UK)
***
Nick didn’t mention what he had found out about the side
effects of his chemotherapy to Leah, at least not at first. In the days that followed, there was only one
thought on his mind: Monday night and the proposal.
On the afternoon of his twenty-fourth
birthday, Leah sent him out with a grocery list to do some shopping, which was
probably just a way to get him out of the house so that she could wrap his
present or something. Though he hated
grocery shopping, he went without complaint, only to realize halfway to the
store that he had forgotten the list she had made him.
He turned back, prepared to stop by the
house just long enough to grab the list off the kitchen table and leave
again. When he reached home, he ducked
into the kitchen and got the small slip of paper, covered in Leah’s large,
bubbly handwriting. And as he was
walking back out again, he heard Leah’s high-pitched laugh ring out loudly from
the adjacent living room. Frowning in
puzzlement, he hesitated, then tip-toed across the kitchen and peered into the
living room.
Leah was perched on the couch, the phone
to her ear, giggling at whatever the person on the other line was saying. Her back was to him, and she apparently had
not heard him come in, for she made no move to turn around. Shrugging, he turned to walk out again, when
he heard his own name.
“-Nick’s birthday,” Leah was saying. “Yeah, we’re just going out to dinner.” She paused, and Nick paused as well, knowing
he should leave. And he started to, in
fact, but the next words that left Leah’s mouth and carried into the kitchen
stopped him in mid-step. “No,” she
laughed. “The poor boy still has no
idea. He’s convinced the baby’s his.”
Nick froze, his heart pounding loudly in
his chest, so loudly, in fact, that he was sure Leah would be able to hear it
in the next room. He’s convinced the
baby’s his. What was that supposed
to mean? That the baby wasn’t
his?
He couldn’t help but listen now, so he
crept back to the doorway and stood just beyond it, hidden from Leah’s view,
waiting for her to continue.
“Yeah,” she giggled. “He’s completely clueless. We never even had sex that night,
Lynn! He fucking passed out before I
could get anywhere with him! No, of
course he doesn’t remember that; he was drunk off his ass. So he woke up to find us both naked in bed,
and he assumed we had sex. And I kinda
went with it and made him think we did.”
She giggled again.
“Yeah, I know, I’m evil. But I was just messing with him for fun. I didn’t think there would be any benefits to
it. But then I found out I was
pregnant. And I got my brilliant idea…
go to Nick, tell him the baby’s his, and see if he’s decent enough to offer to
support me and ‘his’ baby. I mean,
David’s all right, and I know that if he knew I was pregnant with his kid, he
would have supported me. Hell, he
probably would have married me. But, I
dunno… David’s just not Nick. He’s got
money, all right, but not like Nick. And
Nick’s famous, girl. So of course
I’d take the Backstreet Boy over the computer geek; I mean, who wouldn’t? And lucky for me, Nick’s a decent guy. It was weird at first, but now I’ve got him
wrapped around my little finger. The boy’s
completely whipped. He’s gonna propose;
I just know he is.”
Feeling absolutely sick to his stomach,
Nick’s thoughts flashed to the ring in his dresser. The ring he had planned to give Leah that
very night, when he asked for her hand in marriage.
“And then,” Leah was saying, a malicious
tone in her voice, “when he kicks the bucket, I’ll get everything. I don’t know exactly what he’s worth, Lynn…
but it’s a lot, I’ll tell you that much.
I’ll never have to work another day in my life.” She paused.
“What do you mean, what if he doesn’t die? He has cancer, Lynn. People die from cancer. Okay, so he’s in remission or whatever
now. Big deal. That doesn’t mean he will be forever. My grandpa had cancer, too, and he was in
remission for awhile. Then it came
back. And he died. If the same thing happens to Nick, I’ll get
his entire fortune. He hates his fucking
family; they’re not gonna get shit. It
will all go to me, his loving, devoted wife.”
She cackled, her voice laden with sarcasm. “And hey, if I pretend to be the grieving
widow, maybe I’ll even get a few interviews and stuff. A little publicity would be nice, don’t you
think? Maybe it would get my foot in the
door for an acting career; whaddya think?”
