Cary
The
countdown was on. T-minus eight days
till transplant.
When that
thought crossed my mind, I had a sudden flash of Brian, in the middle of a
crowded coliseum, dirt-streaked and dressed in a gladiator’s armor, shouting, “The countdown is on!”
In spite of
the tension, I smiled.
Nick
noticed. “Whatcha grinnin’ ‘bout?” he
asked.
I turned to
look at him, still smiling. “Remember
those commercials you did, for Millennium? ‘The countdown is on?’”
He smiled,
too. “Oh yeah… we had a blast shootin’
those. I was, like, swinging on this
tire swing in front of green screen.”
“In the
jungle,” I remembered, picturing the younger, heavier version of him, with his
floppy, blonde hair and boundless energy.
He had aged well; the man sitting next to me was way more attractive
than I’d found him back then. When he
smiled, I didn’t notice the shadows around his eyes; his smile lit up his whole
face. Yet it was obvious, just by the
way he was curled up in the corner of the couch, that he didn’t have that same
energy.
“Yeah, and
Brian was a gladiator. AJ was a royal
guard. Howie was…” He stopped and scrunched up his nose, trying
to remember. I even had to stop and
think, but Nick came up with it before I did.
“Oh yeah, he was running with the bulls.
And Kev… what the hell did Kevin do in his?”
Now that one I knew right away. “He was in Egypt, driving through the desert
with a surfboard,” I replied quickly, remembering how hot he’d been, in his
sleeveless shirt and sunglasses. Those
Kentucky cousins have nice arms.
“‘Surf’s up…’”
“‘…and the
countdown is on,’” Nick added in unison, nodding. We grinned at each other. “What made you think of that?”
I didn’t
tell him what I’d really been thinking.
I wanted to take his mind off tomorrow, not make him dwell on it
more. “Oh, nothing… just watching the
VMAs always takes me back to 1999. You
know, back when MTV was still mostly about music?”
Nick
laughed. “Yeah… that was a good
year.” He was still smiling, but the
smile had changed. It was crooked and
wistful. He looked away, fixing his eyes
back on the TV screen, where Kim Kardashian was introducing the next
performer. As I watched his profile,
sadness swelled up inside me. I felt my
throat tighten, and for a few seconds, I couldn’t breathe.
I heard the
high-pitched screams for Justin Bieber, who had taken the stage with his troupe
of dancers, and I thought of Nick and the Boys doing “Larger Than Life,” back
in ’99, when they had been larger than life and on top of the world. I had watched those VMAs with Jessica, when
we were both still teenagers and Backstreet Boys fans, and in my wildest dreams,
I never could have imagined I’d be sitting next to Nick Carter to watch the
2010 awards. Just like Nick probably
never imagined he’d have to trade touring for cancer treatments.
The second
leg of the U.S. tour should have wrapped at the end of August, but instead, it
had never started. Fan speculation had
been running rampant since the abrupt announcement that the tour had been
postponed, without explanation. The
official reason wouldn’t be given until the next day, on the season premiere of
The Ellen DeGeneres Show. There was a lot of buzz surrounding Nick’s
interview; everyone knew it was going to be big news, but no one knew just how
bad. They didn’t know Nick would be
watching himself from his hospital bed.
He was
scheduled to start chemo again the following morning, an intense, high-dose
regimen that was meant to wipe out any last cancer cells lurking in his body –
and his immune system along with them.
It would be a rough week of treatment before the actual transplant, and
a long recovery afterward. Already, I
could see the process taking its toll on him.
The G-CSF shots he’d gotten before the stem cell harvest had made him
achy and sore; the bone pain was bad enough to keep him awake at night, and he
tossed and turned, unable to get comfortable.
It hadn’t helped that, for three days, he’d had the Vas-Cath in his neck
to contend with. That had been taken out
on Friday, after they’d collected enough stem cells to use for the transplant,
and he was left with a healing puncture wound in the side of his neck, like a
vampire bite. “Maybe you can get a neck
tattoo, like AJ,” I’d suggested, after he complained about having a scar
there. That was my role, at this point –
to say and do whatever I could to make him feel better.
On his last
night of freedom before he was locked up in the hospital, that meant cooking a
nice dinner, watching the VMAs, and trying to take Nick’s mind off the torture
that awaited him in the morning. I’d
grilled shish kebabs with thick pieces of steak, chicken, and fresh fruit and
vegetables, taking advantage of the opportunity to load him up with protein and
nutrients before he started the chemo.
Once his blood counts dropped again, he’d be back on a neutropenic diet
– no fresh fruit, no raw vegetables or sushi, nothing that hadn’t been
carefully cooked to get rid of bacteria.
He would be under constant threat of infection until his body built up
its defenses again. It scared me, to
think of him surviving cancer, only to succumb to an infection.
I could
tell Nick was scared, too. He’d been
quiet all night, and the silence persisted as we got ready for bed. “Are you going to set an alarm for tomorrow?”
I asked, poking my head out the bathroom doorway.
