Part 9:
I'm Gonna Miss Us
Nick and Brian boarded the plan, stuffing
their packs in the overhead bin before slipping into their plush seats in first
class.
“That was hard,” Nick said, pushing up the
window to glance outside at the Kentucky skyline.
“I know, buddy,” Brian replied. “Hey, make sure to fasten your belt.” It was force of habit to remind Nick to put
on his seat belt. Regardless of whether
they were in a car, boat, train, plane, even the wild rides at Disney World,
Nick never remembered to buckle his seat belt.
Reaching for his belt, Nick tugged it around
him, adjusting it to fit before sliding it together with a click. “Hey, I bet you’ll be glad when you don’t
have to tell me to do that anymore, huh?” Nick looked over at Brian with a smile.
“I never really minded. It always made me feel good to take care of
you…. It still does.”
Nick nodded, settling back in his seat as the
flight attendant came by to offer them something to drink. They both ordered Coca-Colas with lime, waiting
until the flight attendant walked away before continuing the conversation.
“You know, you did a pretty good job raising
me, Brian. You should be proud of
yourself.”
Brian hesitated, not really knowing what to
say as the reality of what was to come settled painfully in his chest.
“Hey, Bri?”
“Yeah, Nick.”
“You know what I’m going to miss the
most? I’m really gonna miss you and me
together. You’re the only person in my
whole life that I have ever been able to be myself around, and I wanted you to
know I’m gonna miss it… I’m gonna miss us.”
Pushing away at the tears that welled up in
his eyes, Brian laid a hand on Nick’s leg.
“I’m going to miss us too, Nick… I’m going to
miss us, too.”
***
Nick returned to his Florida home armed with prescriptions
for pain medications, among other things to keep him comfortable.
Due to the numerous doctor’s appointments and
his declining health, he had been forced to cancel the final six dates of his
solo tour, promising management that he would make up the dates when he could.
But that had been before he was told he was
going to die.
Sitting on the floor of his bedroom, phone
pulled into his lap, he went over what he was going to say to management to get
out of the six dates. He could just tell
them no way, he couldn’t finish the tour because he was suffering from
exhaustion or some other Mariah Carey-type excuse. But then the tabloids would
dog him, printing that he was on drugs or something. Or he would have to go and do a striptease on
TRL to prove his exhaustion case, and neither one of those things seemed like
good alternatives to him.
Standing up, he dropped the phone to the floor
and walked to the bathroom. Without
turning on the light, he stood in front of the mirror, shadows playing off of
his face as he ran a hand over his stubbly chin, studying his pale, drawn
reflection in the mirror. He found
himself staring into his own haunted blue eyes for what seemed like an eternity
as the realization set in… he would never perform again.
And it was like a knife in his gut, the
thought that the one thing he loved above all else in his world would be taken
from him along with his life.
So he made the decision to finish the tour.
***
Sold out crowds of loyal fans packed the
clubs, vying for the best positions at the front of the stage, all of them
screaming Nick’s name as they sung along with the words to every song.
He was as on his game as he had ever been, his
energy peaking night after night, until his final, incredible performance at The
Hard Rock Café in Las Vegas. The concert
went on for three hours, Nick performing all the cuts from his CD along with
some old Backstreet stuff. And before
long, he was singing songs shouted out to him by the crowd as he tried to
acknowledge each and every person who had come to show their support of him
with some sort of wink, nod or smile.
He wrapped up the whole set with “I Need You
Tonight,” holding the final note of the song out for as long as he could before
throwing his arms up in he air and, unbeknownst to the crowd, taking his final
bow.
And then he retreated to his loft in New York
to think about his future, or what future he had left.
***
Kevin, A.J., Brian and Howie showed up on his
doorstep on April Fool’s Day, all smiles, as they presented him with their idea
to record a new CD.
After Black and Blue and
The Hits compilation, they had all decided that it was time for The
Backstreet Boys to go on the back burner for awhile. Then, when Nick made the decision to pursue a
solo project, there had been a long meeting with everybody to discuss the fate
of The Backstreet Boys as a band. After
three hours and six extra large pizzas with everything on it, Kevin, Nick,
Brian, A.J. and Howie reluctantly agreed it was time to go their separate ways
as artists, but never as friends.
So now, to have them sitting in his living
room, asking him what he thought about them all recording a new CD, it all
seemed too much.
“Why are you doing this?” Nick asked, reaching
for a cigarette that Brian promptly smacked out his hand. A.J. scooped up the cigarette, lighting it
and placing it between his lips.
“We think it’s time that we got back in the
studio.”