Nick couldn’t stand to hear anymore. His knees buckled, and he sank to the kitchen
floor, his entire body trembling. So
this was the real Leah. This was the
girl he had intended to marry. She had
lied to him again and again, used him for his money and his fame, gotten him to
not only support her and a child that wasn’t even his, but to fall in love with
her. Again.
Against his will, miserable tears began to
slide down his cheeks. He was beyond
humiliated. How could he have been so stupid? How could he have been so blind? And how… how could anyone be so cruel? He had fallen for her… and he thought she had
fallen for him too. But it was just one
of her many lies. Their whole
relationship had been nothing but lies.
“Well, I better go. He’ll be home from the store soon, and I need
to go get his damn birthday present wrapped.
Yeah, I’ll talk to you later.
Bye, girl.”
Vaguely, Nick heard a click as Leah shut
off the phone and then approaching footsteps.
She was heading toward the kitchen, but he made no effort to move. Let her find him there; what did he care?
Her bare feet slapped against the tiled floor as she
entered the kitchen, and then he heard her gasp. He looked up to see her standing there, just
beyond the threshold, the phone still in her hand and a stricken expression on
her face, which had gone white with shock.
“N-Nick?” she whispered hoarsely, and he could see the hand that was
holding the phone begin to tremble.
He wanted to yell at her and scream at her. Hell, he wanted to hit her. But he found he did not have the strength. Instead, he stayed where he was, slumped
brokenly on the floor, staring pathetically up at her through red-rimmed eyes,
the tears spilling out of them and hitting the floor with soft splats.
“What are you doing home already, honey?” Leah asked, her
voice high with poorly-faked cheeriness.
“Don’t even give me that bullshit,” he growled, glaring up
at her, his voice low and choked with tears.
“I heard what you said. Every
goddamn word of it.”
She bit her lip, then smiled uncertainly. “Oh, Nicky,” she said, forcing a laugh. “I-I was just kidding. That was my friend, Lynn – you know Lynn –
and we were just joking around-“
“Bullshit!” his voice rose in anger, as he struggled to his
feet. Leah took a step back, cowering as
he towered over her petite frame.
“You’re gone, Leah. Get the fuck
out of my house. In fact, get the fuck
out of my life. Now.” He didn’t shout at her, his voice remaining
surprisingly calm. But its grim tone was
enough to make her take the hint. She
did not protest or make excuses or beg him to change his mind. Instead, she simply nodded, suddenly as meek
as mouse, tears welling up in her eyes and beginning to fall silently down her
stricken face.
“Pack your shit,” Nick commanded quietly. “I want you out of here by tonight. If you’re not, I’ll call the police to get
you the fuck off my property. Get it?”
She nodded again.
“I-I’ll just go pack now then,” she whispered, hanging her head, still
crying. He wondered if this was all just
another front, an act to get him to feel sorry for her. But it didn’t work. He held his ground, and she obeyed, quickly
and quietly packing up her possessions.
By six o’clock that evening, when she and Nick were
supposed to have been seated in one of Tampa’s finest restaurants, eating a
gourmet meal in celebration of Nick’s birthday, Leah Gaylers was gone, out of
his house and out of his life forever.
Sometimes I
Need to remember just to breathe
Sometimes I
Need you to stay away from me
Sometimes I’m
In disbelief I didn’t know
Somehow I
Need you to go
Don’t stay
Forget our memories
Forget our possibilities
What you were changing me into
[Just give me myself back and]
Don’t stay
Forget our memories
Forget our possibilities
Take all your faithlessness with you
[Just give me myself back and]
Don’t stay
Sometimes I
Feel like I trusted you too well
Sometimes I
Just feel like screaming at myself
Sometimes I’m
In disbelief I didn’t know
Somehow I
Need to be alone
Don’t stay
Forget our memories
Forget our possibilities
What you were changing me into
[Just give me myself back and]
Don’t stay
Forget our memories
Forget our possibilities
Take all your faithlessness with you
[Just give me myself back and]
Don’t stay
- “Don’t Stay” by Linkin Park
***