Nick was
already in bed, lying on one side to make room for me. “Yeah… guess I should,” he mumbled, reaching
over to fumble with the clock on his bedside table. “What time?”
“They said
we should be at the hospital by eight, so… six-thirty? That way we can both shower and eat breakfast
before we have to leave.”
“Okay,” was
all he said.
I ducked
back into the bathroom to finish brushing my teeth. By the time I came out, he had already shut
off the lights in the bedroom. Only the
flickering glow of the TV mounted on the wall lit my path to his bed. He didn’t reach for me when I slid under the
covers next to him. I didn’t expect us
to make love that night, but I thought he’d at least want to cuddle
awhile. He stayed on his side, though,
and I stayed on mine, lying still on my side while he flopped around, shaking
the mattress in his struggle to find a comfortable position. Finally, I said, “Would it help if I went
back to the guest room, so you can spread out?”
“What?” His voice drifted through the darkness. “No, no, you don’t have to do that.”
“I don’t
mind.” I sat up, squinting over at
him. “I want you to be able to sleep.”
“That won’t
help.”
“Did you
take a painkiller?” His doctor had
recommended Tylenol or Advil for what he described as “mild” bone pain. I thought he should have prescribed Vicodin
or something equally strong.
“That doesn’t
help either.”
Nick was as
stubborn as ever, shooting down all my suggestions, trying to tough it out
himself. I tried to be patient,
wondering what else might work. “Would
it help if I gave you a massage?” I offered.
I remembered how I used to stand behind my mom and rub her back and
shoulders when she was hurting; she always made a big deal out of how good it
felt. I’m sure she was just trying to
make me feel better, as much as I was trying to do the same for her, but it did
seem to help her relax. Who doesn’t like
having their back rubbed?
“I dunno,”
Nick said doubtfully. “You can try, if
you want. You don’t have to.”
“I want
to.” I reached over and turned on the
light by my side of the bed. “Flip
over,” I told Nick, patting the mattress. He pushed back the covers and rolled over onto
his stomach. He had complained about the
pain in his hips and lower back the most, so I started there. “Tell me if it’s too tender,” I warned him,
as I gently touched the small of his back.
“I don’t want to make it worse.”
“You
won’t.”
“Okay.” Leaning over him, I started to massage. At first, my hands were light and careful; I
rubbed his back in slow, soft circles with my fingers, grazing the length of
his spine with my fingernails, tracing each of his tattoos. When this didn’t seem to bother him, I dug
deeper. I could feel the tightness of
the muscles in his back, muscles he’d been clenching in pain, and I used the
heels of my hands to work out the tension in them. “Is this helping?” I asked hopefully.
He groaned
into his pillow in response, and I immediately pulled back, mistaking it for a
moan of pain, instead of pleasure. But
he begged, “Don’t stop. Keep going; it
feels awesome. Your hands are warm.”
Heating pad, I thought, wondering if he had one,
for when I was done. I went back to
massaging, smiling with relief. It felt
good to be able to do something for him, and I certainly didn’t mind running my
hands all over his body. I finished with
his back and moved lower, my fingers slipping under the waistband of his boxers
as I worked his hips. I could feel the
tension easing from his body, as it grew less rigid and relaxed into the
mattress. His legs felt heavy, like dead
weight in my hands, as I massaged the backs of his thighs and calves. I heard his breathing slow down and even out,
and for a minute, I thought he’d fallen asleep.
I slipped out of bed and tiptoed around to his bedside table to get the
remote and shut off the TV, but when I crawled back into bed next to him, I saw
that his eyes were still open. “Try to
sleep,” I whispered, shutting off the light again.
“I can’t,”
he muttered back. “I can’t shut off my
brain.”
It wasn’t
just the pain making him restless, but his own worrisome thoughts. I understood completely. “I know,” I admitted. “I’m the same way when something’s bothering
me.” I wasn’t ready to confess that I
was worried for him, too, but for once, it seemed like Nick was.
“I’m
dreading tomorrow. It’s gonna suck,
isn’t it?”
As much as I
wanted to make him feel better, I couldn’t give him false hope. “Probably.”
I heard him sigh. “But it’ll be
worth it, if it cures your cancer, won’t it?”
“If.”
He practically spat out the word.
“You’ll get
through it,” I tried to encourage him.
“It won’t be a piece of cake, but it can’t be much worse than doing
concerts while you’re on chemo, and you did that. You made it through the tour, and you’ll make
it through this.”
“I’d rather
still be touring,” he said stonily.
“I know
you’re scared,” I added, and he didn’t argue with that. “It’s okay… It’ll be okay…” I slid closer to him, until I could feel his
warm breath on my face, and wrapped my arm around him. I was lying on my other arm, with my hand up
by my face, and after a few seconds, I felt his hand snake up to grasp it, his
fingers entwining with mine. The
closeness seemed to bring us both comfort, because that was how I fell asleep –
my body curled up against his, our hands clasped together – and when I woke
hours later, Nick, too, was sleeping soundly.
I closed my
eyes again, blocking out the first hint of daylight outside his bedroom
windows. I didn’t want morning to come.
***