“Bull,” Nick said, standing up and stepping
over Howie to get his other pack of cigarettes on the end table. “You’re doing this because you feel sorry for
me because I’m dying.”
“Nick, shut up,” Kevin said, walking to the
kitchen for a beer.
“I’m dying, Kevin!” Nick shouted after Kevin
as he disappeared into the kitchen.
“Recording a new CD isn’t going to change that.”
“No, you little shit,” Kevin barked, walking
back into the room with five bottles of Rolling Rock in his hands. “Recording a new CD isn’t going to change the
fact that you’re dying, but maybe it can slow it down.”
Plopping down beside Nick, he smacked the pack
of cigarettes out of his hand and placed a beer in front of him.
“God would never kill you in the recording
studio, Nick. That’s your place of
worship.”
***
They booked the studio from the second week in
April through the end of the July, renting a big house in upstate New York that
they could all stay in, commuting together to the studio during the day and
home together at night.
They tried not to talk too much about Nick’s
health, but everybody was keeping a close eye on him, noticing everything from
the size of his pupils to the hitch in his gait when he walked. As the months went on, they could see that
Nick was getting tired, and by mid-June, he was having trouble with dizziness
and was collapsing frequently.
He was checked into the hospital the following
week, where he stayed until his final consultation with his doctor the first
Thursday in July.
The doctor sat beside him, talking to him like
a son instead of a patient. “I think
that you should know that it is time for you to get the things in order that
you want to get in order, Nick. You are in the final stages…. you don’t have
much longer to live.”
That same day, Nick called his mom and dad to
come and see him. They had been unaware
that he was sick or even that he was in the hospital when he called. His mother said she would come and bring the
family, but his father was busy and would be unable to make the trip.
He planned out in his head what he wanted to
say to his family and how he wanted them to react, but nothing had gone
according to plans. When he delivered
the news, his mother rolled her eyes at him, leaving the room before he could
even finish, while Aaron had broken down bawling like a baby, and his sisters
had gathered around Nick, holding him tightly, all of them crying his name.
For some strange reason, he thought his mother
would be the one to hold him and cry, but he guessed that was too much to ask
from a woman who had taken the ability to cry away from him years before.
The following day, against the advice of his
doctors, he discharged himself from the hospital, setting up a meeting with the
band to tell them about his decision to take off on a cross-country journey of
contemplation before he died.
They were all concerned about what would
happen to him along the way, but he assured them that what was meant to be was
meant to be, making them promise that if they didn’t see him again, they would
stick to their agreement about releasing the CD.
He’d returned to Florida the next day to shut
his house down before he left. His
mother met up with him at the house, their final confrontation nasty as well as
necessary to close the door on that chapter of his life.
Then he hopped in his convertible and was gone.
---
Now, sitting there beside Kara, none of it
seemed important, but rather a small footnote in a life well lived.
“I don’t know what to say,” she whispered.
He smiled. “That’s what everybody says.”
Kara took his hand into hers, holding it tightly,
both of them looking beyond the darkness of the sky to the place where Nick
would eventually belong.
“I have a brain tumor. There isn’t anything that anyone can do to
help me.” Nick rubbed his tired eyes.
“How long do you have left?”
“Days… hours… minutes. Not long.”
He tried to shrug it off like it didn’t matter. Like he had made peace with his lot in life,
which wasn’t true.
Pulling away from Kara, Nick reached for the
door handle of the car, popping it open and stretching out his impossibly long
legs with a sigh.
“Don’t go!” Kara shouted, her words echoing in
the wide-open sky.
Nick turned.
“I wasn’t leaving. I was just
gonna sit on the hood of the car?”
Kara laughed.
“No, I didn’t mean don’t go away from the car; I meant don’t go,
period. Stay here with me, with
us.” Stepping out of the car, she
followed him, reaching for his outstretched hand as he tugged her gently onto
the hood of the car beside him.
“You
can stay here with my grandparents; they
have a spare room, and my grandmother is an excellent cook. We could take care of you, buy you some more
time. The doctors aren’t always right,
Nick.”
The desperation in her voice made Nick’s heart
hurt. He had heard the desperation
before… in Brian’s voice, Kevin’s voice, Howie’s voice, and A.J.’s voice. It was the desperation people felt when they
knew there was nothing they could do.
“I can’t stay.” He ran a hand down her arm, smiling at the
delicate features of her face peeking up at him from the confines of the red
hooded sweatshirt. Reaching out, he
loosened the ties, pulling the hood from around her face and pushing it off of
her head.
“I don’t want you to die, Nick,” she said,
closing her eyes as he pulled her into a warm embrace. “Please don’t go.”
***
